Saturday, October 12, 2013

Nature's Fury Team Blast #5 - Tournament Registration, Practice Tournaments, & Training

Hello coaches, we are approaching the halfway mark of the season in the next few weeks and I hope all is going smoothly.  In this email blast I'm happy to announce that the Nature's Fury Qualifying Tournament Registration system is live!  Below are the two topics for this email.

TOURNAMENT REGISTRATION
PRACTICE TOURNAMENTS
TRAINING
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Tournament Registration
Please note that Ontario is divided into two distinct regions based on numbers and geography.   The short story is that if your team is based west of Toronto you will register for a Western qualifying tournament which will feed into the West Provincial Championships at the University of Waterloo on January 11th, 2014.  If your team is based IN* Toronto or East of Toronto you will register your team for an Eastern Qualifying Tournament which will feed into the East Provincial Championships at UOIT in Oshawa on January 18th, 2014.

Links to register for qualifying tournaments in both divisions can be found on our website here: http://www.firstroboticscanada.org/main/fll-tournament-registration/

You'll notice a tab on the page that says "East Championship Qualifiers" and one that says "West Championship Qualifiers".  Please click on the appropriate tab and then register your team using the link provided in the appropriate box.  There is a PDF of the questions you'll be asked which you should download and read through before registering so you have the necessary information at your fingertips for actually registering (i.e. food order from the kids, etc.).   Please see attached screen shot for further clarification.

Teams may only register for one event at this time.  If space allows we may open up a second round of registrations.  In this case, the 2nd event attended would be simply for fun and no awards or advancement would be provided to teams attending their 2nd event.

Deadline: Please register your team by Friday, October 25th at the latest.
Tournament Fee: The tournament fee is in addition to the Team Registration fee you paid to FIRST HQ/Spectrum.  These fees help to cover the cost of running the event.


Practice Tournaments
Practice tournaments are one of the most valuable ways you can prepare your team for your qualifier.  I HIGHLY recommend attending one if there is one in your area.  Currently we have 3 events planned...don't know if there is one in your area?  Check out this page to see!  


Training
We had a great turnout at both the FLL Kickoff in September and the Swatposium (last Saturday).   If you missed these opportunities, plan to attend next year.  There is information prepared for all stages of teams from rookie to advanced.  For those of you who want more...we have been hosting our online webinars in the evenings and you can see the upcoming workshops here: http://www.firstroboticscanada.org/main/fll-ontario/training-resources/

You'll also note that all of our webinars are recorded and posted on this same page for you to review in case you can't make it live.

Make sure to tune in on October 15th for our next webinar where we will be discussing the Research Project.  To register for this webinar specifically, click here.



Take care,

 Dave

* The exception to this rule being one TDSB tournament which will be in the West Division to help even out the numbers on each side of the province.  TDSB teams will be contacted directly by their Tournament Directors to indicate which tournament they should attend.


Dave Ellis
Director, FLL Ontario
FIRST Robotics Canada
www.firstroboticscanada.org

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