The Inspire Award recognizes a team that excels in every aspect of FIRST Tech Challenge: robot performance, engineering, outreach, teamwork, communication, and professionalism. It honors a team that serves as a role model for others — consistent, polished, well-documented, community-focused, and technically strong. Inspire teams demonstrate leadership, creativity, intentional outreach, and a deep understanding of the engineering process, while embodying the core values of FIRST through everything they do. 

The Motivate Award recognizes teams that excel in team branding, spirit, outreach creativity, and community engagement. It honors programs that build an inclusive and welcoming team culture, actively involve students in leadership roles, and expand awareness of STEM through unique, approachable outreach. Motivate teams create a strong identity, share FIRST with diverse audiences, and use their platform to inspire others to get involved in robotics and engineering. 

The Design Award celebrates teams with a robot that showcases exceptional engineering, craftsmanship, and innovation. Judges look for a well-designed, thoughtfully engineered machine with clear strategic intent behind every mechanism. Winning teams demonstrate strong CAD skills, clean and effective mechanical construction, smart component integration, and detailed documentation of their design decisions. This award highlights robots that are elegant, reliable, and built with both creativity and practicality in mind.