“For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology”
What Is FIRST?
FIRST stands for “For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology”. FIRST is a nonprofit organization that was founded by Dean Kamen in 1989. FIRST focuses on engaging students in activities where they can work with teachers and other students to learn and explore science, technology, and engineering. FIRST also connects students with other students, offers scholarship opportunities, and gives students real life engineering, programming, and electrical experiences. FIRST has many different types of competitions leagues so students of any age can participate. There are the FIRST LEGO League, FIRST LEGO League Jr, and FIRST Tech Challenge competitions.
More about FIRST
What Is FRC?
FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an annual international high school robotics competition that takes the excitement of sports and the challenges of STEM to create a competition where students in high schools compete. FRC teams are presented with a challenge on January 5th and are then given until their first competition to program, design, and build a robot to perform the given tasks that will earn the team points. The task changes each year along with the theme of the game. Teams use tools that are used by many engineers at their jobs today to build their robots. Teams also work on nontechnical tasks such as team management, finance, graphic design, website development, and social media. The students on FRC teams also receive help from mentors and volunteers who use their skills to guide students to help their team succeed.
