What are these GAMCA events, anyway?

FIRST General Forum
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I see events on the FRC site called GAMCA:

Anyone know what these are? My only guess is this is where they’ll announce the teams going on to the second round. So this is how we learn if our season ends in April vs. ending in June?

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If you look, it’s GAMe Design Challenge, CAlcium group.

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That is the event representing the group of teams you’re being judged against for game design. The results of awards will be announced in region-specific awards shows, and then from there if you win either the Designer’s or Concept Award your season may or may not continue for the game design challenge (they don’t have a date that I’ve found for when the finalists will be announced to interview in June).

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So the GAM## event is just a placeholder to show the teams in the group? Nothing really happens on those dates?

Thanks for the award show link. I hadn’t seen that one yet.

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Correct, the dates are just placeholders (I assume because events have to have dates?) in the system and yeah, the event on them just represents the team grouping. All interviews have to be done by April 11th and then the judges for the group get together to discuss the teams and submit the awards to FIRST.

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You have a better imagination than me to pull that out of that page, Eric! Thanks.

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I can’t find the post right now that explained this, but the arbitrary dates are so that FRC Event Web : Home shows the events grouped by challenge type, since that page really only supports grouping by event “week”.

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Just familiarity with FIRST’s event code system.

Normally, all events have a 4-5 digit code. The first two are the state; the next 2-3 are the event city (or other location info)–example, MNDU and MNDU2 are Minnesota (MN), Duluth, and there’s two events so the second one gets a 2. (That’s Lake Superior and Northern Lights regionals, BTW.) There’s some differences with districts (MIKET should be familiar to you, I think) and Champs.

Now, going to the 2021 events: the elements used all have a 1-or-2-letter code, and it’s logical to split them by type.

GAM: Game Design
INN: Innovation
IRH: IR@Home
Last 1-2 are the element in question (e.g., INNC is Innovation, Carbon group).
Awards regions have individual codes. (Based on their names, I think, haven’t looked in detail.)
If you see a “CE” it’s “Challenge Event” (the overall listing for that particular event).

Fast way to find a code in normal times: frclinks.com
Fastest way to find a code now: Look at the web address, at the end, on either TBA or firstinspires

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It seems like the Friday of the competition week is when awards are given according to Event Web. I wonder if teams will know on Friday or if they have to wait 2-3 weeks for the regional awards?

That in itself does not make lots of since since each group was region mixed.

Any definitive answer when teams learn if they won any awards?

I do know Blue Banners for IRAH and Game Design …These go to Skills winner in each IRAH group and just the Top 3 teams globally in Game design…the rest get trophies

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Teams will learn if they won awards at their respective (regional) awards shows, despite the groups being mixed region. Taking an excerpt from the recent FRC blog,

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