Greetings Florida FTC Teams, Coaches, Volunteers, and Sponsors:
CENTERSTAGESM presented by Raytheon Technologies is here and it is time for teams to start designing your robots. The game manuals have been published on the FIRST website as well as the game animation video. Make sure that you also review the updates to Game Manual Part 1 as it includes the detailed build rules for the two team game elements. I hope everyone is excited about scoring Pixels, creating Mosaics, and of course we cannot forget about scoring the Drone. I cannot wait to see all of the different robot design ideas.
If you were not able to attend the Florida FTC Season Kick-off event, it is available on the FIRST in Florida YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1tGVmHzxWE). The following topics in this email newsletter provide you with information on how to learn more about the season:
The following are the topics covered in this Florida FTC newsletter:
- How to Find CENTERSTAGESM Game Information
- Important Change to Field Setup
- Florida Championship T-shirt Design Contest
- Season Theme (Teams Helping Teams) and Video Contest
Newsletter Details:
- How to Find CENTERSTAGESM Game Information – The best place to find the CENTERSTAGESM game information is by going to the “FIRST Tech Challenge>>Game & Season Material” web page: https://www.firstinspires.org/resource-library/ftc/game-and-season-info. Game Manual Part 1 & 2, Field Assembly & Setup Guide, as well as the AprilTag images are located on this page as well as all documentation related to the CENTERSTAGESM game. You can find the game animation video that was shown during the kick-off event by going to the following FIRST web page: https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc/game-and-season Please review the “Traditional Events” version of the game manual documents as we will only be hosting in-person traditional events throughout all of the 8 Florida leagues.
Teams that would like to order a CENTERSTAGESM field, please go to the FIRST Tech Challenge part of the AndyMark website (https://www.andymark.com/pages/first-tech-challenge) - Important Change to Field Setup – FIRST announced the gaffer tape change several months ago but I want to remind everyone of a very important rule change this season. You will notice in the Field Assembly and Setup Guide that the part list now includes one (1) inch red, white, and blue gaffer tape. We will no longer be using two (2) inch gaffer tape for FTC fields. Therefore, if you are ordering a field set from AndyMark, please make sure that you also order one inch gaffer tape.
- Florida Championship T-shirt Design Contest – This is your opportunity to get a guaranteed invitation to the Florida Championship on March 1-2, 2024. All Florida FTC teams are eligible to submit a volunteer t-shirt design no later than November 30, 2023 and the winner will be announced on by December 30, 2022. The following are the detailed requirements for the t-shirt design:
- Design must be emailed to
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. no later than midnight November 30, 2023. - The design must be a high-resolution JPG file
- The JPG logo design file must be a single color
- The t-shirt must include the following: “Florida Championship 2024”
- The t-shirt design should include the official CENTERSTAGESM presented by Raytheon Technologies game logo.
The winner of the Florida Championship volunteer t-shirt design content will receive an automatic invitation to the Florida Championship (if your team also received an invitation from your league championship than the team will receive a $200 credit to cover the registration fee).
- Season Theme (Teams Helping Teams) and Video Contest – During the opening of the Florida Season Kick-off event, I announced that we are following in FIRST’s leadership by creating a season theme. The FIRST 2023-24 theme is FIRST IN SHOW (https://info.firstinspires.org/first-in-show?utm_source=first-inspires&utm_medium=promo&utm_campaign=fir-registration-024 ). The Florida FIRST Tech Challenge season theme will be Teams Helping Teams. This means that throughout the season I would like to include examples of this theme in this newsletter.
- For example, during the kick-off event we played a video from Ramsey McClure (team 18145 Men in Black Jax) about the Student Leadership Innovation Council (SLIC). I encourage everyone to go to the website (www.slicftc.com) and select “Join SLIC”. Tell Ramsey about things you want to share with other teams.
- Another example is the email that I received from Super 7 (team 7477) wanting to share information they created to help teams be successful. Take a look at the “Tech Toolbox” for lots of great information on a wide range of technical topics ranging from motors to telemetry. I encourage all teams to take a look at this informative website: https://ftc-code.gitbook.io/tech-toolbox/
- I would also like to hear stories from teams that have been helped by other teams. Send me an email and tell your story. Another great opportunity will be to create a video and enter into the Florida FTC Video contest. During the remote event season of 2020-21, we provided cash prizes to teams that submitted creative videos after each of our remote events. Please start thinking about creative ideas for a video as you will have until November 30, 2023 to create a video and potentially win a $250 or $100 gift card. I will provide more details about the video contest rules in a future email but below are a few examples of the creative videos form the 2020-21 season and a fantastic promote winner from a past season: