FIRST Robotics
Competition
It’s More Than Robots
“FIRST is the world’s leading youth robotics community, delivering hands-on STEM learning that inspires innovation, builds confidence, and prepares kids for life. Across the globe, students thrive in our programs — powered by mentorship, teamwork, creativity, and engineering challenges.”
— FIRST Robotics
THE RUNDOWN
The FIRST Robotics Competition is a world wide robotics competition, with over 3,700 teams competing all over the globe. Teams build Robots to compete in games, which occur in matches between two Alliances, made up of three teams each. New games are revealed to the teams every year in the beginning of January, and teams build their robots for 8 weeks. After this, competitions occur over the next 6 weeks, culminating with the finals, called World Championships, in week 8 (after a week break) in an event center in Houston, Texas.
The team working on the robot in the pit at the San Francisco Regional 2025.
Event Overview
An event occurs over 3 days, usually from Friday to Sunday. The first day is load in, where teams set up their working areas, called Pits. Teams allowed to finish work and robots and prep them for matches on the following day.
The second day is all about matches. The morning starts with some practice matches, but these don’t last very long, and teams quickly move on to real matches after the opening ceremony. The second day has only Qualification Matches, matches that determine your rank within the event, which continue throughout the day and into the third and final day. Alliances during qualification matches are randomly selected, so teams must keep track of who is in their alliance, and strategize before their match.
The drive team at the driver station on field during the San Francisco Regional 2025.
A team’s rank at the end of the qualification matches determines certain things during Alliance Selection. During alliance selection, the top ranked teams pick two other teams to compose their alliance. Selected teams can either accept or decline the offer. Teams that aren’t selected are disqualified, and can either chose to leave the event, or stay as reserve teams, in case a selected team cannot participate in a match (due to a break down, for example). Selected teams move on to Playoff Matches, in a bracket style competition, eventually resulting in one definitive winner. The winners of each championship go on to compete in the World Championships in Houston.
Trophy given the the Aztech for reaching the finals at the San Francisco Regional in 2025
Awards Overview
Various awards are given to teams and team members each event, celebrating team’s achievements and people’s contributions to the FRC community.
FIRST Impact Award: The most prestigious award given to teams, celebrating the teams that “best embody FIRST principles.” This means they act as role models for other teams and inspire the next generations to become science and technology leaders.
Dean’s List Award: Dean’s List is an award given to individual students in an FRC team, designed to recognize a student’s leadership and dedication. An Aztech alumni, Mikayla M., received a Dean’s List Finalist Award at the 2024 San Francisco Regional.
Woody Flowers Award: The Woody Flowers is an award given to individual mentors in an FRC team, recognizing mentors that have done “an outstanding job” motivating students, but also challenging them.
Engineering Inspiration Award: This award celebrates teams that demonstrate inventiveness and inspire their community with appreciation for engineering.
Rookie All-Star Award: Celebrating new teams, this award is given to rookie teams that best embody FIRST principles. The Aztechs won this award back in 2012, their first season, during it’s previous iteration: the Rookie Inspiration Award.