FIRST Alberta

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

AC Robotics is happy to announce our first summer STEM Challenge in our series of summer challenges: Our Rube Goldberg Challenge! Do you have what it takes to build an awesome rube goldberg? Come participate in this challenge and have a chance to win some prizes!

Due to some administrative changes and requirements, participants will need complete a media consent & liability form signed by your parents (If under the age of 18) which can be found on our sign up link. We will send the actual challenge document on Monday to those who have submitted their forms so please make sure you get those signed! https://forms.gle/X31BVpcBKQNMJsob7

Please sign up before Monday as we will send out the document details on Monday for the rube goldberg challenge to those who have submitted their media consent & liability forms.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to email AC Robotics! We hope to see you participate and hope you have fun with our first challenge!

Bored out of your mind? Itching to get your hands dirty in creating fascinating projects? Wondering what you can do while preparing for the next FRC/FLL/FTC season? We invite you to join the ACRobotics Summer STEM Challenge and show us what you got! The AC Robotics Summer STEM Challenge will be a series of 4-5 bi-weekly challenges designed by us that will be run throughout the summer for youth across Alberta to demonstrate their skills in mechanical design, prototyping, programming and problem-solving. If you, your family or team mates are willing to team up to take this challenge, come and join us on July 3rd for the release of our first challenge! There will be some great prizes, goodies and Internet clout for the winners of these challenges! Please feel free to DM us, or email us at info@acrobotics.ca if you have any questions! This challenge is open to all FIRST participants (FLL, FTC, FRC), however please be aware that prizing may be limited to Alberta/Canadian residents only due to shipping costs for the prizes.

Every second week starting from July 3rd, we will be releasing challenges on Friday. These problem-solving tasks require your creativity and tinkering. Participants have one (1) week after the challenge is released to complete and submit their projects. More information on judging criteria, guidelines and prizes will be announced later this week.

Follow @ACRobotics_UofC to be notified when our first challenge released on July 3rd.

On April 29th at 6:00 PM (MDT) FIRST is hosting a Regional Award Show to announce the winners of our regions Dean’s List, Woddie Flowers, and Chairman’s Award recipients.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/606512750

Dear Students, Coaches and Volunteers,

On behalf of FIRST Robotics Society, we want to extend our most heartfelt sympathies that our FIRST Robotics Competition season must be cut short. For those that have not seen the announcement, FIRST headquarters has suspended all events until further notice.  Alberta Health Services has also requested that we cancel the Canadian Rockies Regional event on April 1-4th as it falls within criteria deemed too high risk for preventing the spread of the COVID-19 virus.  

We understand all the effort, time and commitment that are put forth into a season.  Our hearts are broken with our students, and our disappointments run deep with our coaches and volunteers.  That being said, we have no greater commitment than to protecting the health and safety of our local FIRST Community.

We would like to extend our most sincere gratitude for your support of our regional organization, and we thank you for your understanding.  We hope that with some patience and good fortune that this pandemic will end as quickly as it began. While we cannot plan for an FRC event until the COVID-19 virus is no longer considered a threat to those in attendance, we are planning to keep that option open.  Please consider keeping your robots intact so that we can gather community together again when the time is right. We are built better together!

With our warmest regards,

FIRST Robotics Society Planning Committee Members and Board of Directors