Invitations for the State Championship will be released following the close of our last district event on Saturday evening.  The information can be found on our firstinmichigan.org website under high school events. Near the top, before the event list, is a link to the State Rankings. It will show there if you are qualified. 160 teams minus the Impact winners from our district events will qualify through their rankings. Impact winners qualify outright, without regard to their points/ranking.

WHAT IF WE DON’T WANT TO ATTEND STATES?

Please let us know if you plan to decline should you be offered a spot at States or at Worlds. Fill out this form only if you plan to decline:

$4,000 for the State Championship at SVSU in Saginaw.

$5,000 to the World Championship in Houston.

Please note: For those teams that are only competing for an AWARD, but not competing with their robot, THERE IS NO FEE.  This includes teams competing for Rookie All Star, Impact Award, Dean’s List and EI where the team did not have enough points to qualify for States with their robot. The fee only applies if your robot is playing too.

Turnaround time to secure your registration with FIRST is super short. You find out on Saturday night and must secure your payment by credit card or PO on Monday.

If you plan to secure your payment with a PO, here are two items that will allow you to go to your administration TODAY and get your PO ready for Monday’s upload of the PO into your dashboard:

Here is a link to a blank invoice you can customize with your school district/ team info and present to your business office with our request:

WHEN IS LOAD-IN AT SVSU?

We are trying something new this year, which is getting rid of Wednesday altogether. Load in will now be early Thursday. There are two load-in periods:

7:00 – 9:30 am

DROP AND GO LOAD IN (no setting up, drop then leave the pits)

9:30 – noon

REGULAR LOAD IN with pits open

Please note that rounds will begin on Thursday this year immediately following 5:00 pm opening ceremonies.

We will once again have companies onsite Thursday and Friday who are interested in interviewing your students. Although not necessary, students should consider bringing along a resume.

We will once again have a live webcast during the playoffs. We will ask for the name of your team spokesperson who will interact with our sideline reporter if you make it into the playoffs.

The playoff webcast will be broadcast on the normal Twitch channel for DTE field. Immediately following the playoffs, a replay of the webcast will be available on our FIRST in Michigan you tube channel.

The same holds for last week’s webcast from W Mich and this week’s webcast of the playoffs at Troy 2. Both can be found on the firstinmichigan Youtube channel following the live twitch broadcast. The separate interviews are included both in the full broadcast and also linked there as standalone interviews.