The FIRST Robotics Competition involves teams of mentors (corporate employees, teachers, or college students) and high school students who collaborate to design and build a robot in six weeks. This robot is designed to play a game, which is designed by FIRST and changes from year to year. This game is announced at a nationally simulcast kickoff event in January. Regional competitions take place around the United States as well as in Canada and Israel, but FIRST has a multinational following that further includes the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, and Germany.
Teams are expected to solicit local businesses for support in the form of donations of time, money, or skills. Some teams have membership of 60 or more and have established substantial presence in their local communities by helping local FIRST Lego League teams (see below), running classes in various technical topics, and more.
As of 2006, FIRST includes more than 1,100 teams (around 20,000 students) competing in 33 Regional Competitions, as well as one championship competition held in Atlanta, Georgia.
Although FIRST encourages teams to compete robustly against one another for numerous awards and success in the arena, the organization bestows its highest honor, the Chairman's Award, on teams that best exemplify the FIRST ethos of "gracious professionalism". According to the 2004 FIRST Team Manual "...one of the most straightforward interpretations of gracious professionalism is that we learn and compete like crazy, but treat one another with respect and kindness in the process. We try to avoid leaving anyone feeling like they are losers. No chest thumping barbarian tough talk, but no sticky sweet platitudes either. Knowledge, pride and empathy comfortably blended..." FIRST teams tend to take this paradigm to heart, and, as many observers have noted, even during the fiercest of competitions rivals can often be seen complimenting or offering technical assistance to each other. In order to win the Chairman's Award, teams are expected to apply "gracious professionalism" outside the competition by participating in community service activities which further FIRST's mission of changing student's perspectives about science and technology.
FIRST is not just about building a good robot. The intense working conditions, and hard-earned wins build families out of teams, and an important part of the competition is to ensure that good work ethics and gracious professionalism are kept throughout the competition. In fact, of the awards handed out at regional's and the championship, the most important ones deal not with who had the best robot, but who did the best job of spreading the message of FIRST.