What is FIRST?



FIRST stands for "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology" and is designed to get High School students interested in Engineering, Science and other technical fields by bringing to them the excitement of a professional sports event. It is a national robotics competition in which industry partners pair up with local high schools to design an buid a robot to play a tournament of head to head robot games.

The rules typically contain such constraints as the size and mass of the machine, the materials used for its construction, and how the game is played. Every year the rules of the game change in order to provide a real challenge. Teams do not know until the start of the competition what the robot needs to do, then they are given the rules and six weeks in which to design and build a robot to play the game.

The robot is built from

  • a kit of parts given to each team,
  • a list of materials which can be used in a limited quantity,
  • a list of materials which can be used in unlimited quantity,
  • parts purchased from a catalog from Small Parts Incorporated.
The kit of parts includes things like drill motors, speed controllers, lead acid batteries, the control system (with a programmable microcontroller and wireless communications), potentiometers and other sensors, wheels, etc. Limited quantity items are usually things like certain types of plywood, lexan, etc. Unlimited materials are usually things like nuts and bolts. Small Parts Incorporated carries chains, sprockets, pulleys and belts, ball bearings, cables, and lots of other stuff.

The building period is typically six weeks, beginning in the second week of January and ending in the third week of February. At the end of that period, the robot is shipped to a central receiving location.

Regional competitions are held throughout the US, in San Francisco, CA; Detroit, MI; Dallas, TX; Philadelphia, PA; Manchester, VT; Orlando, FL; and some other places. These competitions happen throughout March and typically host some 50 teams and 2000 to 5000 people.

The National competition is held in April and hosts all of the teams from all over the US (and even a few from Canada). Last year there were about 300 teams present at the National competition, and about 10,000 people. The event is held in the outskirts of Epcot Center in Disney World.

The NASA HQ / CMU / Allderdice High School team has been in existence for three years. More information on FIRST can be found at their website.


This page was created by Greg Reshko of Taylor Allderdice High School and Matthew Deans of Carnegie Mellon University.
Comments? Questions? Send mail to first@cs.cmu.edu
Created March 16, 1999.