Teams,
 
I hope this finds your well and you are have a pleasant holiday season.
 
I want to try something new this year called “Adopt a Rookie Team” in the spirit of the holidays and our regions sub-moto of “Teams helping Teams, Students helping Students.”
 
The end goal is to get each rookie team connected with a veteran team within the region who can help them navigate the complexities of running a FTC team.
 
If you are a Rookie Team and would like to be paired up with a Veteran Team, please send an email to our FIRST Senior Mentor Demian Martinez at dmartinez@firstinspires.org.
 
If you are a Veteran Team willing to “Adopt a Rookie Team” please also send an email to Demian at the same address and if you are already working with a Rookie team, thank you!!!  Please let Demian know who you are working with!
 
Thank you,
 
Matt Nilsen
San Diego FTC – Affiliate Partner
SanDiegoFTC@gmail.com

Hello FIRST FTC mentors and coaches!
 
It’s time to nominate your students for the 2017-2018 Dean’s List Award!
A Dean’s list submission guide is attached for your reference.
 
Important Dates:
January 15th, 11:59 pm        
Student nominations must be uploaded to FIRST FTC Dean’s List site (accessed via Team Registration System)
 
February 10th, February 11th League Championship Tournament(s)
Interviews of nominated students take place at each League’s Championship Tournament
 
February 28th San Diego Regional Championship
Three (3) student Finalists announced to be in the running for Dean’s List Winner spots at the World Championship
 
 
Student Eligibility:
Every registered team may submit two (2) students as FIRST Dean’s List Award Semi-finalists.
Students must be a sophomore (grade 10) or junior (grade 11) to be eligible for this award.
 
Nomination Process:
Student nomination(s) are done electronically from the Team Registration Dashboard through the FIRST Tech Challenge Dean’s List Award System (see detailed instructions in attached Submission Guideline)
 The coach or mentor nominating the student(s) must submit an essay explaining why the student should receive this award. 
The essay must be 4,000 characters or less.
 
For a list of Dean’s List award selection criteria and a detailed explanation of the submission process please see the attached Dean’s List Submission Guide.
 
REMEMBER! :
All student nominations must be uploaded to the FIRST Dean’s List site via the Team Registration System no later than January 15th, 11:59 pm
 
 
This nomination process can often be confusing for first-time mentors and coaches. 
Please do not hesitate to reach out to me for further clarification if needed.
juliebonnardel@hotmail.com  (858) 431-9189
 
Good Luck to your teams as they build and compete during this 2017-2018 FTC season!
 
Kind Regards,
Julie Bonnardel

Teams,

As was emailed a week ago, the region has made the decision to not count the scores for the League Meets held on 12/9.  This decision was made before the teams began to compete, in the spirit of Gracious Professionalism, as to not penalize the 10 teams who were unable to accommodate the last minute schedule changes, or were compromised from the fire behavior for situations out of their control.

In order to accommodate this situation while maintaining our schedule, percentages of counted scores, etc. the following changes are being implemented:

1) League Meets 2, 3 and League Meet Championships (Meet 4) will proceed as scheduled and will be held without any changes (6 matches per date per team).
2) The best 8 scores (not 10) out of the 12 matches in Meets 2 and 3 will be carried forward and used as the starting score at the League Meet Championship.  This percentage matches the league meet guidelines of a 2:3 ratio.

These changes were discussed at length with FIRST HQ and here locally among the planning committee and the host team mentors.

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me:

Matt Nilsen
San Diego FTC - Affiliate Partner

P.S. The results of the meets for week 1 are attached FOR REFERENCE ONLY.  Again, these scores will not be used for standings in the region and region/league overall standings will not be compiled from this information.

The North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) is a fun contest for U.S. and Canadian middle and high school students in which contestants compete by solving compelling and creative puzzles in linguistics and computational linguistics. Requiring no previous knowledge of linguistics, languages, or computing, these puzzles can be solved by analytic reasoning alone, and serve as a fun introduction to a field to which many students have never been introduced. Winners of NACLO are eligible to compete in the International Linguistics Olympiad, one of twelve international high school science Olympiads.

​Try some of these practice problems: http://nacloweb.org/practice.php#naclo_online

Students must register by Jan 14, 2018 for the Open Round at SDSU; more information available here:
https://sites.google.com/a/mail.sdsu.edu/naclo/

The top US team and perhaps additional teams will get a trip to the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL)!
http://nacloweb.org/

For any of you who know an undergraduate female interested in aerospace, or for you to keep in mind once you start college - check out the Brooke Owen Fellowship. The deadline is Tue Dec 5, but you can apply online. Look at the opportunities listed as of today:
http://www.brookeowensfellowship.org/
​
​Host Institution
Aerospace Corporation
Air Line Pilots Association
Airbus Americas
Altius Space Machines
Amazon Prime Air
Avascent
Ball Aerospace
Blue Origin
Bryce Space and Technology
Commercial Spaceflight Federation   
Generation Orbit
HawkEye 360
Jet Blue Technology Ventures
Made in Space
The Moak Group
Mojave Air and Space Port
Museum of Flight
Orbital ATK
Planet
Planetary Resources
Scaled Composites
Sierra Nevada Corporation
Space Angels
SpaceX
SSL
Stratolaunch
The Spaceship Company
Ventions
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Orbit
Vulcan
XPRIZE Foundation