There are a few ways that FIRST Tech Challenge offers help and assistance to our team and volunteer community to ensure their success when competing in, or volunteering for, the program. Outlined below are the ways teams and our volunteer community can ask their questions and receive feedback from FIRST Tech Challenge experts!
Game Q&A Forum
This is where teams can ask questions about gameplay, competition rules, judging rules, robot build rules, field setup and team scoring element rules. Every team is provided one account that can be used to ask questions and receive official answers from our game design experts.
Access to the Game Q&A forum is through the Lead Coach 1 and/or Lead Coach 2’s account through the www.firstinspires.org dashboard. Instructions on how to create the account can be found here.
Teams may still create a separate account for the forum so that they can view the forum, however only official accounts may ask questions.
The forum can be accessed here: https://ftc-qa.firstinspires.org/
Volunteer Forum
The volunteer forum is a place where volunteers can ask questions and receive official feedback/answers about their volunteer role. The following roles can have access to these forums if they request it:
- Volunteer Coordinator
- Head Referee and Referee
- Regional Lead Judge Advisor
- Judge Advisor
- Judge
- Field Manager
- Field Inspector
- Robot Inspector
- Scorekeeper
Volunteers will need to request access to the volunteer forum. Instructions on requesting access can be found here. Note that the FTA/CSA/WTA Forums are moving to the FIRST Tech Challenge Community forum described below.
FIRST Tech Challenge Community
The FIRST Tech Challenge Community is a platform intended to replace the aging ftcforumwhere Teams can ask/answer questions and give/receive feedback about non-game-specific topics. These topics include the official FIRST Tech Challenge Software Development Kit (SDK), programming their robot, using the Machine Learning Toolchain, FTA/CSA/WTA volunteer roles, and others! This resource is intended for all levels, from students to mentors!
The platform can be accessed here: https://ftc-community.firstinspires.org/
The login on this forum uses the FIRST Dashboard Single Sign-On (SSO). To create an account:
- Go to the https://www.firstinspires.org/ website and click on the “Register” button in the upper-right corner of the webpage. Note that if you’re a team coach, mentor, or student you likely already have a FIRST account that you used to register with a team.
- Use that account to log in to the FIRST Tech Challenge Community Platform!
