Discover our community
Here’s your introduction to the programme and how it works.
What’s FIRST Tech Challenge UK?
FIRST Tech Challenge UK is an educational robotics programme for 12-18-year-olds. Fuelled by inspiring young people, electric events, passionate industry volunteers and enriching educational content, the challenge is more than robots.
At FIRST UK, we empower young people to make informed choices about their future. We’re on a mission to make STEM less intimidating, more diverse and inclusive.
Taking STEM beyond the classroom
- Gain essential skills such as speaking, problem-solving, creativity, adaptability, project management, leadership and teamwork
- Learn to design, build and code a robot
- Attend local meet-ups, compete in a regional tournament and earn a spot at the UK Championship
- Inspire young people to discover their place in STEM
- Join a global community
Backed by a global movement
FIRST, established 1989
FIRST is a 36-year-old global movement that engages over 650K young people, and 300K mentors and volunteers globally.
FIRST UK, established 2018
We’re FIRST UK, the charity which runs FIRST Tech Challenge UK. We brought the challenge to the UK in 2018.
How the season works
Explore the tabs below to understand each stage of the season and the events your team will participate in. Between each phase, teams are busy working away on their robots, fundraising, doing outreach and more.
What’s kick-off?
Sep – Oct
You’ll receive your kit, access to our resources and any other important info to get you off to a good start then.
Throughout kick-off, you’ll be able to join our calendar of webinars to get you on the right track and understand each year’s game.
The season timeline
What’s a scrimmage?
Nov – Dec
Scrimmages are local non-competitive events where your team can learn from the community to improve their robot. No matter what stage your team is at in their build, we encourage them to come to their scrimmage. We’ve had teams turn up with an unopened box of parts and leave with something that can at least drive around.
We make the dates available for these in September.
What’s a qualifying tournament?
Feb – Mar
Your team’s qualifying tournament is what they’ve been working towards. It’s their chance to compete against other teams and earn a spot at our UK Championship.
It’s not all about their robot’s performance. Teams showcase their months of hard work across engineering, outreach, problem-solving and more in the hopes of winning regional awards. When we say it’s More Than Robots, we really mean it.
And no matter how they do on the day, we promise the day’s energy will be rewarding itself.
What’s the championship?
June
The UK Championship is the chance for teams to secure UK-wide recognition. It’s the ultimate event of the season that bridges where STEM meets sport.
Our UK Championship brings together the top teams from across all of our regional qualifiers.
The top team from the UK Championship receives the chance to represent Great Britain at FIRST Global on the international stage.
What’s the off-season?
Apr – July
Once teams have competed in their qualifier, if they don’t progress to champs, they join the off-season. Just because their event season is over doesn’t mean the fun stops there. The off-season is the perfect time for teams to gear up for next year in a relaxed environment. With fun mini-missions to keep the team motivated, the off-season gives teams time to reset and come back stronger next year.
June – July
If your team does make it to champs, they’ll just join the off-season later, so still have time to reflect on their achievements ahead of next year.
Your role as a Team Lead
As a Team Lead, you’re there to guide, not teach. This means you don’t need to be a tech whizz yourself for your team to thrive in the challenge.
- 1-2 hours a week, facilitating a robotics club
- Student-led delivery with up to 15 team members aged 12-18
Many team leads have a team assistant to help them throughout the season. They’re often another member of staff at your organisation.
Your community cheerleaders
You’re never alone in FIRST Tech Challenge UK as a Team Lead. Throughout the programme, you’ll have a Champion Organisation, HQ Hub Coordinator and a bank of educational resources to help you. You’ll also gain access to our pool of industry mentors.
Champion Organisations
Every team is assigned a Champion Organisation when they register. They are your community contact for support throughout the season. They’ve done all of this before!
Champion Organisations will typically be the host of your events too.
Industry mentors
The challenge is powered by industry volunteers, who we like to call Game Changers. You’ll spot them in blue and yellow T-shirts at our events and throughout the season, many of them donate their time to support teams either remotely or in-person with various aspects of the challenge.
HQ Hub Coordinator
You’ll be assigned a HQ Hub Coordinator to support you, with specific knowledge of your region. Paige, Toni and Lizzie are your go-to’s for any administrative queries. Psst, we’re not all that techy so head to your Champion Organisation Ambassador for any of that.
Educational resources mapped to essential skills
When you register for the programme, you and your team will gain access to our platform of educational resources called Makerspace.
This is where you can find guides, checklists, videos and helpful links to understand different areas of the programme. From iterative design to getting started with coding, our resources are mapped to essential skills, the KS3+4 curriculum and Gatsby Benchmarks so you and your team understand where you’re developing.
Not only that, but you’ll also have access to a forum to communicate with other teams finding their feet.
Financial support
Bursaries are available to non-fee-paying DfE/DoE/Education Scotland registered schools, SEND and Alternative Providers serving young people aged 12 to 18 and youth organisations with a safeguarding policy.
Teams not eligible for a bursary pay a one-off £1200 for the robotics kit, and a £399 yearly commitment fee (VAT incl).
Bursaries
We offer two tiers of bursary:
Full – no payment required for the kit (only pay the £399 yearly commitment fee)
Partial – a contribution of £300 required (total of £699 payable)
The yearly commitment fee ensures a year’s worth of STEM enrichment provision per team.
Invoices
Invoices are issued from May when our bursary scheme opens and must be paid within 30 days.
We have two deadlines for bursary applications: 13 June and 11 July.
Early registration for applications without a bursary closes on 31 July.
Fundraising
Community outreach is a development opportunity for teams. Fundraising resources are embedded within the challenge to encourage teams to drum up support from local businesses for travel, team enhancements and sponsorship.
We strongly encourage all teams to set up an online fundraising page on or before the point of registration. Many members of our community have raised thousands of pounds to support their robotics club and broader STEM activities.
Register your team
Join the 2025-26 season! You will need your details, consent of an SLT contact, information on your team and billing details. If you have been referred by a team, you will also need the name of their organisation.
You will be able to apply for a bursary at the end of this form.
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