The order of advancement has changed this year – check Game Manual 1-Remote Events for this year’s list. The number of teams that advance from each event will depend on three things. 1) How many teams we have register (which will affect how big our Championship will be). 2) How many qualifiers we have. 3) How many teams attend each qualifier.

All drive team members must be youth registered on the FTC team with the exception of the Coach position which may be filled by an adult coach. These rules will not be waived for Covid restrictions. At a minimum, a teams needs at least one driver and a human player to return rings to the field.

Traditional events will also be known as in-person events and are typical events as defined in “Game Manual 1”. Remote events are described in “Game Manual 1 – Remote Events”. Remote events will include teams running matches remotely and self reporting their scores and remote judging events.

Teams will need to comply with their state, local and school district guidelines on when and how they can meet. There’s a Facebook group “FTC: Share and Learn” that has been posting suggestions.

A team can play their 6 qualifying matches at any time during the 6-7 day window. They do not need to be sequential. A team can run as many “practice” matches they want in that window using the scoring system to tally their score. When they want to run a recorded match, they start the scoring system and record their score. We are counting on teams to hold to this Honor System and not claim a “do-over” if it didn’t go as well as they’d like. If they have a problem in their scored match, they can improve or repair their robot before they are ready to score their next match including running more intermediate practice matches.

This is correct. Teams may choose to play all on the red side or blue side or may choose to play some matches on each. They may score in all three sections of the goal of their designated color.

In this year’s game, there’s not a traditional need for scouting. Teams typically “scout” other teams to help determine which team they might want to choose in alliance selection after the qualification matches. Because there are no alliances in Remote Events, there’s no need to scout. Hopefully teams will be posting videos of their robot and their qualifying matches so teams can still see each others’ robots and learn from each other.

Yes! This is spelled out in Game Manual 2 – Remote Events.

The remote field can only be 8’x12′ – no bigger and no smaller. It’s recommended that there be barriers to help contain any rings from rolling out of bounds. Detailed requirements can be found in the Remote Event Requirements Guide.

All drive team members must be youth registered on the FTC team with the exception of the Coach position which may be filled by an adult coach. These rules will not be waived for Covid restrictions. At a minimum, a teams needs at least one driver and a human player to return rings to the field.

Traditional or in-person events will have alliances. There are no alliances in remote events.

This has not been announced yet. We will let you know.

Teams will score themselves using an honor system. Once the scoring system has been released, we will be able to give more guidance on how they system works.

Traditional events will also be known as in-person events and are typical events as defined in “Game Manual 1”. Remote events are described in “Game Manual 1 – Remote Events”. Remote events will include teams running matches remotely and self reporting their scores and remote judging events.

To increase transparency, we are recommending that teams record their matches and post videos on a social platform that others can see. NorCal cannot require these videos nor will we be offering a location to post links. We do plan to release a recommendation for tagging videos so they can be found by the public.

Referees will not be needed for remote events. Of course they will be needed if we are able to host an in-person event and we’re hoping to have some veteran referees participate in “Ask a ref” virtual sessions. If they are unaffiliated and interested, we encourage referees to join us in a judging role for virtual events.

This is not allowed. All teams are on the honor system to report their own scores. NorCal is highly encouraging teams to post videos of their matches and robot on social media to share with our community, both for transparency and to continue learning from each other as we would at an in-person event.

A host team needs to be a veteran FTC team who competed in the previous season. The host team will be required to recruit all volunteers and be sure they are trained for their roles. They will communicate with the participating teams and schedule their judging sessions and awards ceremony. They will be required to assist in running the virtual platform that is required for the event as well as manage any required paperwork (team rosters and volunteer consent forms). They will help facilitate getting awards sent to teams. Here’s a document to outline what is needed.

Teams will have 6-7 days prior to their judging date to play their qualifying matches. On the date of the event (the date they register for), they will have a morning judging session and a second one after lunch. There will be an online award ceremony at the end of the event – we’re currently hoping that would be about 4:30p.

Teams will be required to upload their Engineering Portfolio to the Remote Hub. If judges would like to take a look at a team’s complete Engineering Notebook, having it somewhere online with a link provided would be ideal but it won’t be uploaded.

The platform for the Remote Judging events will be the same for all events. Various platforms are being evaluated but it will not be Zoom due to some privacy concerns. Each team will have an opportunity to schedule a “practice” session with the platform prior to their first event.

Information on remote judging has not yet been released so more information will be coming.

Information on remote judging has not yet been released so more information will be coming. We anticipate that it will not be a requirement for all members to be in the same place for judging.

Teams are finding creative ways to make a difference in their communities through virtual means. Many are posting suggestions on social media. Judging for outreach types of activities will be addressed in the judging section of the Game Manual.

If teams are being judged remotely, they will want to consider how they are able to share their engineering notebook. NorCal is recommending that teams might want to consider an electronic platform or a scanned platform that can be more easily shared. It will not be possible to send a physical notebook for consideration.

Each team must register with FIRST that includes their $275 paid through the storefront. This is not refundable in any circumstance. Event registration fees for events in NorCal are paid to Playing at Learning and subject to our cancellation policy (on our website). In the event that the entire event needs to be cancelled, we will follow the event cancellation policy also found on our website.

We expect we will host roughly the same number of events as last season. It’s possible that we have more “double” sized remote events than we have had previously. We are still looking at our season and will publish events as we can confirm them. We expect the size of the championship to be roughly the same as well as the number of teams that will advance from Northern California to the World Championship.

As of the 29th we were about 80% of the same number of teams that registered by this time last year. We know that some FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) teams are considering joining FTC this season since we have a remote option. This could potentially add a considerable number of teams to our overall enrollment for this season but right now, we don’t know.

A team can play their 6 qualifying matches at any time during the 6-7 day window. They do not need to be sequential. A team can run as many “practice” matches they want in that window using the scoring system to tally their score. When they want to run a recorded match, they start the scoring system and record their score. We are counting on teams to hold to this Honor System and not claim a “do-over” if it didn’t go as well as they’d like. If they have a problem in their scored match, they can improve or repair their robot before they are ready to score their next match including running more intermediate practice matches.

This is correct. Teams may choose to play all on the red side or blue side or may choose to play some matches on each. They may score in all three sections of the goal of their designated color.

Think about what would happen at an in-person event. What other teams or the public would see when they look at your play or come to your pits. A video “tour” around your robot would be great.

In this year’s game, there’s not a traditional need for scouting. Teams typically “scout” other teams to help determine which team they might want to choose in alliance selection after the qualification matches. Because there are no alliances in Remote Events, there’s no need to scout. Hopefully teams will be posting videos of their robot and their qualifying matches so teams can still see each others’ robots and learn from each other.

Yes! This is spelled out in Game Manual 2 – Remote Events.

The platform for the Remote Judging events will be the same for all events. Various platforms are being evaluated but it will not be Zoom due to some privacy concerns. Each team will have an opportunity to schedule a “practice” session with the platform prior to their first event.

The remote field can only be 8’x12′ – no bigger and no smaller. It’s recommended that there be barriers to help contain any rings from rolling out of bounds. Detailed requirements can be found in the Remote Event Requirements Guide.

All drive team members must be youth registered on the FTC team with the exception of the Coach position which may be filled by an adult coach. These rules will not be waived for Covid restrictions. At a minimum, a teams needs at least one driver and a human player to return rings to the field.

A host team needs to be a veteran FTC team who competed in the previous season. The host team will be required to recruit all volunteers and be sure they are trained for their roles. They will communicate with the participating teams and schedule their judging sessions and awards ceremony. They will be required to assist in running the virtual platform that is required for the event as well as manage any required paperwork (team rosters and volunteer consent forms). They will help facilitate getting awards sent to teams. Here’s a document to outline what is needed.

Information on remote judging has not yet been released so more information will be coming.

This has not been announced yet. We will let you know.

Information on remote judging has not yet been released so more information will be coming. We anticipate that it will not be a requirement for all members to be in the same place for judging.

Teams will score themselves using an honor system. Once the scoring system has been released, we will be able to give more guidance on how they system works.

To increase transparency, we are recommending that teams record their matches and post videos on a social platform that others can see. NorCal cannot require these videos nor will we be offering a location to post links. We do plan to release a recommendation for tagging videos so they can be found by the public.

Referees will not be needed for remote events. Of course they will be needed if we are able to host an in-person event and we’re hoping to have some veteran referees participate in “Ask a ref” virtual sessions. If they are unaffiliated and interested, we encourage referees to join us in a judging role for virtual events.

Teams are expected to self-inspect using the Inspection Worksheet in the Game Manual. Robots in remote events must still adhere to all requirements of robots competing in traditional events. We plan to have some virtual sessions with robot inspectors for teams to be able to ask questions or get advice.

The scoring software has not been released. We have been told that teams may log into the live scoring platform and enter their scores in the same way a referee would score a live match. They may also use a paper scoresheet and enter the data into the system at a later time.

Teams will have 6-7 days prior to their judging date to play their qualifying matches. On the date of the event (the date they register for), they will have a morning judging session and a second one after lunch. There will be an online award ceremony at the end of the event – we’re currently hoping that would be about 4:30p.

Yes, we will have qualifiers through the end of March with the Championship in mid April. Normally we only have QTs through early Feb.

The platform for the Remote Judging events will be the same for all events. Various platforms are being evaluated but it will not be Zoom due to some privacy concerns. Each team will have an opportunity to schedule a “practice” session with the platform prior to their first event.

We’re still figuring this out. We’re thinking of a virtual platform like zoom where teams might be able to “break out” with an inspector. To best utilize our resources, we may ask teams to register for a time.