FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an international high school robotics competition. Each year, teams of high school students and mentors work during a six-week period to build game-playing robots that weigh up to 120 pounds (54 kg).
FRC has a unique culture, built around two values. Gracious Professionalism embraces the competition inherent in the program, but rejects trash talk and chest-thumping, instead embracing empathy and respect for other teams. Coopetition emphasizes that teams can cooperate and compete at the same time. The goal of the program is to inspire students to be science and technology leaders.
Who competes in FRC?
In 2016, the 25th year of competition, 3128 teams with roughly 75,000 students and 19,000 mentors from 24 countries built robots. They competed in 53 Regional Competitions, 65 District Qualifying Competitions, and 8 District Championships. 600 teams will win slots to attend the FIRST Championship, where they will competed in a tournament. In addition to on-field competition, teams and team members compete for awards recognizing entrepreneurship, creativity, engineering, industrial design, safety, controls, media, quality, and exemplifying the core values of the program.
Most teams reside in the United States, with Canada, Israel, and Mexico contributing significant numbers of teams.