September 19, 2025 | firstalberta.ca

Hello and bonjour teams,

We hope the start of your season is going well! We have a couple things to tell you about this week:

1. Mentor Meetings and Team Training Sessions
2. Registration
3. Clubs that Care Grant
4. FTC Sim Rookie Grants
5. Team Hardship Grants

Mentor Meetings and Team Training

Mentor Meetings are back and will start next Wednesday, September 24th. All meetings will start at 7PM on Google Meet.

• September 24th: Registration, League Meets and Scrimmages
• November 5th: Dean’s List
• December 17th: League Tournaments, Qualifiers, Judging, and Advancement
• February 11th: Alberta Championship

We are also pleased to start a new series of Team Training sessions. These sessions will be open to mentors and your students so please forward it to them as well. We have 3 sessions confirmed at this time but are working to bring you more.

• October 7th @ 7PM: Strategy presented by our Alumni Coordinator Michelle
• October 15th @ 7PM: CAD presented by Hyper Droid
• November 19th @ 7PM: Statistics presented by Nighthawks Robotics

All meetings will also be on Google Meet. Interested in see another topic presented or want to present one? Let us know!

You can always find the schedule and the slides or recordings on our website. 

Registration

Just a reminder for everyone that registration for this season (both FIRST HQ and FIRST Alberta) is due on November 1st. To register with FIRST Alberta, please visit firstalberta.ca/ftc/registration. We have 3 sets of grants currently available but you need to act fast!

Clubs that Care Grant

Funded by Government of Canada, the Clubs That Care Micro-grants supports youth leaders ages 15-30 in making a difference in the lives of people with disabilities.

Successful applicants will:

• Receive a $3,000 micro-grant
• Engage 10 volunteers through build events
• Complete and deliver 20 assistive technologies to Canadians with disabilities
• Purchase tools, 3D printers, and supplies to host build events
• Be supported by Makers Making Change staff and fellow leaders across Canada

For more information and to apply, please visit their website.

FTC Sim Rookie Grants

For all our rookie teams, the FTC SIM grant is back. There are 100 grants of $1,000 USD available. The only requirement is that your students complete some basic coding challenges in an FTC simulation. This will also help your students learn how to code your robot!

Please visit here for more information.

Team Hardship Grants

Are you looking for extra funding support this year? The FIRST Tech Challenge Hardship Grant is back with some changes to its award process!

This year all FIRST Tech Challenge Hardship Grants will be awarded through your Program Delivery Partner’s nominations! The grant is also no longer limited to rookie teams!

Please review the grant webpage to learn more about the eligibility requirements for this grant and the next steps. If your team meets all of the eligibility requirements for this grant, you can email philippe@firstalberta.ca and joshua@firstalberta.ca. In your email, please outline why your team needs this grant and what it will mean to the team to get it. Please keep in mind that this grant is need-based and our focus is on making the program more accessible.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us! We are here to help. Unless you have a specific question for one of us, please feel free to use the generic FIRST Tech Challenge leadership team email (firsttechchallenge@firstalberta.ca) so you can get a faster response from one of our dedicated members.

Your FIRST Tech Challenge Alberta Leadership Team