Get a Jump on the FRC season via the FIRST Tech Challenge!

May 26, 2010

By MN Regional Staff

Looking for a way to jump-start your FRC Team this season? The FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics program is growing in Minnesota, and there are tremendous benefits to add it to an existing FIRSTRobotics program. FTC offers a small group, competitive robotics experience, using a mid-sized robot (18” x 18"). These robots are modular, providing hands-on building without hours of instructional time needed. FTC robots can be programmed in either robot C or Labview, which neatly dovetails programming required for FRC robots. Participation in FTC is a terrific “warm up” to the FRC build season or can be developed as a Junior Varsity or Junior High School program. Participation and entry fees are reasonable; the winners of the State Championship tournament are invited to the World Championships. FTC announces the game challenge in early September; tournaments begin in December. There’s no shipping deadline – teams bring their robots with them to the competition. Contact Joe Passofaro, MNFTC at prodigy dot net, for more information about starting or renewing an FTC team. More details are available at the US FIRST website here.