FTC Lingo

Common Terms you will hear at practices and competitions and what they mean.

Gracious Professionalism - being kind, polite, respectful, and empathetic to all team members, opponents, and event staff while displaying your high level of knowledge and skill, meant to build a community of connection, inclusion and respect for all

According to FIRST: “Gracious Professionalism encourages high quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community.”

https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/blog/2023-a-gracious-professionalism-reminder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0jEa8Bz-tY

Coopertition - the FIRST phrase that emphasizes the importance of cooperating with and helping opponents to perform their best while competing to your highest capability. According to FIRST, “Coopertition means competing always but assisting and enabling others when you can.”

https://www.firstinspires.org/node/20896

Teamwork - The ability to respect and cooperate with team members and accomplish tasks together

Off-season - the time period after competition season is over and before the next challenge is released, includes time for focused skill building, more outreach, and unofficial off-season competitions

Outreach - events in which the team shares and demonstrates robotic and additional STEAM related skills and knowledge and enthusiasm to the public

Examples include building and distributing STEM kits for local elementary schools, presentations to the school board, and teaching creative problem solving and the engineering design process at an elementary school STEAM camp

Scouting - the act of collecting data about a team’s robot capabilities and strategy within each match, this helps our team form strategy while competing with or against them and during alliance selection

Parts of the game:

Autonomous - the first 30 seconds of a match where robots are completed controlled by pre-programmed code

Teleop - this is also called the driver-controlled period, it lasts the rest of the match (2 minutes) and is when drivers control the robot’s actions with remote controllers

Endgame - this is the last 30 seconds of the match during teleop. Endgame includes more ways to score points that are not available before that point in the match. These ways widely vary each year but are always a fun time!

Field - the foam tiles within the walls that make up the match space

Field elements - these are the structures on the field that act as obstacles and/or goals to earn points with. These change each year to reflect the challenge

Game pieces - the pieces used to score, also called cargo as they are carried by the robot

AprilTag - these are similar to simplified QR codes, robots scan them with a webcam to figure out where they are on the field based on their distance and angle from it or to move toward it, these are not just used within FTC. Learn more about them here:

(https://april.eecs.umich.edu/software/apriltag, https://ftc-docs.firstinspires.org/en/latest/apriltag/vision_portal/apriltag_intro/apriltag-intro.html)

Human Player - They are responsible to place game pieces on the field and must have a high understanding of the rules

Driver - there are two drivers, responsible for driving the robot using remote controllers and must have a high understanding of the rules

Drive Coach - they are responsible for helping the drivers understand how the robots on the rest of the field are behaving in terms of strategy and must have a very high understanding of the rules and the team’s robot capabilities

Technician - they are responsible for maintenance and fixing the robot between matches, this is an unofficial role that may be given to multiple team members, they must have high understanding of tools and how the robot functions along with be able to follow the maintenance checklist and work with fellow technicians

Controllers - video game style remote controllers used to control robot actions

Driver hub - an electronic device that communicates commands from the plugged in controllers to the robot’s control hub

Punch list/Checklist - A list of tasks and robot maintenance that must take place after every competition match

Alliance - the separate teams randomly assigned to work together as a group for a competition match (they may be your opponent in a previous or following match), divided into blue versus red

Inspection - a required process carried out by referees to ensure the robot fits within safety requirements and size requirements, it does not evaluate robot performance

Minor Penalty - Minor penalties given by referees for breaking a rule give the opposing alliance 10 points per penalty committed

Major Penalty - Major penalties given given by referees for breaking a rule give the opposing alliance 30 points per penalty committed

Yellow Card - these are assigned as a warning by the head referee for “behavior that does not align with the mission of FIRST” within and outside the field area

2 yellow cards become a red card
A yellow square or background appears by the offending team number during matches on the competition screen

Red Card - these are assigned by the head referee for “behavior that does not align with the mission of FIRST” within and outside the field area

The team assigned the red card is disqualified from the match, earning 0 points
A red square or background appears by the offending team number during matches on the competition screen
Multiple red cards can lead to event disqualification

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