Colorado Tournament Info

Tournaments

Dean Kamen, FIRST founder, entrepreneur and inventor, realized that in our media sensitized society, the best picture of success that kids have are media driven.  Generally, success means stardom - sports stars, rock stars, TV or movie stars. 

Dean wanted our aspiring engineers to have an opportunity at startdom, too!  Tournaments provide that opportunity, in a setting that includes crowds, cheering, chants, music, announcers, and all of what a March Madness Final Four or a Flobots concert would include.  But these events are for the thinkers, planners, builders and designers that are our kids!  These events have ROBOTS!!

Remember, even with the tournament activity and bustle, the FLL Core Values dominate, especially

Gracious Professionalism

What we Discover is more important than what we win!

• Colorado Qualifiers and Advancing to Championship
• Colorado Qualifier Schedule
• Tournament registration
• Payments
• Consent & Release forms
• Tournament Day

Colorado Qualifiers and Advancing to Championship

FLL in Colorado is organized around several tournaments - qualifying tournaments of 12 to 48 teams throughout November, where of 20 to 25% of the teams in each tournament will advance to the Colorado Championship in December.  Additionally, one team may celebrate advancement to World Festival in Atlanta, or the US Open in another permier location.

Each team will typiclally participate in only one Qualifying tournament during the month of November.  Remember, advancement is awarded during each tournament and up to 25% of the teams in any tournament will advance.  Therefore, if the most convenient tournament to you happens to be in the early part of the season, your team still has the same opportunities to go to Championship because all the competition is working under the same circumstances. 

Boosters

Really NEW teams are encouraged to participagte in one of our Booster events - exhibits and trial runs at what a real tournament will be like.

Scrimmages

Any team, school or club can certainly organize a Scrimmage with other teams, to hold a match just to have something to strive for.  There is at least one scrimmage organized by this committee, but that is not the only scrimmage in the State.  If you want to organize a scrimmage, provide the details for us and we'll put it on the calendar.

Colorado Qualifier Schedule

• 7 or more qualifying tournaments in Colorado this season!
• 2 or more Rookie Booster events, including our friends at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and continuing the Thompson School District Booster and Scrimmage in Loveland.
• Schedule

Tournament Registrations at GoFLL

• Tournament registrations are being accepted on the National FLL site (linked), the same place you register/ed and pay/paid for your team's $200 season registration, ordered your competition field setup kit (FSK), and optionally, purachase/d your robot kit.
• Proactive tournament preference selections: tell us which tournaments will work for you and your teams scheduling priorities.  We'll do our best to assign your first or second tournament choice.       
  • Remember, ~25% of the teams from evey qualifyer will advance to Championship in December.  So it won't really matter if your qualifier is the first or the last week of November, as every other team that attends that qualifier will have had the same amount of time to prepare.  In fact, the earlier tournaments will not see scores as high as the late tournaments, so if your shy or a little uncertain of your achievements, an earlier qualifier may be just right.
  • If your team wants to attend more than one qualifier, the scores from the FIRST qualifier will be the determining scores for advancement to championship.  See "attending more than one qualifier"

Payments

• Tournament PAYMENTS will be received by check to the tournament director.  Here you will be able to pay
  • your tournament registration fee
  • for T-shirts
  • Additional medals or pins - for supporters attending the tournaments, sponsors, families, etc.
  • Food items, if offered at the tournament for order planning among the local merchants
• Tournament director mailing addresses are listed on the Tournament Process Overview page, under point 8. 

Consent

• Consent & Release forms - one required from EACH team member, for EACH event they attend, please.
  • English
  • Español  
• Be prepared!  Please bring completed forms to your event!

Tournament Day

Tournament day is a big deal!  This is the day the you have been working for all season long!  There is judging for robot design, innovative research, and team-work.  There are practice rounds where you can test your robot.  There are pits where you can continue to tweek your design.  And, of course, there are the competition rounds!  This is a full day from morning to evening, so plan to pace yourselves!

Check in
	Teams must arrive early in the morning to check in, settle up any accounts, submit their consent and release forms (please come prepared with completed C&R forms for each team member for each event they attend - coaches, spectators and mentors included).  Don't arrive too early, however, or we'll mistake you for a volunteer and put you to work!

What to Bring
Teams should bring their robots, of course, and their computer for making program adjustments.  If you are accustomed to a school desktop and plan to borrow a laptop for tournament day, be sure to load your software and test your computer in advance!  There will be practice tables for teams to exercise their robots.  Help your team learn to think through their adjustments so their time at the practice table is maximized.  Generally teams will find a queue at the tables, and will be limited to 5 minute sessions before returning to their pits.
Please do not bring a field kit, mat or table, unless by invitation or direct permission from your tournament director.  The floor space consumed by a mat is intolerable in the pits, as traffic through the pits is often rushed.  Teams are focused on getting to their appointed judge or rounds, and obsticals to that destination will be secondary.  Prepare defensively - don't make your pit a target or create difficulty.  If you do bring these obstructions, be prepared to share them with other teams in the spirit of Gracious Professionalism.
Different tournaments have different rules about food or lunch in the pits.  Be sure to check your tournament rules!

Judging

Judging takes place during the mornings.  with as many as 48 teams during a single tournament, it is carefully orchestrated and time so that all the teams get their ten minutes in front of each of 3 judge groups for Robot design, project or team work.  There is scheduled time to get between each judging appointment. Between judging appointments, there are designated times for practice rounds.

Rounds
After lunch, we will kick off the "opening" to the competition rounds.  These will generally take us up to about 3:30.  Each team will get three rounds on the tournament table, against a different opponent each time. Scores will be recorded, and standings will be posted on the video screens.  Your team captain (one of your team members) will go over the score sheet with the referee.  After detailed conference over all the scores, the team captain and the ref will sing off on the score sheet.
We use carbonless forms for score sheets, so the captain and the team will return to the pits with a record of the round.  They can use that to continue to improve their design for the next round.

Awards
Finally, after all the rounds are complete, and after the judges have come to agreement about the team rankings and awards, there will be an awards ceremony at the end of the day.  All the kids will receive medals, all the teams being called down from the stands to slap a high five with all the judges, recieve their medals and return to the stands.
Then the teams in the best of their categories will each receive a special trophy, engraved with the tournament name and the award name.  They'll move off center stage to be photographed before returning to the stands to cheer on the next award winning team.

Clean-up

Help your tournament directors and volunteers make it a

Totally Awesome Day!!