The FIRST Robotics Competition (also known as FRC) was founded in 1989 by American inventor Dean Kamen and aims to get students hands-on experience with engineering. Every January, a new game is revealed. Students get 6 weeks between kickoff and the first competition to design, build, and code a robot. The season officially runs until mid-April, which is when the World Championships occur.
FRC teams are usually affiliated with a school, but some are community teams. Larger teams are frequently divided into subteams, each with their own specific duties. For example, a team may be divided into Design, Fabrication, Electrical, and Programming, which handle CADing, building, wiring, and programming the robot respectively.
The game changes every year, so the competition itself is difficult to describe. Competitions usually last 2 days and consist of qualification matches, alliance selection, and playoffs. During qualification matches, robots are randomly assigned into 2 alliances of 3 robots. These alliances change every match. Matches last 2 minutes and 30 seconds, with a short autonomous period at the beginning of the match in which robots are controlled entirely by programming. Robots may score during this period.
After this, the teleop period starts, where students pilot the robot. This is the real meat and potatoes of the match. Robots must move gamepieces across the field and score. Both the gamepieces and scoring methods change every year. For example, 2023's game required robots to pick and place plastic cones and inflatable cubes onto platforms about 2 feet off the ground, while 2024's game required robots to shoot foam disks into a slot about 6 feet off the ground. As you can see, the different games incentivize different robot designs. Finally, there is a short endgame period where robots are allowed to carry out an endgame task. The task also changes every year, but it's usually mobility-related, such as climbing a bar or balancing on a special pad. They are usually still allowed to score, so robots may choose to ignore endgame if their strategy dictates that they continue scoring.
Between matches, robots are rushed to their pits to be repaired by their pit crew. It is important to note that although robots are allowed to push each other around or block their shots, they are not allowed to intentionally damage each other. This isn't BattleBots, guys. Think of it like a contact sport: injury is expected, but never encouraged. This is also when different teams meet up to strategize. They also need to pitch to high-ranking teams in order to get picked for playoffs during alliance selection.
Alliance selection is very high-stress. After qualification matches have ended, representatives from the top 8 teams go out onto the field and announce who they'd like to pick as partners for playoffs. Using data they've collected over the course of the competition, they choose robots that work well with their own. Scoring capability is very important, but willingness to cooperate is crucial to the overall performance of the alliance.
After alliance picks have been finalized, playoffs begin. Alliances compete against each other in a double-elimination bracket. The final 2 alliances play a best 2 out of 3 set of matches to determine the winner of the competition.
Most teams attend at least 2 competitions per season. There are 2 qualification systems within FRC: districts and regionals. Regionals were the original iteration of FRC competitions: teams just come to whichever competitions are most convenient and try to place, hopefully earning enough points to qualify for the World Championship. They can theoretically travel halfway across the world to compete if they want to, and they'd still earn points. In the district model, however, all teams within a certain area are bound to a district and may only earn qualifying points from competitions in that district. If they do well in these competitions, they may qualify for the district championship and will qualify for Worlds based on their performance there.
The district model is generally agreed to be the better model for places that have many robotics teams close together, as it provides an intermediate step for teams to advance to for rather than an "all-or-nothing" path forward. In places where regional events are especially competitive (such as California), teams have been known to travel to events as far away as Louisiana to attempt to win events.
The placing high in a competition is not the only way to advance to the championship. Competitions have a variety of awards to win, from technically focused ones like the Industrial Design Award to less serious ones like the Team Spirit Award. Each award bestows some qualifying points, so they're never bad to win. The most prestigious award, the Impact Award (formerly known as the Chairman's Award) isn't focused on the robot itself at all. It is awarded to the team that did the most to help its community and inspire youths to pursue STEM. Teams that win this award usually mentor elementary school robotics teams, among other things.
See also: FIRST robotics and FIRST.
If you have any further questions, please seek out the good folks on ChiefDelphi. A lot of them have been a part of the program in some way or another for 10+ years and have a lot more interesting things to say on the subject than I do.