The FIRST Championship is a four-day robotics championship held annually in April at which FIRST student robotics teams compete. For several years, the event was held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia, but moved to the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Missouri in 2011, where it remained through 2017. In 2017, the Championship was split into two events, being additionally held at the George R. Brown Convention Center and Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas. In 2018 and 2019, the Championship was held in Houston and Detroit, Michigan at the TCF Center and Ford Field. The event comprises four competitions; the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship, the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship, the FIRST Lego League Challenge World Festival, and the FIRST Lego League Explore World Expo.FIRST Championship , FIRST - accessed May 23, 2009
The FIRST Robotics Competition is a ten-week program in which high-school students build 115-pound (52 kg) robots designed to compete in a game that changes each year. Students are given sets of parts to use, but they can also use off-the-shelf or custom-made parts. The FIRST Tech Challenge is a mid-level competition program for middle school and high school aged students with a more accessible and affordable robotics kit. FIRST LEGO League is a competition program for elementary and middle school students using LEGO Education Spike Prime robotics kits. Teams for each program compete in tournaments at a state and regional level. The winning teams from each of these tournaments join the global competition at the FIRST Championship.
The FIRST Championship was formally held in conjunction with the FIRST Robotics Conference, which covers a wide variety of topics in science, technology, engineering, and robotics fields.2009 FIRST Robotics Conference, FIRST - accessed May 23, 2009
The 2011 championship was also host to the Collegiate Aerial Robotics Demonstration, a pilot collegiate FIRST program.
In 2015, to expand, it was announced that the FIRST Championship would be divided into multiple venues. The new Innovation Faire featuring displays and demonstrations from FIRST Sponsors, Partners and Suppliers took place at the Renaissance St. Louis Grand Hotel, The FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship and the Junior FIRST Lego League World Festival took place at Union Station (St. Louis), and the FIRST LEGO League World Festival as well as the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship took place at the Edward Jones Dome and America's Center. The new arrangement was designed to give an "Olympic Village" feel and allow for more space to expand each individual program. In 2017, the Championship was split into 2 championships, one occurring in Houston and the other a week later in St. Louis. The second Championship was moved to Detroit for 2018 and 2019. In 2020, FIRST decided to move the closing ceremonies for all programs from Minute Maid Park and Ford Field to the convention centers in Houston and Detroit respectively.
The 2020 FIRST season was suspended on March 12, 2020, resulting in the cancellation of the Championship events in Houston and Detroit, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The FIRST LEGO League World Championship was held as a virtual competition on April 18 and 19, 2020 and hosted by FLL Share and Learn.
The 2021 FIRST Championship in Houston and Detroit were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The events were replaced by a virtual ceremony at the 2021 FIRST Global Innovation Awards on June 28–30, 2021.
Despite originally announcing dates for both Detroit and Houston for 2022, the 2022 FIRST Championship was later scheduled solely for Houston and was held from April 20 to April 23, 2022.
Host cities 1992: Manchester, New Hampshire 1993–1994: Nashua, New Hampshire 1995–2002: Orlando, at Epcot Center, Walt Disney World 2003: Houston, at Reliant Park (now known as NRG Park) 2004–2010: Atlanta, at Georgia Dome 2011–2017: St. Louis, at Dome at America's Center, America's Center, Renaissance St. Louis Grand Hotel (2015–2017), Union Station (St. Louis) (2015–2017) 2017–2019: Houston, at George R. Brown Convention Center and Minute Maid Park 2018–2019: Detroit, at Cobo Center and Ford Field 2022–2034: Houston, at George R. Brown Convention Center
1992 was the first year of the FIRST Robotics Competition. Just over 20 teams competed at one event, which was held at Memorial High School in Manchester, New Hampshire. In 1993, the sole competition was held at Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, New Hampshire. In 1994, the competition was held at Nashua High School. In 1995, FIRST had grown to the point to which they had outgrown the one competition, so they moved to a regional qualifier system, and thus the FIRST championship was born. From 1995 through 2002, the championship was held at Epcot Center in Orlando. Reliant Park in Houston was the venue for 2003. Atlanta served as host city from 2004 through 2010. In 2005, the contract with Atlanta was extended through 2007 with options for 2008 and 2009. In 2009, St. Louis was selected, from three finalists, to serve as host city for 2011 through 2013. In 2012, the tenure at St. Louis was extended until 2014. In 2013, the tenure in St. Louis was once again extended for three additional years through 2017.
The 2017 through 2019 championships consisted of two championship events, located in two different cities on back to back weekends. The 2017 championships was held in St. Louis, centered at the Edward Jones Dome, and in Houston, Texas, at the George R. Brown Convention Center, Toyota Center, and Minute Maid Park. 2017 marked St. Louis's final hosting of the event for the foreseeable future, ending its seven years hosting the event, as well as the FIRST Championship's return to Houston, following the 2003 Championships at NRG Park. In 2018 and 2019, Houston continued to host a championship, with Detroit, Michigan taking St. Louis's place. The Detroit championships took place at Cobo Center and Ford Field.
FRC World Championship
The FIRST Robotics Competition Championship is the final and largest event of the season. The winners of each regional competition as well as the top teams from each district advance to the FIRST Championship. They are placed into one of the 8 divisions, named after influential individuals in STEM, to compete. The winning alliance from each division (a set of 4 teams) moves on to compete on the Einstein Field. The winning alliance on the Einstein Field is declared the FIRST Champion.
The FIRST Robotics Competition Championship was initially divided into 4 divisions: Newton Galileo Archimedes Curie
In 2015, the 4 divisions were further divided into 8 divisions (not including the final Einstein Field) and expanding naming to share more breadth in hero innovators: Newton Galileo Archimedes Curie Tesla Hopper Carver Carson
In 2017, the first year of the split championship, 4 more divisions were added bringing the total to 12 divisions (not including the final Einstein Field in each city), with six divisions in each city. The six division winning alliances played a round-robin tournament to determine their location's champion, who then played the other city's champion in July at the FIRST Festival of Champions in New Hampshire. On February 6, 2018, FIRST announced that the Festival of Champions would not happen from the 2018 season onward. Due to this, the winners of both championships would now be considered world champions. Houston: Carver Galileo Hopper Newton Roebling Turing
St. Louis/Detroit: Archimedes Carson Curie Daly Darwin Tesla
In 2022 with the return to a single championship event FRC teams were divided into the 6 Houston divisions seen through the 2019 championship. In 2023 2 additional divisions, Johnson and Milstein, were added to the 6 from 2022 bringing the total to 8 FRC divisions.
There are many awards that are presented to FRC teams at the Championship. These awards include the Engineering Inspiration Award, the Industrial Design Award, the Gracious Professionalism Award, the Entrepreneurship Award, the Industrial Safety Award, the Rookie All-Star Award, the Rookie Inspiration Award, the Woodie Flowers Award, and the Dean's List Award. The most prestigious award is the Impact Award (previously called the Chairman's Award), which recognizes the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate both on and off the field.
2012 Einstein Field Interference Incident On the 2012 Einstein field, multiple robots lost wireless connection and communication, resulting in an inability to respond to commands. Given that 8 of the 12 teams in the finals were affected, FIRST launched an investigation into the root causes of the incident. Representatives from all 12 of the teams accepted an invitation to visit the FIRST headquarters for participation in further testing. According to the president of FIRST at the time, Jon Dudas, there was an intentional act of interference by an FRC team member who was not a part of the winning alliance. The report from FIRST indicated that there were multiple causes in addition to intentional interference that could have resulted in the incident, such as troubleshooting failures, radio power supply, sensors, wiring, and software malfunctions.
Recent winners