FIRST Championship

FIRST Championship Event
Begins	Houston: April 19, 2017 (2017-04-19) St. Louis: April 26, 2017 (2017-04-26)
Ends	Houston: April 22, 2017 (2017-04-22) St. Louis: April 29, 2017 (2017-04-29)
Frequency	Annual
Venue	Dome at America's Center George R. Brown Convention Center
Location(s)	St. Louis, Missouri, United States Houston, Texas, United States
Inaugurated	1992 (1992)
Participants	~60 nations Large presence by the United States, Canada, Mexico, Israel, United Kingdom and Brazil
Organised by	FIRST
Website
www.firstchampionship.org

FIRST Championship is a four-day robotics championship held annually in April. 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 will stay through 2017. The event comprises four competitions, FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Championship, FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) World Championship, FIRST Lego League (FLL) World Festival, and FIRST Lego League Junior World Expo.^[1] FIRST Championship is normally held in conjunction with FIRST Robotics Conference which covers a wide variety of topics in science, technology, engineering, and robotics fields.^[2]

FRC is a six-week competition program for high-school students to build 120 pound (54 kg) robots that can complete a task that changes every year using standard set of parts, plus any additional off-the-shelf or custom parts. FTC is a mid-level competition program for high-school aged students with a more accessible and affordable robotics kit. FLL is a competition program for elementary and middle school students using LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits. Teams for each program compete in tournaments at state and regional level. The winning teams from each of these tournaments join the global competition at FIRST Championship.

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 will take place at the Renaissance St. Louis Grand Hotel, The FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) World Championship and the Junior FIRST Lego League (Jr. FLL) World Festival will take place at Union Station (St. Louis), and the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) World Festival as well as the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Championship will continue to take place at the Edward Jones Dome and America's Center. The new arrangement is designed to give an "Olympic Village" feel and allow for more space to expand each individual program.^[3] In 2017, the Championship was split into 2 championships, one occurring in Houston and the other a week later in St. Louis.

Host cities

• 1992: Manchester, NH
• 1993–1994: Nashua, NH
• 1995–2002: Orlando, FL, 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)
• 2017-2020: Houston, at George R. Brown Convention Center, Toyota Center, and Minute Maid Park
• 2018-2020: Detroit, at Cobo Center and Ford Field

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.^[4] In 1993, the sole competition was held at Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, New Hampshire.^[5] In 1994, the competition was held at Nashua High School.^[6] 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.^[7] Reliant Park in Houston was the venue for 2003.^[8] Atlanta served as host city from 2004 through 2010.^[9][10] In 2005, the contract with Atlanta was extended through 2007 with options for 2008 and 2009.^[9] 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.^[11] In 2013, the tenure in St. Louis was once again extended for three additional years through 2017.^[12]

On April 9, 2015, it was announced that the 2017 through 2020 championships will consist of two championship events, located in two different cities on back to back weekends. The 2017 championships will be 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 will mark St. Louis's final hosting of the event for the foreseeable future, ending its seven years hosting the event, as well as FIRST Championships's return to Houston, following the 2003 Championships at Reliant Park. From 2018 to 2020, Houston will continue to host the championships, with Detroit, Michigan taking St. Louis's place. The Detroit championships will take place at Cobo Center and Ford Field.^[13]

FRC Championship

FRC Championship is the final and largest event of the FRC Season.

The winners of each regional competition arrive at the championship to compete to be the World Champion. They are placed into one of the 8 divisions to compete. The winning alliance from each division (a set of 3 teams) moves on to compete in the final playing field: Einstein Field. The winning alliance at Einstein Field (the set of 3 teams) is declared as the World Champion.

The FRC Championship was 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):

• Newton
• Galileo
• Archimedes
• Curie
• Tesla
• Hopper
• Carver
• Carson

In 2017, the first year of the split championships, there was 12 divisions (not including the final Einstein Field in each city), with six divisions in each of the two city. The six division winning alliances will play a round-robin tournament to determine their location's champion, who will then play the other city's champion in July at the FIRST Festival of Champions in New Hampshire:^[14][15]

Houston:

• Carver
• Galileo
• Hopper
• Newton
• Roebling
• Turing

St. Louis:

• Archimedes
• Carson
• Curie
• Daly
• Darwin
• Tesla

There are many awards in the Championship including Championship Finalists, Engineering Inspiration Award, Division Champions, Autodesk Visualization Award, Autodesk Inventor Award, Chrysler Team Spirit Award, Delphi "Driving Tomorrow's Technology" Award, General Motors Industrial Design Award, Johnson & Johnson Gracious Professionalism Award, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Entrepreneurship Award, Motorola Quality Award, Rockwell Automation Innovation in Control Award, Underwriters Laboratories Industrial Safety Award, Xerox Creativity Award, Imagery Award, Rookie All-star Award, Rookie Inspiration Award, Website Award and Judges' Awards. The most notable awards are Championship Award, and Chairman's Award – the highest honor that recognizes the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate.^[16]

Recent winners

FTC World Championship

Before 2014, after all FTC teams have competed in state / regional championship tournaments, the winning teams move on to the FTC World Championship. The Inspire Award winning teams and the captain teams of the Winning Alliance in the regional tournaments are automatically eligible for the world championship. If there are still spots available, additional teams may be picked by a lottery system.

From 2014 and on, teams compete in their state / regional Championships to qualify for a spot at one of 4 Super Regionals. North, South, East, and West. Depending on the presence/amount of teams in each state, determines the amount of teams that move on to a Super Regional. Teams then advance from a Super Regional by either winning one of the awards, First and Second Place, etc. For a complete list, visit www.USFIRST.org/FTC.

In 2009, the theme for the championship was Face Off!. It combined many real-world challenges, such as navigating uneven surfaces, manipulating odd-shaped objects, using sensors to determine the environment, and withstanding physical stress. The awards include World Championship Finalists, FTC Design Award, FTC Connect Award, FTC Innovate Award, FTC Motivate Award, FTC Think Award and Judges' Awards. The most notable awards are FTC Winning Alliance and FTC World Championship Inspire Award.^[16]

The FTC World Competition is currently held in St. Louis, Mo, at the Union Station, on the same weekend as the FRC and FLL are at the Edwards Dome.

FTC has two divisions that teams are randomly split into.

- Franklin

- Edison

For the 2017 FIRST Championship, the divisions were Edison and Ochoa.

Up until the end of the 2016 season winning alliances from Franklin and Edison FTC Teams went on to compete in the finals on the DaVinci Field.

In 2017 FTC Teams joined FRC teams to play their finals matches on the Einstein Field.

Recent winners

FLL World Festival

The top competitions in FLL program are FLL Open Championships and FLL World Festival. The Open Championships are managed by FLL Partners with a goal to bring teams from different regions to complete and showcase their achievements. Currently, there are two Open Championships, FLL Open European Championship and FLL US Open Championship. FLL Open Asian Championship was held for 2008 season in Tokyo, Japan. However, it was not active for 2009.^[27]

FLL World Festival is hosted and managed by FIRST. The teams are often the Champion’s Award team at the regional level with some other criteria including special nomination from FLL Operational Partners globally. In 2009, there were 84 teams from 27 countries that joined the festival with the theme Climate Connections. The award categories include Innovative Design Award, Quality Design Award, Programming Award, Research Quality Award, Innovative Solution Award, Creative Presentation Award, Teamwork Award, Team Spirit Awards, Against All Odds Awards, Outstanding Volunteer Awards, Adult Coach/Mentor Awards, Young Adult Mentor Awards, and Judges' Awards. The most notable awards are Champion's Award and Robot Performance Award.^[16]

Recent winners

References

Bibliography

• "2003 FIRST Robotics Competition" (PDF). FIRST. p. 7. Archived from the original on October 21, 2012. Retrieved October 9, 2012. CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)

External links

• FIRST Championship website