Written with Cate Sullivan, originally for FullCircle
The Rookie All Star Award (RAS) is one of the three culture-changing awards in the FIRST
Robotics Competition and is the most prestigious award a rookie team is eligible for. Many
teams set winning RAS as their major goal for their rookie year, and with good reason. Winning
this award demonstrates a team’s quality for the current year and years to come.
FIRST DEFINITION
FIRST describes the Rookie All Star Award as an award that “celebrates the rookie team
exemplifying a young but strong partnership effort, as well as implementing the mission of
FIRST to inspire students to learn more about science and technology.”
This team seems like a “Impact Award team in the making.” (Community activities,
leadership, vision, spirit, etc.)
The team is a true partnership between school or organization and sponsors.
The team understands what FIRST is really trying to accomplish – realizes that technical
stuff is fun, challenging, and offers a future.
This team has built a robot appropriate to the game’s challenges.
WHY THE AWARD EXISTS
The Rookie All Star Award exists to encourage rookie teams to build their culture the right way
from the beginning. FIRST is about much more than robots. Simply put, it’s about changing the
culture around education to inspire students to pursue careers in science, technology,
engineering, and math. While FIRST as an organization works hard to pursue this, the teams
are the best agents of change. Starting your team off in a way that matches the RAS criteria is
the best way to ensure you’re prepared to help achieve the goal.
The first part of the criteria refers to the Impact Award, the highest honor in FIRST. Teams
that win the Impact Award demonstrate an impact over several years and contribute to the goals of FIRST. You can read more about the award here.
When FIRST first began, it was created to be a strong partnership between students and a company. This would allow students to learn from professionals in STEM careers, make connections, and get inspired by the opportunities available to them. Since then, things have changed quite a bit, but the core remains the same: FIRST teams are built on strong relationships between students, mentors, and sponsors. By promoting this vision to rookie teams, FIRST ensures that this idea continues to be a part of the program.
The third point connects to the phrase “More than Robots.” The ultimate goal is to get more students interested in careers in STEM, but it doesn’t have to be as boring as it sounds. The original idea for the FIRST Robotics Competition was to have a STEM sport, because the sports model has been enormously successful at encouraging young people to become athletes. As you develop your team, FIRST reminds you to engage your students as you spread STEM. Luckily, robots are a lot of fun.
The last point simply requires that your robot be functional. While FIRST wants you to pursue
STEM inspiration and education, their whole program is based around robotics teams
competing like other sports teams. To be eligible for the award, you have to prove that you’re
actually working towards competing.
WHY THE ROOKIE ALL STAR AWARD MATTERS TO YOU
The Rookie All Star award is a measurement of success. Teams receiving the Rookie All Star
award know that whatever culture they’ve developed in their first season is working and worth
pursuing. It is a recognition of a job well done and a challenge to be a shining example to other
teams for years to come.
On top of that, being awarded the Rookie All Star Award at a regional or district championship
gives the recipient team an invitation to the the FIRST Championship. The FIRST
Championship is an incredible catalyst of growth, showing team members what FIRST is truly
about. Rookie teams have the chance to compete alongside teams of the highest caliber, learn
from knowledgeable members of the community, and feel a part of something bigger. Simply
put, the Rookie All Star Award will help sustain your team’s growth and recognition and create a lot of fun opportunities along the way.
Basically, the Rookie All Star Award comes down to three things: quality structure, quality
relationships, and quality robots.
MISSION STATEMENT
The mission statement is what your team is trying to accomplish. Take your time with this
section, because it’s the driving engine of your team. As a team, ask yourself, “What are we
trying to contribute to the world?” Running a team takes a lot of work, so make sure that
contribution is worth it.
Some examples of mission statements:
Team 27: To create leaders who inspire people to value STEM
Team 245: To provide an inspiring learning environment that fosters growth and appreciation of STEM and business knowledge, and to teach students skills vital to success in the real world through a strong connection between students, mentors, and sponsors
Team 4384: Not only to inspire students’ interest in STEM, but to prepare students’ for the work world and equip them with the skills to be successful, being a consistent resource every stage of the learning process
You’ll notice a lot of FIRST ’s goals reflected in these. FIRST provides an opportunity to inspire
students to actually care about STEM, rather than just doing it because they know they should.
You don’t need to base your mission off of FIRST ’s goals, but it’s a safe plan to have an impact
and helps with your RAS campaign.
COMMITMENT TO STEM
As mentioned in the section “Why The Award Exists,” FIRST teams generally seek to inspire
students to pursue STEM education, and if possible, provide some of that education. Winning
the Rookie All Star Award doesn’t require a demonstrated impact, but it does require the intent to have one. The judges need to see that you’re committed to more than just competing. You need to be committed to changing your community’s culture around STEM.
The mission statement is a great place to include this because it stays so central to your team.
Just make sure you follow through with it. The vast majority of teams will tell judges that they
care about STEM, so you need to be able to say, “Our mission includes STEM, which means we
want to do ___” to stand out.
DOCUMENTATION
In general, accessible documentation improves continuity and communication. By writing things down, you can ensure that your team’s functions are at least available to the students and mentors who come after you. They also make a fantastic aid for presenting.
Some examples of documents you can make are:
Business plan
Engineering notebook
Student handbook
Branding guidelines
Safety manual
Training guides
FUTURE PLANS
An "Impact Award-winning team in the making” looks to make an impact over a long period
of time. There’s a reason that the Impact criteria only regards efforts from the previous 2-5
years. To be an Impact team in the making, you need to show that you can do this.
The first step is making the plans. If you have a strategic plan, use that. If not, start with your
mission. To better achieve that, what general things do you need to do? What smaller things
need to get done to do those things, and what 1-5 year goals can you set yourself to get them
done?
The most important plans to show off are those that ensure your team’s sustainability. Just by
virtue of being a FIRST team, you’ll have an impact every year you exist, so the first priority is
keeping your team going. What are the major threats you’re going to face in the next few years? Do you have a plan for funding once rookie scholarships run out? What about your key
mentors?
Plan to expand your team’s outreach. How can you impact more people? How can you provide
more opportunities? Consider ways to start FIRST programs in other schools in your district, or
creating summer camps with scholarship for low-income students. Remember: judges want to
see plans for sustainability, but they want to see reasonable ones. Show them that you have a
goal and that you have put thought into how you will get to that goal.
SCHOOL
The first step to building a quality relationship with your school is reaching out to your head
administrator such as your principal or director. Make sure to leave a good first impression by
being professional and coming with a plan on how the basics of the team will work. Some of the basics include: the team budget (or a potential outline of one), who will oversee the club
(teachers, mentor, parents, etc.), meeting dates and length, transportation, and recruitment.
You want to be knowledgeable in front of the administrator to leave a good first impression and show them that you know what you are talking about. Once you establish a working relationship, do your best to maintain it with friendly check-ins and updates. Creating this relationship will pay dividends when it comes time to ask favors of your administration.
RECRUITMENT
As mentioned in the “School” section, recruitment is one of the most important parts of a
successful robotics team. Create a plan for your recruitment, including your target number of
students and mentors and how you plan to reach that target. Luckily, there are many ways to do this: posters, outreach events at school and in the community, and spreading the word by
talking to other students are great ways to show who you are and what you do. Maintaining a
positive relationship with the students and adults within your community is a key to keeping a
positive feel with the community and keeping student interest high the following years.
SPONSORSHIPS
Sponsors are an integral part to any robotics team. Generating and maintaining relationships
with sponsor companies will ensure that your team has enough money to meet its goals during the build season. There are plenty of ways to find sponsors: local businesses (both large and small), service organizations like Rotary, and philanthropy groups are all possible sponsors. Just as with your school, maintaining a healthy relationship with your sponsors is vital. Always show up on time, be prompt and courteous in your communication, and invite the sponsor to feel like a part of the team. Give them team gear, invite them to your events, and give them end-of-season gift baskets/thank you cards. This will go a long way towards keeping your sponsors happy and engaged.
OUTREACH
Your team’s outreach is how you leave an impact on your community. This isn’t to be confused
with talking to potential sponsors. Your outreach shouldn’t be in an effort to gain money, but
rather to improve the lives of others. A great way to get started is by talking to elementary and
middle schools about starting sustainable FIRST teams. Put your utmost effort into these
relationships, because this is what FIRST is all about: inspiring others to succeed.
READ. THE. MANUAL.
You make your strategy. You build your robot. You make it better. You learn to drive it. You
code it. You get to your first competition and don’t pass inspection.
Every single member of your team needs to read the manual. It makes sure everyone is on the
same page and mostly understands how the game works. It also makes the above scenario a
lot less likely. Way more teams than you would expect show up to their events with an illegal
robot and have to hastily cut off a part. In addition, watch for the rules updates throughout the build season. While many of them are clarifications for gray zones, entire strategies have been ruled out by these updates before.
A team that doesn’t make it to the field with a legal robot is not going to win RAS.
BASIC FUNCTIONALITY
Your robot doesn’t need to be exceptional to win RAS, but at very least it needs to play the
game. There’s two challenges you need to make sure you can accomplish at their most basic
level: manipulation and scoring.
Every game has game pieces that impact the score: balls, cubes, etc. Some years have multiple
types of game pieces. You need to prove that you can manipulate at least one of them. This
could be anything from an effective plow to a claw to an advanced grabbing mechanism, but it
needs to work and ideally would be driver-friendly. The last thing you want to do is spend the
entire match trying to pick up a single scoring object and not get a chance to do anything with it.
The purpose of manipulating the game pieces is, of course, to score them. Nearly every game
has some sort of floor goal or other way to easily score game pieces for just a few points. It’s not always strategically advantageous for you to go for it, but it’s specifically tailored to allow less experienced teams to contribute to their alliance and strive for a challenge. If you can score once per game at your first competition, you’re probably beating a few other rookie teams. If you can score more than once, you’ve gone above and beyond the criteria for the award.
START SIMPLE
You don’t have to design your robot completely from scratch. Notably, there’s two big resources available to you: the Kitbot and the Everybot.
The Kitbot is a kit of parts manufactured by AndyMark to provide rookie teams with a basis. It
includes a chassis, controls system, four drive motors, basic motors, and basic tools. It’s highly
recommended to start here. Unless your strategy requires you to do something that this doesn’t allow, there’s almost no reason not to start with the Kitbot. Starting in 2023, the kit of parts also includes the guide to build a simple scoring mechanism, which can help you field a robot that can score.
The Everybot is a robot designed by Team 118 to be simple, cheap, and stand a good chance
of making it to the elimination rounds. Its parts can be found in the supplied kit of parts or at
common FRC retailers, totalling up to less than $1,000. Eventually, you might want to branch
out into your own designs and strategies, but this is a sure-fire way to compete at a high level
your rookie year and get a foundation of skills.
WHAT TO SAY
After introducing your team and giving a brief rundown of your program, try angling the
conversation towards your setbacks and how you overcame them. If you had funding troubles or a lack of mentors, tell your judges! Make them aware of the hardship and then explain to them how you got passed said hardship with your hard work and determination. The other major thing to tell your judges is your plans for a sustainable team. Talk about your financial planning for the next season and how you intend to increase your membership and mentor base. Talk about your expansion of program and outreach. Above all, talk about how FIRST has impacted you and how you want to share that with others.
Your goal with pit interviews is to give the judges information that will impact their decision in the judges’ room. To do that, you need your facts to stick in their head or get written down. Statistics almost always get written down, but too many of them can make them all seem less important, so share 1-3 impressive numbers. Unique personal stories are much more memorable than explanations, so use them whenever possible as long as you can still get the information across.
HOW TO SAY IT
One of the most crucial parts of the Rookie All-Star award is how you convey it to judges. FIRST
judges are excited to hear what you have to say about your team, so make sure you feed them
with your enthusiasm! When a judge comes to your pit, always make sure to introduce yourself and shake their hand. Be friendly and show your enthusiasm. As your discussion goes on and they ask questions, answer to the best of your ability. It’s okay to not have the answer! If a question comes up that you have trouble answering, introduce the judge to the person on the team who can best answer the question. Judges love hearing from multiple students across all different subteams, so make sure everyone on your team is ready to talk about what they’ve worked on. Another great resource to have is a judge handout. A judge handout is a simple piece of paper that has statistics about what your team has accomplished, as well as pictures from your season. The handout should mention things like the money you’ve raised, how many community partners (read: local sponsors) you’ve connected with, and how you’ve worked to change the lives of others. Keep it brief and clear, as you want to be able to point to numbers and statistics. Judges don’t typically have time to read long blocks of text, so keep your handout to something that can quickly be glanced at. Always remember to thank your judges as they leave! They volunteer their time to positively impact your life, so make their day better by recognizing them for their hard work. Shake their hands as they leave and welcome them to come back with any further questions they have!
Never lose momentum. Being awarded the Rookie Inspiration Award or Rookie All-Star Award is a perfect way to build excitement around your program. Use that excitement for recruitment, sponsorships, and community partnerships. Have a plan for next year and five years passed that, and create goals to meet to realize your plans. Remember: the Rookie All-Star Award is a culture award; use it to guide your team forward into a successful future.