I’m sure many of you have been following the world-wide news about the new coronavirus, 2019-nCoV.
Based on travel advisories and information from local partners – and with the safety of our community top priority – we are postponing the FIRST Robotics Competition events that had been scheduled in Beijing, China for March until after FIRST Championship. This is unfortunate but necessary given the impact of the virus on local and regional activities. We have reached out directly to currently registered teams impacted by this decision, letting them know their options. We will be doing our best to take care of those teams who are most affected by this unexpected challenge. You can find the email we sent those teams here.
A few other notes:
- We know teams may be scrambling to pay for their 2nd (and beyond) events by the January 31 deadline. We’re extending this deadline to February 7th for all teams to give them more time to take this new information into account as they make decisions about the season.
- Given the dynamic situation with the virus, we can’t yet say when the rescheduled events will be, but they will be held after the 2020 FIRST Championship.
- Our intent is to have the rescheduled China events earn slots to FIRST Championship like the original events would have, even though, in this case, they would be earning slots to the 2021 FIRST Championship. This may sound strange, but a handful of teams (for example, Engineering Inspiration Award winners) already earn spots at the following year FIRST Championship for something they did in the current year. We’re just extending that concept in this very unusual situation. How the slots for the rescheduled events will be structured is TBD.
We will be keeping the community updated as we learn more and decisions are made regarding the rescheduled events.
Frank
Where did you see this? It’s not posted on the FRC blog page.
On Facebook. I’ll bring the link here.
EDIT: scroll down a bit, past the pinned teaser video, linked here.
oh good. Another outlet for FRC news we have to track.
I’m all for #makingItLoud and having multiple ways to disseminate information, but the Boomer in me wishes there was just a single place* to go where it’s all there.
*I suppose that place is chiefdelphi
There was a link on fb to this page, but this is a normal FRC blog, so don’t get too worried yet.
Twitter always beats the website and RSS feed for some reason.
I don’t enjoy how most of the time, it’s on one place. I follow their page, so I’d know… Not necessarily others.
The Blogs always appear on a variety of sources, just not at the exact same instant. Be patient and I’m sure you will see it on whatever platform you prefer.
This is undoubtedly a good decision on FIRST’s part. This virus sounds pretty bad, not something we want people catching… and not something we want teams to be helping spread (several teams from the US, Japan, Mexico, and Australia are signed up, in addition to all of the China teams, for those two events). It sucks to have your season plans upended like this, especially for those teams that were travelling and now have to deal with possibly lost travel expenses. I’d love to see something done to help them out with that financial hit.
Has anything been mentioned about what’s going to happen with teams from China competing at foreign events? Will they still be allowed to attend these events?
I believed they postponed this year China Frc regional
Yea that’s what the blog post above mentioned.
I shoulda worded my original comment a bit differently. What I meant to say was has there been anything said about Chinese teams who are competing at events not in China? Will these teams still be allowed to attend these events?
Probably dependent on where the event is. The US has enacted a travel ban starting on the 5th from people coming from China, but IIRC it’s only 14 days currently, but this may be subject to change. If the ban continues, Chinese teams may be unable to participate in US events.
Nothing has currently been said, no.
However, it’s going to be rather interesting–and political–to see what happens. I suspect that what will end up happening is that the Chinese teams will–and this is speculation–likely pull themselves out of US events if the teams are reasonably close to, or have had contact with people who have gone to, the affected areas.
I’ve heard rumors of a couple of teams getting into “full” regionals–the options are that the event’s capacity was not actually reached yet, or that Chinese (or other) teams have dropped out.
I’m sure they will depending on the host country. I checked on the Chinese teams attending the Australia events and from what I see, there aren’t any from the main outbreak area near Wuhan. China is a big country and today, blocking teams from Beijing from traveling would be a bit like banning teams from New York because of an outbreak in Dallas.
I think the question is whether the team can leave China (or even their city at this rate). Some may not be aware that China excercises a lot of control over their citizens’ movement and at the moment in my home province, there is an overseas travel ban for all high school sports teams (I presume this includes FRC teams). Furthermore, the outbreak is very much national and not limited to just Wuhan. My relatives in Beijing are currently under semi-official lockdown with egress from the city very heavily regulated if not prohibited all together. Lastly, with the state of devastation there right now I would think that robotics might be the last thing on everyone’s mind. I remember in 2003 during the SARS outbreak, school was simply cancelled for 6 months in my province, and it may very well happen again.
Either way, I’m sure our community’s collective thoughts and well wishes are with all FRC teams and their families currently caught in this crisis.
Time will tell. What the situation is right now versus in 4 weeks is anyone’s guess. Hopefully things settle down and the teams get a chance to compete. There are three teams from China at our week 2 event, one of which we were next to at champs last year. Great group of kids who really love competing in FRC.
Thought I’d revive this as the situation has changed significantly in the US over the last few weeks, especially in PNW.
I’m curious, aside from discouraging handshakes does FIRST have any other plans in place to reduce risk of the Coronavirus spreading at events, should that ever have a chance at happening? Would FIRST go so far as to cancel Seattle events, for example?
Glacier Peak had hand sanitizer everywhere along with large signs (i think from 2522?) about COVD-19 and ways to prevent spread. As to PNW event cancellations, If seattle closes PNW will close, quite simply due to how team distribution is within the PNW.
For those not in the PNW, it should also be pointed out that they did a great job of stocking up on hand sanitizer, and I saw copious amounts of disinfectant being brought it.
CDC warnings, remembers, and and instructions were also posted.
They did, however, fail to properly notify teams in advance of the certain exposure one of the teams at the event had. From the information I’ve heard, covid-19 wasn’t a concern and CDC was aware, but they should have let teams know that.