The FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC) is an international robotics competition for young people aged 15-18, founded by FIRST in 1992 and now involving over 95,000 students in more than 35 countries.
Each year, teams of 10 or more members design, build, programme a robot within a period of approximately six weeks and aim for the Champion. At the same time, they are required to raising funds for all the costs, and develop their coordination and teamwork skills for the competition.
Each team builds one robot for the competition. In the qualifying rounds, three teams are randomly selected to form one "Alliance" and compete against each other. The format is: improvised coalition (3 teams) vs.
Communication is crucial, as the teams have to work together with teams from various places.
As the competition rules changes each year, the functions required for the robot will vary from year to year.
The regulations for 2023 was as follows.
Picking up cubes and cones on the ground and placing them in a designated area
As much as you place them, the alliance score points
Maintain the balance of three robots on the balance beam automatically
If the alliance able to balance them self they score additional points
During the competition, the robots would collide violently with other robots. Which means the robots also needed to have the strength to withstand this and the team require mechanic skills to repair the robot in a short time and compete in the next match.
The rules will be revealed in English in January every year. Within only six weeks, all the teams will have to build their robots which are sized approximately 1m x 1m x 1m and weighing 50kg, with the budget they raised. In addition to robots' performances, robots' design and outreach activities (lectures, etc.) are also evaluated in the qualification criteria.