Our FTC Affiliate Partners have provided specific details on which 9 teams will advance from each of the four League Tournaments on Feb 4 and 5. See the League Meet page http://www.sdftc.org/league-meets.html

Check your robots BEFORE Field Inspections at the League Tournaments next weekend!

Teams don't forget that you need to be aware of servo controller limitations:​

​For example, the Modern Robotics Core Servo Controller is limited to 5 Amps of continuous output current, so if your robot gets stuck with servos fully on, they could draw too much current and cause a problem. 

​Fortunately FTC #4251 Cougar Robotics gathered information on common servo stall currents back in 2014:
http://cougarrobot.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=327:servo-stall-currents&catid=99:general​

1. Parking on the Center Vortex Base or the Corner Vortex Ramp ONLY scores points during Autonomous, so don't bother parking in Endgame.

​2. Penalties are being called for hitting the Beacons and perimeter walls too hard. "Too hard" is somewhat subjective, but the referees' call is final so consider modifying your button pushing mechanism and/or implementing a drive-slow  mode for activating the Beacons.

​3. Lifting the Cap Ball before Endgame will prevent your team from scoring the Cap Ball at all - see <GS15>.

​Anyone have any other tips to share?  Please comment!

Just announced on Friday, 18-21 teams in each Super-Region will be chosen by lottery to participate at the FTC World Championship for their region. Any team that has competed in local FTC events can enter the lottery; teams don't have to have advanced to the Super-Regional Championship. In fact more lottery entries are available for teams that have not attended the World Championship before. See the details at the Official FTC blog:
​http://firsttechchallenge.blogspot.com/2016/11/first-tech-challenge-world-championship.html

Here is an early leak of a rules interpretation on particle recycling that is apparently going to be on the FTC Forum when it opens! (This screenshot grabbed from Facebook.)  Comments?
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The diagram measurements of the Center Vortex Assembly in the Game Manual Part 2 have been corrected as of Sep 19  so now version 1.2 is the one everyone should be referring to. The diagram at the bottom of page 9, Diagram 1.3-2 (caption flowed to page 10) now shows the correct heights of various parts of the Center Vortex pieces. Heh, that's so much easier now!
​https://firstinspiresst01.blob.core.windows.net/ftc/game-manual-part-2.pdf

The FTC TEC (Team Engineering Collaborative) Network has been joining teams together over Google Hangout videoconferences. Their next event for discussing the just released "Velocity Vortex" challenge is tomorrow afternoon Sep 12 at 4:30-5:30pm Pacific. Rookies and veterans are all welcome; you can just watch and listen, or you can discuss to your heart's content.