An Overview of First Tech Challenge
If you are passionate about robotics or engineering, then First Tech Challenge is the thing for you! First Tech Challenge is a competition where people of many different ages and many different grades can team up to build and program robots to complete certain challenges. There are three options of competitions to participate in: First Lego League (ages 4-16), First Tech Challenge (ages 12-18), or First Robotics Competition (ages 14-18). All of these competitions are related to building and programming your own robots.
Why Should You Participate in First Tech Challenge?
There are so many reasons to participate in First Tech Challenge:
If you are interested in engineering and robotics, First Tech Challenge is a great way of challenging and furthering your knowledge and skills in these subjects.
First Tech Challenge will help improve skills beyond programming and engineering skills. For example, in order to participate in First Tech Challenge, you must work with a team. So, First Tech Challenge will help improve your collaboration and communication skills, as it is very important to work together effectively with your team members if you wish to successfully build and program a robot to enter into the challenge or competition.
First Tech Challenge also helps you improve in your innovation and creativity skills, since you often have to create your own, unique ways of building a robot and programming it to complete specific tasks. No team will ever code their robot to complete a task in the same exact way!
Entering yourself into First Tech Challenge could better your applications. This is because you will be committing to a long term project, which shows schools and other programs that you are passionate and committed to learning more about engineering, programming, robotics, etc. Placing in the competition is a great way of showing off your skills and achievements!
During the competition, you can meet many mentors and professionals who could possibly give you advice and help you with your programming and robot building skills!
Finally, First Tech Challenge is just a very fun and exciting experience!
How Do You Get Involved In First Tech Challenge?
Many middle school and high school students get involved in First Tech Challenge, so there are many ways for you to participate!
Many schools have robotics clubs, where the students participating in the club often attend the First Tech Challenge as a team. If you have a robotics club at your middle school or high school, you could ask a teacher if your club participates in First Tech Challenge or not. If your school’s robotics club does not participate in First Tech Challenge, you could gather a group of friends who are also interested in participating in this competition with you, and ask a teacher to sign you up!
If you are unsure who to ask to help you sign up for the competition, or if you are struggling to find a group of people to join you, the official First Tech Challenge’s website will help you out! On their website, you can give them your information so you can register with First Tech Challenge and they can help you get started. Here is the link to their sign up page! There is also a page on their website that allows you to search for First Tech Challenge teams in your area!
An Account of My Experience With First Tech Challenge/First Lego League
I am currently in high school, but I participated in my school’s robotics club from 6th-8th grade. Our school’s robotics team was registered with the competition so at the end of every school year, we participated in the First Lego League regional competitions. In the First Lego League, we built robots using legos.
According to my experience with the First Lego League Competition, the theme for the competition would change each year. For example, one year, the competition theme was related to space and rovers. For each competition, there was often a set of tasks and challenges that we could program our robots to perform. These tasks or challenges were usually related to the theme. For example, during the year of the space theme, one possible task that the robot we built and programmed could accomplish was picking up a rover, moving it, then placing it in a certain area. If we completed these tasks successfully, we would gain points, and I believe we were also scored on how many tasks our robot was able to complete in a certain amount of time during the competition.
When we first started preparing for the First Lego League, we divided our robotics team into groups of two and three. Each group chose a set of tasks that they wanted to work on together. That way, our whole team covered as many tasks as we could, so we could get the most amount of points. When building our robots to complete certain tasks, I remember having to think very deeply and creatively about what lego attachment we wanted to give to our robot that would be the most effective in assisting the robot in completing its task. For example, tasks a robot has to complete during this challenge often include moving multiple objects from one place to another. So, my partner and I had to create an attachment that the robot could use to push an object into a specific spot. We also had to make sure the attachment could hold more than one object. Therefore, we ended up creating an attachment with three, high walls. The high walls allowed us to carry a large stack of objects.
I thought the regional competition was very fun and exciting. As a team, we traveled to the competition site together. We were there for hours and took turns running our robot’s program to see how many points we would get. It was a tiring day and I remember being very nervous, but we ended up placing in the competition as one of the top ten teams. Our team dynamic was very supportive and we always cheered for each other when our programs ran successfully. The positive competitive atmosphere and spirit really motivated us to want to improve our robot building and programming skills. Overall, I would say that the First Lego League was a very fun and rewarding experience and I highly recommend you all to participate in it! It is also very similar to the First Tech Challenge, yet the First Tech Challenge goes beyond building a robot with legos.
Other Resources for First Tech Challenge
When starting off with First Tech Challenge, the competition will often send teams a robot building kit. I think this kit is a very valuable resource to have because it is a great way of giving you some starting supplies when building your first robot! So, if you plan on entering into First Tech Challenge, I encourage you to make sure you receive one of these kits!
For the first lego league competition, there is a block coding program that my robotics club team used when coding our robot. I found this program very easy to work with as a beginner coder! For the First Tech Challenge, participants often use traditional coding languages, such as Java.
Overall, I think that the First Tech Challenge competitions are great experiences. If you wish to learn more about programming, robotics, and engineering, I highly recommend that you participate in the First Tech Challenge!
About Inspirit AI
AI Scholars Live Online is a 10 session (25-hour) program that exposes high school students to fundamental AI concepts and guides them to build a socially impactful project. Taught by our team of graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and more, students receive a personalized learning experience in small groups with a student-teacher ratio of 5:1.
