FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

The FIRST^® Robotics Competition Kickoff presented by Novelis is so close, are you ready?? I know I cannot wait for our community to see CHARGED UP^SM presented by Haas!

You probably saw this blog earlier this week where we shared some of the exciting CHARGED UP game-specific resources that will be available after Kickoff. We have also been working on compiling resources that are more evergreen and intended to help teams with all aspects of the program. These resources include both content created by FIRST^® as well as community created content reviewed by FIRST.

While the game is new and exciting, don’t forget to check out the Team Management Resources webpage for information to help with mentoring, outreach, budget, team organization, and more! Additionally, as your team gets closer to attending your events, you will want to prepare your team to talk to judges. We have compiled a few resources on our Awards Webpage such as practice interview questions, best practices for awards, and information to help teams submitting for the Dean’s List Award and the FIRST Impact Award.

I also want to spend a little time calling out some resources on our Technical Resources webpage that I think might help teams the most this season. There is a ton of great content on this page, and I am only just scratching the surface on what is available:

• Right after Kickoff, your team may start to look at various strategies on how to best play the game and what aspects you may want to prototype. Consider reviewing the Effective FIRST Strategies for Design & Competition and the Prototyping 101 prior to Kickoff.
• As your team works throughout the build season, you may need help with things like CAD or even Bumpers. We have compiled several resources to help with CAD depending on which program you use and have created a brand-new Bumper Guide (with the foundation for this document coming from a FIRST Alum!)
• At some point before your first event, your team will need to select your Drive Team. Check out the Guide to Selecting Drivers and the Improving Driver Performance guides if you need assistance in either area.
• If your team needs help with specific mechanism ideas, manufacturing, and more take a look at the super comprehensive NASA Robotics Alliance Project (RAP) Robotics Design Guide.

We know that these pages contain just a start to the resources that teams are looking for. If you know of additional resources that exist outside of these pages or have ideas on resources that you think would help teams, please reach out to frcteamadvocate@firstinspires.org. Additionally, if you are interested in helping us to produce additional resources, please reach out. We know our community is full of amazingly talented people and we would love the help of our community to make FIRST Robotics Competition more accessible to all teams.

Finally, I want to note that we have a few more resources that are not quite complete. We expect these to be posted in the next few weeks and will share an update once they are available.