Dear FIRST community in Alberta,
As you well know, the COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting all of our lives recently, and despite efforts
in Alberta to reduce its impact, the case numbers continue to climb. The Government of Alberta has been
closely monitoring the situation and has continued to provide guidance to all organizations across the
province as we all struggle to envision what the near future will bring.
The Board of Directors of First Robotics Society met to discuss all our options for this coming season, but
unfortunately there really aren’t many. Therefore, for the 2020-2021 FIRST Robotics season FRS will not be
holding any in-person competitions, demonstrations, workshops, or any other other event that has people
in the same space and will not sanction or sponsor any in-person events. FRS will however support virtual FIRST
programs during this season.
If you have a team that can meet in a safe way and wish to compete in a FIRST virtual competition or
event, please let us know, as we will help facilitate any virtual competitions that FIRST develops. As of
now, we are working on supporting the FTC level virtual competition being developed by FIRST, and look
forward to supporting it if we have enough teams interested. Please do make sure that you are following
all safety guidelines published by the Government of Alberta. Student safety should be the primary factor
when planning anything this season.
Also our core FRS volunteers are working on ideas to support remote education and other ideas for
online delivery, so we do hope to have some things available during the course of the year.
Please keep safe, and let’s all look forward to being able to resume competitions.
Sincerely,
Russell Weir
Operations Director
First Robotics Society