In this update you will find:
- National Registration - CLOSING SOON
- Checklist to Register for an Oregon Qualifying Tournament
- Last week for Adult Workshops!
- Team Roster Reminder - Still Not Open 😞
- Hillsboro International Air Show
- CORRECTION from Last Week!
To read this update as a blog, please click here.
Oregon Update: 4
Welcome to the official FIRST LEGO League Oregon Update. All Oregon FIRST LEGO League Coaches are automatically added to this list weekly! In each update, which you can read in an email or on our blog (cross-posted on both G+ and Facebook), you will find out what is happening in Oregon, the important things from Headquarters in NH, and tips to keep your team on track. This blog will be posted nearly weekly and all posts are archived. All official updates this season will be numbered HD# If you've missed an update, please read the archive to catch up!
National Registration for Oregon will close soon. In order to participate in the Oregon Qualifying Tournaments your team MUST be fully registered with FIRST in Manchester, NH before you register for your Qualifying Tournament in less than 2 weeks! Now is a great time to check to make sure your team is ready!
Every team must be registered with FIRST, before they can register with ORTOP in Oregon. To do this follow these steps:
- Go to www.firstinspires.org
- Login using the option in the upper right corner (If you do not have an account, you need one, make one now!)
- On your DASHBOARD, find your team number - you should reuse all your team numbers before making a new team.
- If you are reusing a team number:
- Check the Team Profile:
- Is your team name correct?
- Is your region set to Oregon? If you are in Washington or California, but participate in Oregon this may have been reset over the summer and you will need to change it back!
- Check your Contacts by selecting Contact Options -> Manage Contacts
- Are both coaches the right people? If not invite a replacement.
- Do both coaches have a complete background check, they are good for 4 years.
- Have both coaches signed the 2017-2018 Consent Form? This can be done from their profile (follow the red circles)
- If you are creating a new team:
- When you create your team profile page make sure the region is set to Oregon, this is very important if you are in Northern California or SW Washington, but participate in Oregon.
- Make sure to invite 2 coaches, your team does not have to have an admin, but it MUST have two adult coaches.
- Once you have invited both coaches, you need to come back and make sure they have accepted their roles on the team. Not all coaches are receiving the email from FIRST letting them know they have been invited. They can still access their role by logging into FIRST using the same process you have. The three person icon by their name in the upper right corner is where they go to accept the invitation.
- Make sure both coaches have completed their free background check with Verified Volunteers.
- FIRST covers the cost of the background check, the coach does not have to pay unless they want to.
- Verified Volunteers asks for a Social Security number, but this is not required for the background check, selecting "I do not have a Social Security Number" does not interfere nor slow the background check process.
- Make sure both coaches have signed this year's consent form. Coaches must return to the FIRST system to do this and many are missing this step.
- ALL Teams MUST pay $225 to FIRST, through the DASHBOARD be nationally registered. If your team received a team financial support award this will be applied to your account as a credit. You will be able to tell your team is nationally registered by looking at your team's Team Finances on the DASHBOARD. The $225 will move from Balance Due to Payments to FIRST or Funds & Grants.
WARNING: If you pay FIRST with a Purchase Order this will NOT enter your team's account until FIRST in Manchester NH, receives the check. - Your team must separately purchase a HYDRO DYNAMICS challenge kit from LEGO Education. After your team is Nationally register you can access the link to LEGO Education. This is the ONLY way to get the Challenge Kit! Each team is limited to one Challenge Kit. Your team does not need their own challenge kit if they have consistent access to one (ORTOP estimates that up to three teams can easily share one kit).
- Purchasing your LEGO is HARD to FIND this year. You may use Parts & Products under Team Options.
- Unfortunately, this is now taking you back to the PAY FOR TEAMS page. Look for the small printed "Visit Vendor" under your already paid for team's information.
- After confirming you want to go to the Vendor, you will be taken to a secret page on the LEGO Education website. You will need to select FIRST LEGO League, enter your email address and team number.
- The Challenge Kit is located on the bottom of the page and costs $75. Shipping for Oregon has been $13.25 this year, you may purchase for multiple teams at once, up to the total number of registered teams affiliated with your email address.
- This is also where your team can purchase an EV3 robot kit if they do not have one. Each team needs 1 robot kit to use for the competition season.
2) Checklist to Register for an Oregon Qualifying Tournament
ORTOP will begin accepting applications for teams to attend Oregon Qualifying Tournaments on October 4 at 5pm. Is your team ready? Here is what you will need!
- Your team is Nationally registered for the 2017-2018 HYDRO DYNAMICS season with FIRST - if not go read item 1.
- You know your OFFICIAL team number. This is a 2-5 digit number issued by FIRST. This is NOT your team support application number. You can find your team number when you login to FIRST: www.firstinspires.org
- choose login from the upper right corner
- on your DASHBOARD you will see your teams the team number is the second item in the grey header bar of your Team List.
- If your team is NOT based in Oregon, your FIRST Profile MUST have the region set to OREGON.
- You know your Team's NAME! This is where we get the name your team will be using at the tournament. THIS NAME WILL BE USED ON ALL OREGON PRINTED MATERIALS. Even if you change it in the FIRST system, we will not be changing it at the tournament. The tournament directors do not have access to the FIRST system and they will use the name you enter in the survey monkey application for all tournament materials.
- Your team name must meet the following criteria:
- It must be a name that meets the intent of Gracious Professionalism. Terms like "killer", "murder", references to violent video games, violent TV shows, or violent music groups, references to alcohol, racial slurs, etc will not be accepted. We have young people who check our team names, and we know how to use Google. If the name raises a red flag, we will ask your team to change it or I will rename your team "WE LUV ORTOP"
- Your team name should be relatively short, please note if you have a long team name we may have to use a microscopic font in programs and your full team name may not appear on all material.
- Your team name will be printed EXACTLY how you spell it, including captialization.
- Our system will not let you enter superscripts or subscripts easily, you may use them, but please accept that it may not appear as you intended.
- "Battle Bots" is a trademark and can not be used by teams, sorry.
- LEGO (if used) must be in all caps and should never be plural.
- Know WHO is on your team! No more than 10 students in 4-8th grade! This includes ethnic data and grade level, as well as past FIRST experience.
- Know WHO your team chaperones will be! Your team should have 3 ADULTS over the age of 18 who will be able to stay with your team at the tournament. For most teams this will be 2 coaches and one parent. For coaches with multiple teams at the same event, you will want additional parental help.
- Know which weekend/events you want to attend. I am still completing confirmations on 3 events in Roseburg/Myrtle Creek, Medford, and NE Portland. Your team will be put into their event on a first-come proximity basis. There is very little wiggle room for popular events and events that already have more requests than they can fill will be removed from the sign up list during the week. Just because an event is later removed DOES NOT mean your team got into it!
- Know WHY you need that location or date. Know which is more important to your team. Your team may get their second choice, it should also reflect this preference.
- You will also need information about the volunteer adults working with your team.
- Be prepared to pay the tournament registration fee of $200 -$100, we are again using the sliding scale and all requests for a discount will automatically approved. Please only pay the amount you are able to pay, refunds will not be given!
The invitation to apply for an Oregon Qualifying Tournament will be sent to the Lead Coach 1 for all teams officially registered with FIRST in the Oregon Region at 5pm on October 4. The link will not be publicly available until later. Please make sure this individual is ready to receive the link or can send it to the person who needs to register the team. FIRST will not let the Lead Coach 1 and Lead Coach 2 switch places.
3) Last week for Adult Workshops!
This is the last week for the adults and teens working with your FIRST LEGO League team can attend an in person FIRST LEGO League Coach, Mentor, and Parent workshop! We have lots of room for the series in a week at Hillsboro High School on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday!
We also have lots of space in the final workshop in Oregon City at Eastham Community Center.
Register online here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0c48ada929a6f94-ortop1
You will need to scroll down, sorry Sign Up Genius doesn't remove past registrations.
You will need to scroll down, sorry Sign Up Genius doesn't remove past registrations.
4) Team Roster Reminder - Still Not Open 😞
Teams, I really really really appreciate how on top of roster formation you all are. Sadly, the software isn't as prompt and with it as all of you wonderful coaches. While we wait patiently for FIRST to get this system online, you are welcome to start your roster via the paper form. Please see last week's blog post/email for all the details.
5) Oregon International Air Show
If you or your team happens to be at the Oregon International Air Show in Hillsboro this weekend please drop by the STEM tent to visit ORTOP! We will be there with 3D printed driveable robots from our FIRST Tech Challenge workshops, a LEGO building area for the LEGO Air Show, and some FIRST Robotics Competition Robots. Please come say hi! I'd love to see you.
6) CORRECTION from Last Week!
Last week I incorrectly told you that your team would not know which tournament they would be assigned to until the end of December, I meant to October! Your team will be Notified of their tournament assignment by November 3, 2017. The blog has been fixed, but your email will still be wrong.
Next week will be a big week for our FIRST LEGO League teams as we finish registration and start preparing for the Qualifying Tournaments.
Best Wishes,
Loridee
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