ULTIMATE GOAL Coach Email Volume 8 12/01/20 Lots of exciting things this month!

Happy Holidays!

If you are new to this email this is the place where you will find all of the Washington specific FIRST Tech Challenge information. Coaches in the FIRST system for the ULTIMATE GOAL season will be added weekly. Every email from me will be numbered and that number lets you know which update it is, if you miss an update you can find it on our website.

Here is what I have for you today:

FTC Virtual Pits Saturday, Dec 5 at 11:00 am
Coaches Chat Tuesday, Dec 8 at 7:00 pm
Women in STEM workshop hosted by 3805 & 14563

FTC Virtual PIts, Saturday December 5 11:00 am – 12:30 pm

Team Guide to Virtual Pits

We are excited to introduce Virtual Pits to all of our teams! This guide is going to tell you a little bit about how to host a virtual pit for your team.

Virtual Pits will allow you to show off what you have been working on, visit other teams to see what they are working on, and otherwise make some connections to our FIRST community. Come participate, give advice, get advice, and be part of our community.

Attending the virtual pit does not require you to host a virtual pit space. Some just come visit the pits of other teams. While we invite you to setup your own pit, it is not required. Some teams just opt to attend.

The Basics

We host Virtual Pits on Zoom. We are going to use the breakout room function of Zoom to allow your team to host a pit. Participants will be able to ‘wander’ around the pits visiting any team or stopping in on any presentations that might be happening.

Hosting a pit requires a few easy steps:

1) Request a pit space in advance using our online form. We have to setup the breakout rooms prior to starting the sessions, so this is an important step!

2) Having someone be the host in your pit space. This is as easy as having someone from your team hang out in the breakout room.

3) Having some collateral materials to work with. A PowerPoint slide of your team info works fine.

The Right Software

The ability to select your own breakout room is a new feature to Zoom. You need to insure that your version of zoom is current for this to work well. We highly recommend you download the latest version at

www.zoom.us/download

Older versions can still join the meeting, but you will have to ask the meeting host to be moved between rooms. Not the best experience!

Hosting your pit

Someone on your team will end up sharing their screen to ‘put up’ your virtual pit. Anything you put on your screen will show up to everyone else. This has a rich variety of possibilities.

The simple version is to have a single Powerpoint slide with your team info. Some teams have opted for several slides that can highlight what your team has done well. You can show pictures of your robot, outreach events, or anything else your team is proud of.

Lots of teams have been showing off their CAD work by showing their CAD software and designs live to your pit visitors. Again, anything you see on your screen will be shown to others.

Videos are great as well. You can show videos of previous accomplishments or things you have found interesting.

Some teams have a dedicated person who hosts their pit the entire time. Some have established a schedule and let team members take turns.

The Virtual Pit Schedule

The exact schedule for the virtual pits may vary a little, but here is what we have done in the past.

Pits start at 11am with everyone gathering in the main session. Before the ‘pits’ are opened, this is an opportunity to request any last minute rooms or changes to rooms.

At about 11:08 we will open the breakout rooms, and team hosts will go to their assigned room.

If the Breakout Rooms option isn’t on your software, you likely have an older version. See the Right Software section on getting the latest. It is a quick download and will make your experience a lot better!

If you select Breakout Rooms, you will be presented with a list of available Virtual Pits.

You are welcome to join any of the virtual pit rooms by hitting the Join button. You can move between virtual pit rooms on your own schedule.

We have found that after 10 minutes or so, we will send out a broadcast message to remind everyone to move around the pits.

If you are hosting a room, that is your cue to determine if new folks are showing up and perhaps starting your conversation or brief 5 minute presentation over. That way new folks who have joined your room can be part of the conversation. It will mean repeating yourself a little, but that is OK, that is how it works in the real world pits as well!

After about 40 minutes of these 10 minute windows, we usually stop and allow folks to go anywhere do anything!

At around 12:25 we will end up bringing everyone back into the main session for some closing thoughts and ask for feedback and suggestions for next time.

So the condensed version of the schedule looks like

11:00 AM Meeting Starts

11:10 AM 10 minute windows. 5 minutes max presentation plus 5 minutes of Q&A

12:00 PM Wonder the pits, talk to folks, do social things

12:25 PM Wrap up

You are free to leave anytime. No obligation!

Your Pit Presentation

Can you come up with a presentation to tell people the generalities of your team, the things you are proud of, and the things you seek help with? There is no requirement for this, but many visitors appreciated this intro to other teams in the past. Try not to go longer than 5 minutes, as your guests would also like time to chat. Be prepared to repeat this several times during the first hour.

Use pictures, bullet points on PowerPoint, videos, or CAD drawings to illustrate what you are doing. This doesn’t need to be hyper complicated.

A little preparation makes this a LOT easier.

When you are ready to present, use the Zoom Share Screen function in your breakout room. If you are switching off between presenters, you want to insure that everyone can share the same presentation file.

Be an active participant!

If you are OK with it, turn on your camera! We know that during school hours, most students tend to leave their cameras off. During a Virtual Pit, making a personal connection is easier if we can see each other.

Many team members end up creating their own virtual background with their team logo or team name. It makes it that much cooler that your team are unified using a virtual background. Not a requirement, but is pretty cool.

Please make sure to let us know if you plan to host a pit by filling out this form Zoom info is below, please pass all of this on to your students, mentors and parents!

Topic: FTC Virtual Pits

Time: Dec 5, 2020 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84210203425?pwd=T1d0UUxSaEwxMERhS1J3TWV2U0Rzdz09

Meeting ID: 842 1020 3425

Passcode: 21238

One tap mobile

+12532158782,,84210203425#,,,,,,0#,,21238# US (Tacoma)

+16699006833,,84210203425#,,,,,,0#,,21238# US (San Jose)

Dial by your location

+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

+1 929 436 2866 US (New York)

+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington D.C)

+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

Meeting ID: 842 1020 3425

Passcode: 21238

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbSvRH7ITM

Coaches Chat Tuesday, December 8, 7:00-8:00 pm

Please join us for our next coaches chat on Tuesday, December 8 at 7:00 pm. We want this to be a conversation where you share your ideas and work together as a group. To keep it productive, we would love for you to fill out this form with a topic you would like to focus on. We will plan to spend some time in this meeting talking about what things look like for our remote events and get some feedback from all of you.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86876730835

Meeting ID: 868 7673 0835

One tap mobile

+12532158782,,86876730835# US (Tacoma)

+16699006833,,86876730835# US (San Jose)

Dial by your location

+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

+1 929 436 2866 US (New York)

+1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)