Dear TechX Competition Families!

We have PLENTY of UPDATES to share with you:

BEN LIPPER OPPORTUNITY
Tomorrow (Wednesday, September 11) at 5:00 PM, I would like to invite team members and parents to attend a Zoom Meeting hosted by VEX IQ Competition expert Ben Lipper. While parents are welcome, this is geared towards helping team members and coaches gain insights about this year’s Rapid Relay game! It is FREE, and here’s the link to register: 2024 Kickoff Hosted by Ben Lipper

TEAM ROSTERS!
After much discussion and planning to figure out the best combinations of team members that we can place into our 3 teams, Coach Jared and I are excited to announce the following teams!

• 277T (Elementary School): George, Naethan, Jillian

• 277X (Elementary School): Vihaan, Nishant, Grayson

• 277R (Middle School): Lucas, Swaroop

Each team is in the process of choosing their Team Name! This is going to be fun!

TEAM ROLES
We will do our best to evaluate each team member’s talent and interests in order to assign them one of the following roles by the end of September:

• Builder

• Programmer

• Notebook Manager

Please keep in mind that each role is a “lead” role. In other words, the “Builder” is simply the Lead Builder, and will be expected to Program and record in Notebooks as well. The same will be true for the Programmer and Notebook Manager to be able to do the other tasks even though they are the Lead in that particular role!

While this will suffice for now, there are additional roles such as Scout and Project Manager. Within a single Rapid Relay game itself, students have to participate within each of the following roles as well:

• Loader

• 1st Driver

• 2nd Driver

FURTHER COMMENTS ABOUT ROSTERS
Please keep in mind that while we hope to keep these rosters permanent, we are flexible to make changes as needed especially as different circumstances occur throughout the season. All potential team roster changes will be reviewed and approved by Coach Jared and Mr. Nguyen. In cases of internal team conflict, we will do our best to guide team members to resolve conflicts before we even consider switching members to different teams. To ensure a safe and fun environment for our team members, please directly notify Coach Jared or me about any concerns or conflicts so that we can properly address them.

RECENT SESSIONS & TEAM PROGRESS
Our sessions have been fun yet very productive. Coach Jared and I see that this is a wonderful group of respectful, hard working, intelligent and fun kids! As our Competition Tech Lead, Coach Jared is doing a phenomenal job guiding your child and their teammates in building, testing and improving the robot. This week, Coach Jared will begin the process of teaching your child and their teammates how to code the competition robot. At the same time, I am guiding teams on creating their Team Notebook. We begin with the basic Team Number, Team Name, and Student Profile.

This week, we will go over documenting key details about the Game’s Field and Rules in the Notebook. After this, team members will get more in-depth training on the Engineering Design Process, and how they need to document how this Process occurs in the development of their team’s robot. For students new to robotics, this will not be an easy process, and we will begin slow. However, we expect them to get a little more independent in managing their notebook as the season progresses. While we will have a designated Notebook Manager, we will set the expectation that all team members will contribute to the notebook as the Notebook Manager will manage the effort to maintain a high quality notebook.

As mentioned before, having competitive notebooks are the key to earning the top “Judged Awards” like the Excellence and Design Awards.

VIRTUAL SKILLS
Coach Jared just released the Virtual Skills Challenge link to each team. The Virtual Skills Challenge allows Programmers from each team to test their code for the VIQRC Rapid Relay game with a Virtual Robot! Unfortunately, this is only a coding challenge as teams cannot build their robot online. While this alone will not guarantee a spot at the World Championship, the score earned by team members will be automatically recorded onto a large database with an opportunity for kids to rank in the Virtual Skills Standings! This is fantastic practice for programmers, especially when the Builders are working on building the robot!

As explained to your child, the will need to go to vr.vex.com, and then use their team’s Virtual Skills Access Key to gain access:

The access key of Team 277T is 4XTZ7S

The access key of Team 277X is 4XCXPG

The access key of Team 277R is 4XTZ8J

REC FOUNDATION CONSENT FORM
The VEX IQ Robotics Competition (VIQRC) is a collaboration between VEX Robotics and the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation (or more popularly known as the “REC Foundation”). The REC Foundation and VEX Robotics require all participants to complete an Official Consent Form. While all student participants must have a completed Minor Consent Form, I would like to encourage parents who plan to attend tournaments to also complete the Adult Consent Form in case they help out in any way even if it is not by Coaching. Each link below contains both the Minor and Adult Consent Forms, and is listed by Team as the Team Number is prefilled (please check the top of this Update for your child’s Team Number):

• 277T Consent Forms (George, Naethan, Jillian)

• 277X Consent Forms (Vihaan, Nishant, Grayson)

• 277R Consent Forms (Lucas, Swaroop)

EXTRA PRACTICE SCHEDULE UPDATE
The schedule for Extra Practices has been modified due to Lyceum only being available after 2:00 PM. Please complete the following SIGNUP SHEET to schedule your child for these next practice sessions.

ABSENCES
While we have not mentioned this before, but moving forward, please contact us if you know your child cannot attend a Monday or Friday Afterschool Session. This always helps us to plan lessons and activities accordingly.

TECHX ROBOTICS VENMO LINK
If you ever need to Venmo TechX Robotics, please use this link: TechX Robotics Venmo information. This came up when one of your kind families wanted to contribute pizza via Venmo! THANK YOU!

POTENTIAL SCRIMMAGES AGAINST OTHER SCHOOLS
To keep you informed, we are looking to participate in Scrimmages with local schools. At this stage, we are reaching out but will keep you posted once we schedule scrimmages. This is a fantastic way to form Alliances with teams before Tournaments, and is a great way to practice as well!

COMPETITION APPAREL
We will be ordering special TechX Robotics Competition T-Shirts. This will not be an extra cost for team members. Stay tuned as we will look to eventually add hoodies, hats, and more!

PARENT MEETING - TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 at 7:00 PM
As you can see above, we have A LOT to discuss, especially details about each Tournament! We will host a 1-Hour Parent Meeting next Tuesday, September 17 at 7:00 PM to help all TechX Competition families get on the same page. We will record the meeting but will not post it to the Public. I will send out a reminder as the time gets close, but you can also get the link to the upcoming Meeting here: PARENT MEETING - Upcoming Tournaments and Other Questions

IN CASE YOU DIDN’T COMPLETE THIS IMPORTANT SURVEY
Please complete the Survey so we can plan our upcoming Tournaments accordingly! While many of you completed this Survey before, I have added an additional important question that I would like all of you to answer: Your Child’s correct Shirt Size! (if you previously completed the “Select all Tournaments Your Child Can Attend” section, then you won’t have to answer it this time)

If you need more details about these Tournaments, here is what I explained from a prior UPDATE:

TechX Robotics is on the map! Many tournaments were released this past Monday, and TechX Robotics is signed up for 4 tournaments so far! This means that we will look for additional Tournaments as they become available for us as we have met our “Early Bird” limits. It is important to note that two Tournaments are nearby, while one is over 1 hour away in Arcadia, and the other is in Oklahoma.

We signed up for the Tournament in Arcadia because it has much less spots (24) than most tournaments (40 or more). This smaller number greatly increases our chances to win a State Qualifying Award.

The Tournament in Oklahoma is known as a Signature Event. This means that Team who win certain Awards at the Signature Event could bypass the State Championship and directly earn a spot at the World Championship! Team Members who participate in this event will miss school from Thursday, November 7 through Saturday, November 9.

At least one Parent or Guardian is required to be with a Team Member at every single Tournament. In order to gather a preliminary idea of which Tournaments your family would be able to attend, please complete the Survey below: