We are excited to begin our fifth FTC season. The FIRST theme for 2024-2025 is FIRST DIVE. The FIRST Tech Challenge season is called #INTOTHEDEEP. You can keep up with us on our FTC INTO THE DEEP page. We’ll update this page with the 2023-2024 game details in September after kickoff.

You can review our past season blogs in our sidebar menu, to the right on PCs and at the bottom on mobile devices.

What is FIRST Tech Challenge?

“It’s way more than building robots. FIRST Tech Challenge teams (up to 15 team members, grades 7-12) are challenged to design, build, program, and operate robots to compete in a head-to-head challenge in an alliance format.

Guided by adult coaches and mentors, students develop STEM skills and practice engineering principles, while realizing the value of hard work, innovation, and working as a team.”

FIRST Tech Challenge, is a move up from LEGOs to 18″ aluminum and steel robots. Each season begins in September when the new challenge is released. Depending on region, scrimmages, qualifiers, and state tournaments begin as early as November leading up to the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship in April.

The components of an FTC competition are:

• Robot Games – 5-6 qualification rounds played in randomized alliance format, followed by alliance selection and elimination rounds — Games are 2.5 minutes long, the first 30 seconds are autonomous and the remainder is remote controlled. The game field is 12′ x 12′ on foam tiles with a 1′ high perimeter.
• Engineering Portfolio (required) – 15 pages max – summary of your season and team, see Game Manual 1 for specifics
• Engineering Notebook (optional) – all documentation about your season, engineering design process, programming, outreach, team business and more
• Judges Interview – Presentation and Q&A time with the judges about your robot and season

Official FTC Resources:

• FIRST Tech Challenge – Game & Season Page
• INTOTHEDEEP Game Resources
• FTC-Docs – programming documentation and general build info
• FTC Blog – all the news from FIRST
• FIRST Tech Challenge Judges Q&A Forum
• FIRST Tech Challenge Forum
• FIRST Tech Challenge YouTube Channel

Unofficial FTC Resources:

• Game Manual 0 (Zero) – unofficial manual maintained by past and current teams
• Learn Java for FTC – if you want to line code, this is an amazing resource
• r/FTC Subreddit
• FTC Discord Server
• FIRST Updates Now (FUN) Twitch Channel

Here is the 2024-2025 Season Challenge Video. We’ll post the newest game video after kickoff. If you have questions about FIRST robotics, FIRST LEGO League or FIRST Tech Challenge, please let us know. We would love to help you get started.