The FIRST® Robotics Competition is an international high school robotics competition organized by FIRST®. As of early 2010, approximately 3,500 high school teams of 70,000 students from Brazil, Canada, The Netherlands, Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and others compete to build 100 to 120 pound robots that can complete a task that changes every year. Teams are given a standard set of parts and the game details at the beginning of January and are given six weeks to construct a competitive robot, that can operate autonomously as well as when guided by wireless controls, to accomplish the game's tasks. Teams competed in regional competitions throughout March to try and qualify for the FIRST® Championship event in Atlanta, Georgia in April. 



Competition Concept

The FIRST® Robotics Competition involves teams of mentors (corporate employees, teachers, or college students) and high school students who collaborate to design and build a robot in six weeks. This robot is designed to play a game, which is designed by FIRST® and changes from year to year. This game is announced at a nationally simulcast kickoff event in January. Regional competitions take place around the United States as well as in Canada and Israel, but FIRST® has a multinational following that further includes the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, and Germany. Teams are expected to solicit local businesses for support in the form of donations of time, money, or skills. The average team has approximately 25 students, but participation have ranged from 4 to 100.

Competition Details

 

The competition is a yearly event. The most intense participation occurs between the months of January and April, but "mini-competitions" are hosted by many teams in school gymnasiums throughout the year. In early January, FIRST® announces the details of a game to all participating teams. The game changes very much from year to year, with only a few rules such as the approximate size of the robot staying the same. For the next six weeks following the kickoff, called the "build season," the teams begin to design a robot to play the game, essentially from scratch. Team members spend the time designing strategies to play the game, drawing up ideas for robot parts, working with size and weight constraints, and finally, building and assembling their robot. Other challenges include gaining driver experience, building the electronics for the robot, and programming it. After the build season has ended (usually the 3rd full week of February), teams must ship their robot to where the FRC® is held. Competitions for FIRST® consist of 37 regional competitions, and one championship event. Regionals typically involve between 20–65 teams. Teams are randomly assigned alliances of 3 teams, which are paired into qualification matches, where they earn 'qualifying points', the calculation of which changes each year. The game changes every year, but for the most part, they involve some autonomous (computer controlled) robot operation for 10–15 seconds at the beginning of a match, followed by a much longer period (usually 2 minutes) of remote control. Teams use scoring objects on the field to get points, which are evaluated only after the match has completely ended. The Championship event is held every year in April, often in a large stadium or convention center in the Southeastern United States. The championship event consists of four divisions of 85–95 teams competing on one of four fields: Galileo, Newton, Archimedes and Curie. The teams compete for the division championship title in the same way they would compete in a regional. The division champions then bring their robots over to the Einstein field to compete in an elimination tournament to determine the champion.



Kit of Parts

At the start of the FIRST® season, all the teams receive the Kit Of Parts and the game description. The kit is a collection of the basic parts needed for a team needs to make a functioning robot. The parts are all donated by participating sponsors. Teams are allowed to purchase additional off-the-shelf items with individual item value not exceeding US$400 with a total maximum budget of $3,500. The kit includes robot controllers, motors, plastic tubing, speed controllers, as well as programming and design software. As soon as the teams receive the kit of parts, the 6-week build season begins.

Competition

Most FIRST® regional events take place between Thursday and Saturday in a week in March. Thursday is typically a practice day where matches take place but do not count towards final standings. All day Friday and on Saturday morning, teams participate in qualifying matches. On Saturday afternoon, after the qualification matches have ended, the top eight ranked teams will pick partners from any team ranked below them, and the resulting alliances will compete to be regional winner. The top teams pick their partners starting with the top-ranked team, proceeding to the 8th ranked team, then back from the 8th team to the 1st team again. The alliances picked this way then proceed into elimination rounds, set up into quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals. Each quarterfinal, semifinal, and final is determined by a best-of-3 matchup between the two alliances. All 3 robots in an alliance that wins a regional earns a reserved spot at the championship event in Atlanta, although they still must pay the entry fee and for transportation.



Awards

Due to FIRST®'s mission, to expose students and the larger community to science and engineering, the two most prestigious awards given by FIRST are awarded not to teams that have demonstrated the most prowess in the game, but to those teams and individuals who have done the most to realize FIRST®'s mission.



Chairman's Award

The Chairman's Award is the most prestigious award a team can win at a regional or at the championship, more so than even winning the competition itself. Demonstrating the prestige of the award, a team that wins a Regional Chairman's Award receives a reserved spot at the championship event so that they may compete for the Championship Chairman's award, regardless of their on-field performance. The Chairman's award was created to recognize teams that demonstrate the greatest commitment to spreading passion about science and technology into their communities and schools. Submission involves writing an essay of approximately 2,500 words (10,000 characters), documenting the team's efforts at spreading the message of FIRST®, and student interviews with judges at the competition.



Woodie Flowers Award

The Woodie Flowers Award is awarded to a mentor within a team that the team believes has made a large contribution to them and deserves to be recognized. Criteria is based on how well the chosen mentor inspires the students towards better communication and engineering. Any regional WFA winner is eligible to be considered for the Championship WFA, though past regional WFA winners may not again win a regional WFA, to allow other mentors the chance to be recognized. The WFA trophy itself is a head-sized M?bius strip with bearings inside it.

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