FIRST Robotics Competition

The FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an international high school robotics competition operated by FIRST. Each year, the organization designs a game around various tasks, and teams of high school students, coaches, and mentors build robots to play it. Tasks have included shooting balls into goals, hanging on bars, placing objects in predetermined locations, and balancing robots on field elements. Teams are given a set of parts during the annual Kickoff; they are encouraged to purchase or fabricate specialized components. FIRST Robotics Competition is one of five robotics competition programs organized by FIRST, along with FIRST LEGO League Discover, FIRST LEGO League Explore, FIRST LEGO League Challenge, and FIRST Tech Challenge. The program aims to inspire students to be science and technology leaders. It urges participants to demonstrate two values: "Gracious Professionalism", or help, empathy, and respect for other teams; and "Coopertition", the idea that teams can cooperate and compete at the same time. In 2024, the 33rd year of the competition, robots were built by 3,468 teams in 28 countries, comprising more than 86,700 students and 27,700 mentors. Events included 62 Regional Competitions, 98 District Qualifying Competitions, and 11 District Championships. More than 600 teams received invitations to attend the FIRST Championship tournament. In addition to on-field competition, teams and team members competed for awards recognizing entrepreneurship, creativity, engineering, industrial design, safety, controls, media, quality, and exemplifying the core values of the program. The COVID-19 pandemic dampened participation during the 2021 season.