FTC is designed for those who want to compete head-to-head, using a sports model. Teams of up to 10 students are responsible for designing, building, and programming their robots to compete in an alliance format against other teams. The robot kit is reusable from year-to-year and is programmed using a variety of languages. Teams, including coaches, mentors and volunteers, are required to develop strategy and build robots based on sound engineering principles. Awards are given for the competition as for well as for community outreach, design, and other real-world accomplishments.

Students in the program will apply real-world math and science concepts to design, build and program robotics to complete real-world challenges.  Competing as a group, they will develop problem-solving, organizational and team-Building skills. Teams have the opportunity to earn a place in the FIRST Tech Challenge World Challenge, while individual team members can qualify for close to $7 million in college scholarships.

The FIRST family of programs is housed in a 7,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility that was completed in 2010. This facility, called the Science, Technology and Math Academy, is home to other programs which inspire Native American youth to pursue careers in the hard sciences.

• Must be a freshman or sophomore in high school at the beginning of the academic school year
• Must have a minimum of a 2.75 GPA