The 2016 season Challenge, Animal Allies, is now launched! Many people are saying that this is their favorite and all of us are excited to see what your team comes up with to solve this year’s Challenge!  FIRST has created a summary page with all of the challenge links – not sure where to start?   The Challenge Guide is the first document to read and this is a very high level overview of the 3 parts to the Challenge: Core Values, Project and Robot Game.

And if you are just pulling your team together – you are not alone!  Many, many teams form into September. See the Resources Page for helpful places for learning programming, robot building and spend some time reading the very helpful, Coaches Handbook.

After you get your 5 digit official national team number from FIRST  (the nine digit one that starts with 2016x is just a temporary number), you will need to get your team registered with NorCal to compete in a qualifier tournament. Instructions are available.

Finally,  reach out to your local coaches by signing up and posting on the social.norcalfllc.org site – it allows you to post local scrimmages, ask questions and connect via groups to those in your area.  Or you can read/post on the national FIRST LEGO League forum.

We are excited to offer an early option for teams to get registered into a qualifier tournament this season.  Once your team becomes eligible to register, a link to register will show up in your team’s status page (similar to how you accessed the payment link).  Some important notes though.

1.  Not all of the qualifiers are confirmed!  Current list.  On each Monday at ~6pm, I will be adding any additional confirmed qualifier tournaments.
2. As time allows, I will be reviewing team’s jotform submissions, so you will be enabled just as soon as the requirements are met.  Early Bird Registration will not really close but eventually there will not be any additional open spots until we move into General Registration which opens up the remaining half of all tournament spots.
3. Don’t register if you are not 100% sure of which qualifier tournament you want to attend.  We do expect most (if not all) of the 2015 tournament hosts will be returning, so if you don’t see the qualifier tournament listed that you want, then don’t register!
4. Once you register, there is no mechanism to change your choices, so choose carefully!
5. There will be 4 districts – the East Bay district is undergoing some tweaks but will be (at least) Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

Not sure that Early Bird Registration means?  Here is the information published earlier.