Important! Changes to NM FTC season events
After discussion among our planning committee and key volunteers, we have made a change to the New Mexico FIRST Tech Challenge competition model for the 2024-25 INTO THE DEEP season. We have converted our two Qualifiers into Scrimmage events and will be inviting all teams to the NM FTC Regional Championship in Albuquerque on Feb 7 & 8. The dates remain the same.
The scrimmage events will still include a full exciting day of robot competition following the same model you are used to in our past events. The advantage is your teams are competing without the pressure of needing to advance. This allows for more experimentation, tuning and practice with your robots without the fear of something not working! We are encouraging all teams to attend at least one of these Scrimmages to get experience with your robot and judging before the Regional Championship!
These scrimmages also allow us to offer you different opportunities for judging. At Alamogordo, we will offer two opportunities for practice judging. Both of these offer a unique opportunity for FTC teams to receive feedback which can help with future judging experiences in the FTC program. Both of these are optional as FIRST does not require judging for scrimmages, but we highly encourage you to participate!
Option 1 – On Friday evening, teams will have the opportunity to do a private initial presentation interview session in front of a 2-person judge panel.
– Consistent with new FIRST rules for this season, the Engineering Portfolio is optional for this judging.
– The judges will provide verbal feedback at the conclusion of this session.
Option 2 – On Saturday morning from 8-10 AM (before robot rounds start), we are offering a unique opportunity for practice judging and to help newer teams get experience with the FTC judging process. We are looking for up to four teams to volunteer to participate in an open public judging session in front of all teams. With the team’s permission, we will also optionally record each session to make available to teams not at the event.
The four teams participating in this option will:
– Provide a digital copy of their Engineering Portfolio in advance (while not required for some awards this season, we are requiring these four teams to have one)
– Give their prepared presentation to the judge panel in front of the audience
– Have the usual Q & A with the judges in front of the audience
– This judge panel will conclude by presenting both positive and critical real-time verbal feedback to the teams on their performance in the judging session and on their portfolio.
For teams coming to Alamogordo, if you are interested in either the Friday evening practice or being one of the four teams participating in the open Saturday morning sessions, please let me know by response to this email or by using the “contact us” feature on this website before noon on Friday Nov 8. If more than four teams sign up for the Saturday Morning session, we will choose the four teams by random drawing from the teams that applied. Teams not selected would automatically be given a slot on Friday evening.
If you have not signed up for Alamogordo and are planning to attend, please register on the website before Nov 8 if you want to participate in this judging. You will be able to make this judging choice on the signup form.
We will advise on the judging plans for the January Albuquerque Scrimmage at a later date and may refine those plans based on the experiences at Alamogordo.
I look forward to seeing you all this season!
Jim Jackson NM FTC Program Delivery Partner