FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST LEGO League in Arkansas

On Friday-Saturday, February 21-22, we held our 2024-2025 FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Arkansas Championship Tournament in Springdale. Twenty teams from throughout the state (plus five teams from Oklahoma and Illinois) competed, with Sea Cow Robotics (photo below) from Benton taking home the Inspire Award, our top prize. Thank you to our host venue, Shiloh Christian High School. Thank you to the University of Arkansas College of Engineering for their financial support of the event. Thank you to all of our volunteers. A link to the event results (including the archived livestream) and a link to all our photos will be posted as a comment on this message.

On Saturday, January 25, we held our 2024-2025 FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Arkansas Championship Tournament in Fayetteville. 32 teams from throughout the state competed, with SeaCow Juniors (photo below) from Benton taking home the Champion's Award, our top prize. Thank you to our host venue: the Arkansas Union on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville. Thank you to the College of Engineering at the University of Arkansas for their financial support of the event. Thank you to all of our volunteers. A link to all our photos will be posted as a comment on this message.

On Saturday, December 14, we held our 2024-2025 FIRST LEGO League (FLL) qualifying tournaments in Fort Smith, Searcy, and Springdale. A total of 73 teams from throughout the state competed and 32 advanced to the FLL Arkansas Championship (to be held January 25 in Fayetteville). Thank you to our host venues: Peak Innovation Center, Harding Academy, and Don Tyson School of Innovation. Thank you to all of our volunteers. We have one more FIRST LEGO League event and three more FIRST Tech Challenge events scheduled for this season. Use the link below to learn more about volunteer opportunities.

Please consider volunteering at one or more of our events

It was our pleasure to represent FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST LEGO League in Arkansas at today’s demo.

For the 2024-2025 season, all of our FIRST LEGO League Challenge qualifying tournaments will be held on Saturday, December 14, 2024. The locations for qualifying tournaments are: (1) Don Tyson School of Innovation (tentative) in Springdale, (2) Harding Academy in Searcy, (3)Peak Innovation Center in Fort Smith. The Arkansas Championship Tournament will be held on Saturday, January 25, 2025, in the Arkansas Union on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville. All tournaments will be roughly 8 am until 6 pm and open to the public (except judging interviews). We always need volunteers at our tournaments. To volunteer at a FIRST LEGO League Challenge event in Arkansas: 1. Create an account on the firstinspires.org dashboard and log in.? 2. Click the Volunteer Registration tab and click Event Volunteering.? 3. In the Event Filters, choose FIRST LEGO League Challenge, United States, and Arkansas. Then, select From 12/14/2024 To 01/25/2025. Then, click Apply Filters. You should see four events.? 4. Choose the event of interest by clicking Volunteer.? 5. Mark that you are available on the Event Day. You do not need to specify any availability times or details.? 6. Choose as many as five roles. (see notes about roles below) 7. Click Next. 8. If?you are affiliated with any FIRST LEGO League Challenge teams, add their team numbers to your volunteer application. 9. Click?Complete. 10. Click Begin?Youth Protecting Screening. Screening is required to volunteer at a FIRST LEGO League Challenge event. Once you are assigned to a volunteer role, you will receive a notification email from FIRST. Notes about roles: All Day Tournament Support Role, Assign me as needed, Judge, and Referee are all-day roles (8 am – 6 pm). Lunch is provided to all-day volunteers. Drinks and snacks are provided to all volunteers.? Morning Tournament Support Role is a half-day role (8 am – 12:30 pm). Lunch is not provided to half-day volunteers, but drinks and snacks are provided to all volunteers. Afternoon Tournament Support Role is a half-day role (12:30-6 pm). Lunch is not provided to half-day volunteers, but drinks and snacks are provided to all volunteers. If you were recruited for a specific role that is not on the list (Tournament Director, Field Manager, Head Referee, Assistant Head Referee, Scoring/Timing Manager, Judge Advisor, Assistant Judge Advisor, Pit Administrator, Volunteer Hospitality Coordinator, Awards Emcee) please choose Assign me as needed. The only roles that require pre-event training are Judge and Referee.?

This morning (at 11 am), we kicked off the 2024-2025 FTC INTO THE DEEP season in Bentonville. But before we welcomed the new season, we celebrated the end of the 2023-2024 CENTERSTAGE season with a final scrimmage.

We are still a few weeks away from FIRST Tech Challenge season kickoff, but FIRST LEGO League Challenge kicked off last week. We had our first full team meeting today. We got to know our new team members and mentors. We reviewed the basic information about the new season’s challenges. We started building mission models.

We had the honor on August 5 of promoting FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST LEGO League in Arkansas at Wolfspeed's Fayetteville location. We described and answered questions about our team, we demonstrated and described the engineering and computer science associated with our 2023-2024 robot, and we taught attendees to drive our 2020-2021 robot. Thanks to Wolfspeed for inviting us!

We had the honor today of promoting FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST LEGO League in Arkansas at Tyson Emma in Springdale. Richard Cassady from the University of Arkansas College of Engineering started the event with a brief introduction to FTC in Arkansas. Then, we described and answered questions about our team, we demonstrated and described the engineering and computer science associated with our 2023-2024 robot, and we taught attendees to drive our 2020-2021 robot. Thanks to Chetan Kapoor for coordinating the event and inviting us to participate!