[FRC Blog] Grab Bag

[Bkeeneykid]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 11/14/16: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/blog/2017-grab-bag
Written by Frank Merrick.

Fundraising Toolkit Video Series

Fundraising is a skill that will serve you well in much of your life, in FIRST and out. Check out the new Fundraising Toolkit Video series, along with lots of other great resources here (http://www.firstinspires.org/resource-library/fundraising-toolkit), to help you on your way.

A huge thanks to Argosy Foundation for funding these new videos!

Behind The Lines: Episode 4

The next episode on Behind The Lines is "A Problem Solving Approach to Drivetrain Design", airing live on twitch.tv/frcgamesense (http://twitch.tv/frcgamesense). The 60-minute show starts at 8:00 PM Eastern Time, Wednesday, November 16th. Our friends at GameSense will be joined by Clinton Bolinger, mentor of FRC Team 2337, EngiNERDs, and Nick Lawrence, mentor of FRC Team 3940, CyberTooth, to discuss all things drivetrain.

Viewers are invited to join the conversation by asking questions in the chat, some of which will be answered during the second half of the show. You’ll finally be able to get life-altering answers to those critical questions: "When is the right time to use Kiwi drive?", "What's Lobster drive?", and finally “Is Cthulhu drive real, or a spectral product of our darkest imaginings?”*


2017 FIRST Championship Eligibility Criteria

Posted recently here (http://www.firstinspires.org/resource-library/frc/championship-eligibility-criteria). Should be no surprises, but it has been updated for 2017.


Media and Technology Innovation Award

The Media and Technology Innovation Award, which had been presented for several years at Championship, will not be available for the 2017 season, as we have other priorities on which we are focusing. We may consider reviving it, or something similar, for the 2018 season, however.

Frank

*Something, something, tentacles.

[Bkeeneykid]

Also, come on Ryan. There was a whole TWO HOURS from posting this on the Facebook page to Chief Delphi post. Gotta keep us on our toes!

[SenorZ]

Am I the only one who gets redirected to an Access Denied screen when clicking on FRC links from within CD?

(BTW, its only the first time I click it... and yes, I'm at a school computer, so who knows what is going on with filters and requests)

[Bkeeneykid]

Am I the only one who gets redirected to an Access Denied screen when clicking on FRC links from within CD?

Sometimes, but not always. I wonder if it has something to do with being loved in to your FIRST account?

[guniv]

We're super disappointed that the Media and Technology Innovation Award is out for this year. Our Communications student leader had talked a lot about encouraging other teams to apply for it.

My guesses as to why they got rid of it:


Didn't have a solution for two champs, and had other things they needed to figure out first.
Comcast NBCUniversal dropped out as a FIRST sponsor or as the award sponsor. I don't have any evidence to back this up beyond that we were told Comcast mostly handles the award logistics, and FIRST doesn't have a lot of influence over the award winner selection.
Last year, our team had to be encouraged to attend Championships despite the fact that we had not qualified. There was at least one high-level FIRST staffer who had to coordinate with us, and I'm sure they had a lot of other things on their plate. They definitely will this year with two championships.
The award has extremely low turnout. We were told that less than 200 teams applied last year.

I wish FIRST had some sort of regional-level award for media and technology, honestly. There are a lot of teams that do hard work in the area and don't get recognition for it. It really helps in making FIRST loud, and it indeed could be included in STEM fields in the use of video-editing software, tracking social media statistics, etc. The only award that comes close is the Imagery Award.

[b.arci]

From the bottom of the Championship Eligibility Criteria:
All 2017 Regionals will automatically generate one Wild Card slot in addition to those that would normally have been generated. This Wild Card slot will be distributed in the same way that other Wild Spots are distributed.

Woah.
Would I be correct in saying that this is new and hadn't yet been announced?

[TDav540]

From the bottom of the Championship Eligibility Criteria:


Woah.
Would I be correct in saying that this is new and hadn't yet been announced?

No, unfortunately you would not.

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150174&highlight=extra+wildcard+regionals

[b.arci]

No, unfortunately you would not.

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150174&highlight=extra+wildcard+regionals

Thank you. I thought I'd seen it somewhere before but I wasn't sure if it was just me.

[rtfgnow]

Can someone explain to me why winning an event is not listed as merit based qualifying on the chart (http://www.firstinspires.org/sites/default/files/uploads/resource_library/frc/registration/2017/2017-first-championship-registration-info.pdf)? Am I blind?

Issue resolved with new chart (http://www.firstinspires.org/sites/default/files/uploads/resource_library/frc/registration/2017/2017-first-championship-registration-info-v3.pdf).