Hi ,

Program Updates, Deadlines, & Reminders

Today! FIRST^® Event Registration, First Preference: Round 1 of event preferencing is now open. Teams must be “event ready” (no outstanding tasks on your FIRST Dashboard) in order to preference events. Be sure to review our Event Preference User Guide for step-by-step instructions and an FAQ. Submit your team’s preferences before October 3, 2024, at 12:00 noon ET.  

Kit & Kickoff Opening: The Kit and Kickoff registration also opened today, Thursday, September 26, at 12:00 noon ET and closes November 12, at 12:00 noon ET. Every event ready FIRST Robotics Competition team must select a local Kickoff location to pick up their Kickoff Kit and also provide a Kickoff Kit shipment address, in the event the team is switched to a MySite. 

We highly recommend teams pickup their Kickoff Kit at a local Kickoff in order to receive it on Kickoff Day. If a team opts to have their Kickoff Kit shipped, it will ship after Kickoff and only once a team has secured their registration fee. There is no guaranteed delivery date, but it will be after Kickoff. Visit our Kickoff Selection Instructions for help.  

PLEASE NOTE: You MUST provide a shipping address even if your team selects to pickup their Kit at a local Kickoff. 

Regional Advancement Task Force Update: Check out this FIRST^® Robotics Competition blog for updates on regional advancement to FIRST Championship. 

Game Piece Presales: AndyMark is opening pre-orders for one of the game pieces for REEFSCAPE^SM presented by Haas today! Read this FIRST Robotics Competition blog for more information. 

Sales Tax Information: FIRST is required to collect and remit sales tax in several U.S. taxing jurisdictions, including a destination sales tax in certain states within the U.S. that tax event fees, if a valid exemption certificate is not obtained from the team. In some instances, taxes can still apply even if a valid tax-exempt certificate is provided. Please visit our Sales Tax Information for additional details on this topic. 

Resource of the Week: Let’s talk about prototyping! Prototyping is the act of creating preliminary mock-ups to verify the performance and test the feasibility of ideas and is key to the FIRST Robotics Competition build season. Check out the following resources: 

🤖 Prototyping 101 - a resource that discusses prototyping concepts and explains the prototyping process. 

🤖 Prototyping Worksheet - a worksheet, created by The Compass Alliance, that helps teams through the prototyping process. 

FIRST Updates

Register Youth Team Members: The parent or guardian of every youth team member is required to complete the FIRST youth registration process for their participant before they may participate in any organized team activities. This electronic process must be completed prior to the student attending any team meetings or any FIRST events or competitions. For more information and instructions on how to complete the online youth team member registration process, visit the Youth Registration System Overview.  

Express Enrollment: Coaches and mentors in the United States and Canada with completed FIRST Youth Protection Screenings can take advantage of Express Enrollment, which provides a simplified experience on mobile and desktop to register and accept youth to FIRST teams. View Express Enrollment Coach/Mentor Instructions and the Express Enrollment Parent/Guardian Instructions. Have questions? Check out our FAQ or contact FIRST Support. 

Community Engagement 

Opportunity for Women FIRST Alumni in Engineering: RTX is inviting FIRST alumni attending the SWE conference on October 24 in Chicago, Illinois, to stop by their hospitality suite. Please have FIRST alumni pre-register and mention that they are FIRST alumni during their interview and on their resume. By registering for this event, alumni may be asked to supply personal data to the event organizer, and this data will be subject to the organizer's privacy policy. Anyone registering should review the organizer's privacy policy and understand how their data will be used before participating in the event.