FIRST was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, an inventor and entrepreneur best known for Segway and groundbreaking medical devices. His mission was to create a robotics program that would make science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) as exciting and accessible to students as sports.

What started as a small competition has grown into a global movement that reaches hundreds of thousands of students over 100 countries.

FIRST offers four main programs:

• FIRST LEGO League Discover & Explore – For younger kids just starting out in STEM.

• FIRST LEGO League (FLL) – For students ages 4–14, using LEGO robotics kits to explore real-world challenges.

• FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) – For middle and high schoolers, where teams design smaller robots and code them using REV-based platforms.

• FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) – The “varsity sport for the mind,” where high school teams build 100+ lb. robots to compete in complex, themed games each year.

Each season, teams get a new game challenge and have a set amount of time to design, build, and code a robot to compete. But FIRST is about more than just robots — it teaches teamwork, leadership, innovation, and real-world problem solving.

Today, FIRST alumni are thriving in careers in engineering, tech, medicine, and beyond — and many come back to mentor new teams and give back to the community.

As quoted from their website “..our programs are More Than Robots®, FIRST participants are guided by a signature set of Core Values to conduct research, fundraise, design, build, and showcase their achievements. Our thrilling, sports-like challenges build their self-confidence and collaborative problem-solving skills and have a proven and lasting impact on STEM learning and interest. Our participants and alumni gain access to education and career discovery opportunities, connections to exclusive scholarships and employers, and a place in the FIRST community for life.” (more information here)