Parent Guide
Registering with the High School Robotics Program
Why?
By following the registration process below, you and your student will be able to communicate with the team and begin attending pre-season meetings, events, and practices.
How do we communicate?
Email - Once registered you will receive important information via email. You may respond and you may email us at anytime. Our current organizational email is technodogs@brightonk12.com
News Letter - via email you will begin receiving our News Letter that will have up to date information on what we are up to.
Slack - IMPORTANT. You will receive an invite to join our team Slack Workspace.
Slack is a tool for having conversations, sharing files, and organizing discussions.
Outside of meetings, The BULK of our communication and organizing is performed in slack.
By actively participating in Slack, you will have information about the team as it is developing and can offer feedback and discussion.
What if my student is not sure about joining?
Registering does not commit your student, but instead injects you into the communication pipeline. Pre-season is for organizing and understanding. There will be a point where you will have to decide (November/December) to participate or not, and we keep that late in the pre-season when everyone is acclimated and have a better grip on what the school year looks like for them individually.
Registration Process
Note: Our registration process is a little clunky. We roll our own software and are working to make things easier
Step 1 - Google Accounts
Step 2 - Your students log in to our site
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If there are questions, be sure to choose FIRST Robotics Competition (High School) when prompted
Click on the Profile tab
Have your student write down or text you the Guardian Connect Code found near the top of the profile tab (you will use this later to link to your child.
Step 3 - You (the parent) logs in to our site
Step 4 - Link to your students
For each student
Go to Your Students tab
Next to Your FIRST Robotics Competition (High School) Students Click link student
Input the guardian connect code and then hit enter
Click on your student and fix any information they may have not entered
Step 5 - Prepare yourself for an exceptional robotic experience
Committing to join the High School Robotics Program
At some point we will ask students and parents to sign our Code of Conduct and other commitment agreements that will place the students officially on the team. We will present these agreements mid pre-season for review or completion, but they will not be required until November or December.
Pay to Play
There will be a Team Participation Fee. We will be giving out more information on this soon.
General Season Timeline
Pre-season (Parent Help Needed for Food for students, Transporting their students, Help oversee projects)
Gather interested students, parents, and mentors and get our communications set up (Email Lists, Slack, Meetings)
Attend pre-season events if available
Get active on Pre-season Projects such as
Outreach events
Repair existing robots
Driver Training
Basic robot design and structure
Working on our Scouting Infrastructure
Etc
November/December
Get Commitments from Students and Parents
Get Parents and Students Registered with FIRST robotics and assigned to our team
Finalize our team organization
Kickoff (first week in January)
Attend a GAME REVEAL event
6+ weeks of Building (Parent Help Needed for Food for students, Transporting their students, Help oversee projects)
Designing and Building the Robot
Designing our Game Strategy
Building a working field for driving and practice
Drive training and eventually Drive Team Tryouts
Building our Scouting System
Attend our first Regional Competition (Parent Help Needed for Food for Team (multiple days))
Between Events (Parent Help Needed Food for students, Transporting their students, Help oversee projects)
Continue Building, Repairing, Designing, Strategizing and otherwise improving
Attend our second Regional Competition (Parent Help Needed for Food for Team (multiple days))
State Competition - Saginaw - Overnight Stays (Parent Help Needed for Food for Team (multiple days), Additional Pay to Play Fees, Transportation assistance)
Worlds Competition (Houston)
Same as states but more expensive and longer travel