FRC - First Robotics Competition

What is FRC?

FRC or FIRST Robotics Competition is a high school robotics competition organized by FIRST. This competition involves teams of approximately 25 students, who join together with mentors (teachers, college students or parents) to design and build a robot that fulfills an unusual and unique challenge designed by Dean Kamen, Dr. Woodie Flowers, and a committee of engineers and other professionals. Every year, FIRST designs a new game with new challenges and obstacles that the robot must be able to cope with and overcome.

The FRC competition begins in January and is announced nationally with a simulcast kickoff event. Many regional competitions take place around the United States, as well as in Canada, Brasil, Germany and Israel, although the competition has expanded further and now includes teams in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia and Germany.

Almost immediately after the kickoff, teams all over the world begin the "building season". Each team designs its robot essentially from scratch and spends time developing game strategies, drawing up ideas and organizing the various activities related to the competition. Robot design and game strategy must take into account the many rules and constraints that relate to the weight, size, parts, and shape of the robot, all of which are intended to make the game safer and fairer to all of the teams.

Other challenges the team must deal with include learning to sketch and integrate the "kit of parts" that must be used every year, dealing with electronics (and sometimes pneumatics) on the robot, programming, and gaining driver and operational experience.

The competition is spread over three intense days. During the first day, teams have the opportunity to get a feel for the game and practice with, and against, other teams. The second day is already more serious and important, as it includes qualification matches and determines each team's ranking for the final day. In the qualification match, teams are randomly grouped as alliances of three (which vary from match to match), which compete to earn "qualification points". The method of calculation of these points changes each year. The top eight teams win the privilege to choose their alliance members in the elimination matches (on the third day), and thus in this way, they gain a potential edge.

The FRC competition is a friendly competition. Teams usually cooperate with each other, offering parts, information and sometimes even help in the robot construction. FIRST encourages teams to help each other, making FRC different from "normal" competitions which have only one goal, namely, to win. FRC offers a friendly environment in which students can participate in and experience the challenges, excitement, drive, and satisfaction of scientists and engineers.

Awards are not given only to the one single team that wins the competition. FIRST redefines winning for the partipicants, rewarding them for excellence in design, demonstrated team spirit, gracious professionalism and maturity, and the ability to overcome obstacles. Scoring the most points is a secondary goal. Winning means building partnerships that last.

A question asked of FIRST in 2006:
Q: "Is collaboration between 2 teams acceptable and encouraged by FIRST?"
A: "Absolutely. Teams are encouraged to share their knowledge, experience, and innovations with each other on and off the play field, as well as before, during and after the competition season. Without inter-team collaborations, many of the central elements of the FIRST philosophy - such as distribution of technical innovations, team workshops, shared designs, software code-sharing, teams mentoring teams, team-run off-season events, etc. - would all be impossible. The whole concept of "coopertition" is based on the idea of teams helping each other to compete."

Here are some past First Missions:

Lunacy 2009	OverDrive 2008	Rock N' Roll 2007	Aim High 2006	Triple Play 2005	First Frenzy: Raising the Bar 2004
Stack Attack 2003	Zone Zeal 2002	Diabolical Dynamics 2001	Co-operatition First 2000	Double Trouble 1999	Ladder Logic 1998
Torroid Terror 1997	Hexagon Havoc 1996	Ramp & Roll 1995	Tower Power 1994	Rug Rage 1993	Maize Craze 1992