where is the official competition manual

The official Competition Manual is located on the Game and Season Materials page on the FIRST website at https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/files/ftc/game .

Direct links to the manual include:

PDF format: https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/file/ftc/game/manual or https://ftc.game/manual .
HTML format: https://ftc.game/cm-html .

The manual is also referenced in the restricted section "FIRST Official > Game and Season Materials — Competition Manual, Game Manual Part 1 and Part 2" at https://www.firstinspires.org/resource-library/ftc/game-and-season-info .

Was this right?

Sources16

Competition Manual

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

The Competition Manual can be found on the Game and Season Materials page (https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/files/ftc/game) on the FIRST Website.

Open FTC Docs

Phone Pairing

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

The Robot Controller and Driver Station apps are extremely reliable for pairing, including between all models of legal phones. Please see the Competition Manual (https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/ftc/game/manual) for list of phone models currently legal to use at FIRST Tech Challenge events.

When the Android phones have been suitably prepared, pairing via Wi-Fi Direct is fast and usually automatic. Here is a procedure that addresses various pre-existing conditions that can impede pairing.

This article does not cover the REV Control Hub or REV Driver Hub.

Open FTC Docs

FIRST Official > Game and Season Materials — Competition Manual, Game Manual Part 1 and Part 2

FIRST Official·FIRST copyright — not openly licensed

This source does not publish a licence, so its text is not reproduced here. Open the source to read it.

Open FIRST Official

Playing Field Resources

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

(Figure: Traditional Playing Field, CENTERSTAGE presented by RTX, 2023-2024)

There are multiple configurations of the playing field that can be used. For traditional games, the playing field is a part of the Arena that includes the 12 ft. x 12 ft. (3.66 m x 3.66 m) field and all the elements described in the official field drawings. The base field stays the same for all games but the game elements are subject to change as per the Competition Manual.

The Competition Manual contains an Arena section that details the playing field for that years game. It includes measurements for key aspects of the field and game elements and scoring elements. For example, the height of a basket into which a scoring element can be placed. The Competition Manual can be found on the Game and Season Materials page (https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/files/ftc/game) on the FIRST Website.

Open FTC Docs

Types of Awards > Individual Awards > FIRST Leadership Award > Official Competition Manual Description

Game Manual 0·CC BY-NC 4.0

The interview is where the Leadership Award Interviewers can meet you and potentially learn some new information about you. There is no need to dress up for your interview, but we do recommend that you prepare for it as if it were a job interview. Come up with some talking points so you can remember things that you want to tell the judges in response to questions, do mock interviews, and come into the interview planning to be confident and engaging. Remember that this is a conversational interview; there are no presentations, video links provided to the interviewer for post-interview review, or informational handouts involved.

During the interview, please remember that it is about YOU, your contributions, leadership, etc. in relation to the criteria of the award. For example, if you are discussing accomplishments of your team as a whole, make sure to specify how your individual efforts were vital in the success of those accomplishments. Do not be shy about sharing your personal successes!

The number of semi-finalists that will move onto the next level as finalists depends upon the region. Regions with larger team numbers will have additional spots to advance students based on the previous year's registration numbers. You can find number of advancing finalists by region here (https://info.firstinspires.org/hubfs/web/program/ftc/deans-list-nomination-guide.pdf).

FIRST Leadership Award Winners - comprised of the ten (10) FIRST Robotics Competition and ten (10) FIRST Tech Challenge students selected from the applicable FIRST Leadership Award Finalists at the FIRST Championship.

Open Game Manual 0

New Teams

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

Welcome to FIRST Tech Challenge! Resources have been organized by type to help your team stay organized and be successful throughout the season. Get started by exploring our robot building resources, control system and the game. You may also find the Coach's Playbook, a weekly schedule of activities, helpful to organize the whole team under Team Management. Just click on the button for the resource you want to explore!

FIRST Core Values

^^^

We express the FIRST philosophies of Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition through our Core Values.

+++

Gracious Professionalism

Coopertition (external)

Core Values (external)

Programming Resources

^^^

Look for programming resources here.

+++

Choosing a Programming Tool

Blocks Programming Tutorial

Programming Resources

Robot Building and Control

^^^

Look for robot and control system resources here.

+++

The FTC Control System

Robot Controller

Driver Station

Hardware Component Overview

Team Resources (external)

Competition Manual

^^^

Be sure you're following all of the rules of the competition! The Competition Manual is an essential document.

+++

Competition Manual

Playing Field Resources

Game Question and Answer System (external)

Team Management

^^^

Links to team management resources like team registration, mentor training/resources, team budget and fundraising, preparing for a competition, and more.

+++

Team Management (external)

CAD Resources

^^^

Look for resources for Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software.

+++

CAD Resources

Event Info

^^^

FTC events and event results.

+++

FTC Events (external)

Awards

^^^

Know the awards criteria before the event.

+++

FTC Awards (external PDF)

Frequently Asked Questions

^^^

Commonly asked team questions.

+++

Frequently Asked Questions

Open FTC Docs

AI Innovation Corner

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

In FIRST Tech Challenge, one of the first tasks teams have to do is to read and understand the FIRST Tech Challenge Competition Manual. This can be a very painstaking task, and even a skilled reader can miss subtle nuances provided by the manual. However, an AI can break down and analyze the manual in a matter of seconds, usually preserving the nuance provided in the document. Users can then interact with the AI that has analyzed the Competition Manual, and prompt the AI to provide insights - these questions might involve locating specific information likely found in the Competition Manual, summarize important rules or processes, or even involve asking the AI to make a best guess. Through a process known as “role playing” the user can prompt the AI to take on a role or persona and direct the AI to follow specific rules as it interacts with the user in subsequent prompts. The remainder of this article is a tutorial on how to set up a “role playing” session with the Google Gemini AI through Google AI Studio to analyze and answer questions based on the FIRST Tech Challenge 2024-2025 Competition Manual for the INTO THE DEEP presented by RTX season. While some of the nuanced elements (like AI prompting) will be shallowly covered in this article, it is something we’ll cover a lot more in future articles.

Creating an AI expert using Google AI Studio is fairly straightforward - the hard part is creating the proper prompt, and there we’ve got you covered.

Step 1 - First, log into Google AI Studio (https://ai.google.dev/aistudio). You can do this by clicking the “Sign in to Google AI Studio” button on the front page of the Google AI Studio home page. You will need a Google account in order to do this - getting one is left as an exercise to the reader. The Google account is used to store your Google AI Studio prompt sessions and any content you upload to the model, and to track usage of the Gemini APIs.

Step 2 - Let’s download the FIRST Tech Challenge Competition Manual to your local computer. You can always find the latest Competition Manual PDF at the following link:

https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/file/ftc/game/manual

Open FTC Docs

Team Resources

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

There are several resources that teams might want to access throughout the FIRST Tech Challenge season.

| FTC Blog - https://community.firstinspires.org/topic/ftc | FTC Q&A - https://ftc-qa.firstinspires.org | FTC Game and Season Info - https://ftc.game | FTC Events site - https://ftc-events.firstinspires.org | FTC Technical Support - https://ftc-community.firstinspires.org | FTC Avatar Submission - https://community.firstinspires.org/team-avatars | FTC Scoring Site (for avatar and hybrid event portfolio submission) - https://ftc-scoring.firstinspires.org | FTC Competition Manual - https://ftc.game/manual | FTC Competition Manual (HTML) - https://ftc.game/cm-html | FTC Competition Manual AI Chatbot - https://ftc-cmchatbot.firstinspires.org

Open FTC Docs

Awards

Game Manual 0·CC BY-NC 4.0

FIRST® Tech Challenge is more than just building robots, it contains elements of engineering documentation, outreach, and more. While the majority of Game Manual 0 talks about how to make decisions about creating your robot, the portfolio you write is actually showing how you made those decisions and how you impact the STEM community around you in a positive way.

It only benefits you to go for awards. You can't win awards without making a portfolio, and in certain states the only way to advance is awards and in others it can make it significantly easier to advance. In the past an engineering notebook was required for awards, however this is no longer true. Therefore, these are the topics that will be covered in this section of Game Manual 0.

Warning: Judging and awards are extremely subjective and some rules change a bit from state to state. What works in one region may not in other regions. So contact your judges about specifics of some things; for example some competitions allow you to turn a custom control award sheet, others only accept the one listed by FIRST. The writers of this part of Game Manual 0 have extensive experience with awards and have even been winners and finalists for the Inspire Award at the World Championships.

For most awards, teams have a 5 minute presentation at the beginning of the day followed by some Q&A time and possibly pit judging later on (read the section on the judging process for more detail). There are 7 awards for FTC® teams (excluding awards that cannot advance a team).

For winning every award, the Engineering Portfolio is a key reference and is quintessential, so make sure that your team focuses on the Engineering Portfolio.

Always remember that regardless of how well you feel you did, awards have a level of subjectivity of the judges, so there is no way to 100% control how your team does for awards.

Overall, awards are one of the core parts of the FIRST Tech Challenge competition. They recognize teams at the end of every competition (except league meets) as well as determine many of the teams that advance.

Open Game Manual 0

HuskyLens Intro for *FIRST* Tech Challenge > Competition Notes

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

Now you are ready to experiment with color recognition of an actual Team Prop, also called a Team Game Element. Study the Competition Manual and the FTC Q&A (https://ftc-qa.firstinspires.org/) for the Team Prop requirements. Choose your shades of “red” and “blue” (see note below), and follow the same steps as above.

Open FTC Docs

FIRST Tech Challenge Game Q&A

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

The Game Q&A (https://ftc-qa.firstinspires.org/) is a forum/tool that provides teams an opportunity to receive clarifications from the Game Design Committee about the current season's challenge. Rulings on the Q&A are final and binding, and will be reflected in the Competition Manual.

Open FTC Docs

*FIRST* Tech Challenge Self-Inspect

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

This page describes the Self Inspect screens in the FTC Driver Station (DS) app and the FTC Robot Controller (RC) app.

A Self Inspect screen provides a snapshot of device status, as it relates to FTC rules for the control system. These rules are described in the Competition Manual which can be found on the Current Game and Season Materials page (https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/files/ftc/game) on the FIRST Website.

Tip: is available to help teams self-inspect their ROBOT before their event. Teams are strongly encouraged to self-inspect prior to their event.

There is also a Inspection Quick Reference (PDF) (https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/ftc/event/inspection-reference) with some examples of legal and illegal parts (though it is not a substitute for the Competition Manual).

The Self Inspect screen is provided only as a quick, handy reference to help teams confirm that certain control system elements are up-to-date and properly configured.

Each inspection screen updates automatically, with or without a Restart Robot. This allows quick verification that issues have been resolved.

The challenge is to maximize useful information in a small screen. The Self Inspect layout and graphics evolve with FTC requirements; this page clarifies some of the brief but meaningful captions.

Open FTC Docs

Notebook Designs and Decisions > Individual sections

Game Manual 0·CC BY-NC 4.0

Section 9.2.2 of Game Manual Part 1 lists out the type of things that are expected to see in your notebook.

They are listed here:

Problem Definition
Information Gathering
Brainstorming Solutions
Concept Design
System Level Design
Testing
Design Improvement
Production
Promotion
Budgeting
Planning
Outreach

Specific sections named in Game Manual Part 1, the Judges Manual, and Notebook Guidelines are not plentiful. They include a team plan, which is pretty much all non-robot writing---a sustainability plan, a strategic plan, and a business plan all fall into it, and doing one of these sections is required for Inspire award, and telling us what they want in the notebook (listed above). It falls to the individual notebook writers to figure out what they specifically want to call each section and what to put in each section.

Open Game Manual 0

Coach (Administrative) Resources

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

Welcome to the FIRST Tech Challenge coach's page! Resources have been organized by type to help your team stay organized and be successful throughout the season. These resources are focused on the coach or administrator needs to manage the team while promoting FIRST's ethos. Just click on the button for the resource you want to explore!

FIRST Core Values

^^^

We express the FIRST philosophies of Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition through our Core Values.

+++

Gracious Professionalism

Coopertition (external)

Core Values (external)

FIRST Dashboard Links

^^^

Discover registration and purchasing FAQs. Team Registration requires FIRST Dashboard account access on firstinspires.org.

+++

Youth Registration (external)

Team Management

^^^

Resources to provide your team a well-paced and successful season.

+++

Team Management Resources (External)

Coach Guidance

^^^

Discover the best practices for new coaches.

+++

Mentor Manual (External PDF)

Pre-Event Checklists

^^^

Simple checklists to prepare for competition. See the Preparing for Competition heading on the linked page.

+++

Preparing for Competition (External)

Open FTC Docs

Common Team FAQs > Competition FAQs

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

Who on my team needs to be with the robot for inspection? At least one student must be present during inspection per the Competition Manual. However, inspectors will ask questions about the mechanical and electrical components of your robot. Ideally, you have one or more team members who can answer such questions. In addition, you may need to turn your robot and driver station on and demonstrate your robot complies with a particular rule like sizing. That may involve someone from the drive team if you need to use a gamepad to operate a mechanism or place the robot in its starting configuration. Look at the self inspection checklist, you can generally determine what you're doing based on the checklist.

Why aren’t you going to replay that match? There are only certain situations that warrant replaying a match. Consult the Competition Manual to understand what conditions and processes can result in a replay. Typically unless something went wrong with the field or field staff there will not be grounds for a replay. A malfunctioning robot typically does not provide grounds for a replay.

Why did you replay a match for someone else, but not us? The situation was different. If necessary, teams can talk with the head referee in the competition area Question Box.

Why won’t you fix that score? We have video (or photographs) to prove the score is wrong! Teams can go the Question Box so they can discuss this issue with the head referee. No photographs or videos will be reviewed.

Why don’t you fix/cleanup the wireless environment? It’s obvious the wireless environment is disruptive and causing disconnects. Teams can work with the event FTA or Event Director if they have questions about the WiFi environment.

What do we do if we think the scoring referees scored our match wrong or the scorekeeper put the wrong score into the computer. If a team has questions about a match outcome, they should send one student representative to the Question Box to talk to the Head Referee (do not interrupt matches for this conversation). If the referees agree that they made a mistake, they can correct it. If the referees are confident in their score, the team should accept that decision. Check the Competition Manual for more information about key volunteer roles, tournament operations, and how to use the Question Box.

Open FTC Docs

Playing Field Resources > Field Setup Guide

FTC Docs·BSD 3-Clause

The Field Setup Guide has the official instructions for assembling and setting up a FIRST Tech Challenge field. Typically there are assembly instructions that build structures that then have setup instructions for placing on the field. There are also teardown instructions that indicate how to take apart the field for storage or transport.

The guide typically has the following sections:

A list of all tools required for assembly and setup, some tools are only for assembly or for setup.
Lists all the game elements and scoring elements with the quantity of each.
Instructions for setup of the field perimeter and field tiles.
Step by step instructions for assembling parts and setting them on the field.
Most games have tape lines on the field to mark locations or areas of the game. There are also taped areas outside the field for the Alliances, and sometimes for game areas.
Most games have AprilTags placed around the field that can be used for robot navigation.
Finally, there are teardown instructions that indicate how to take the field down for storage or transport.

Use the following button link to download a PDF of the current Field Setup Guide from the FIRST Website:

Download Field Setup Guide PDF, 4.5 MB

Note: A purchased game set can be full or partial. A partial game set is less expensive and also suitable for teams who want official game elements but don't have room to setup a full field.

The Game and Season Materials page (https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/files/ftc/game) also contains a downloadable PDF for the AprilTag images that can be printed and placed on the field. There is a Do It Yourself (DIY) Resources section that includes CAD models of scoring elements and DIY field and perimeter build guides.

Open FTC Docs