News
We’re hiring! Programme Officer | Remote first
Stories
Stay up with date with all the latest news, knowledge and robot madness from HQ.
We’re hiring! Programme Officer | Remote first
Wanted: an all-round charity wizard! Someone who can own all things events, volunteering, content and more within a fast-paced STEM education charity – empowering young people fr...
Concluding a phenomenal season – national awards and beyond!
What a year it has been! Teams, we’re immensely proud of every single one of you for your commitment and dedication during the most tumultuous season ever experienced. Teachers a...
Think Award Winner — Team F.R.I.T.E.S.
About the team We have a very close-knit, motivated and involved team, with different but complementary profiles in programming, construction, design and communication. A good atm...
Inspire Award Winner — Team GroundX
About the team Hi, we are GroundX. We are a group of 6th form students who are studying at Outwood Academy Newbold in Chesterfield. We started with the FIRST Tech Challenge UK ...
Motivate Award Winner — Team Binary Bots
About our team Hi! We’re Binary Bots 003 from London. We’ve been a FIRST Tech Challenge team in the UK for three years now, and we are passionate about robotics. Our team memb...
Collins Aerospace Innovate award winner — Team CalderDrones
About our team We’re a 10-person-strong team from Liverpool, UK, and we have a passion for robotics. We’ve put in hundreds of hours of work on our robot this year – every te...
Connect Award Winner — Team Snapwire
About the team Team Snapwire is a group of 8 pupils in Year 8 at Perton Middle School. Our team is successful because we thrive on teamwork and we support each other in any way po...
UK Remote Event 2: Scores and awards!
After excellent performances from teams hitting the Ultimate game field last month, more teams across the country jumped to challenge the Ultimate Goal game in round two of our rem...
UK Remote Event 1: The results are in!
The first set of UK teams hit the Ultimate Goal game field last week, marking the first week of our UK remote competition season. Fired and ready to perform, 12 teams battled the 2...
Helping you navigate the season ahead
Hey teams and Team Leads, this season kicked off with a rocky start and we appreciate you all for hanging in there! The government announced on 22 February that schools and college...
Watch The Download 2020-21 Kick-off edition
FIRST Tech Challenge UK is kicking off this season from 11-29 Jan 2021 with three flexible weeks for teams to share, connect and inspire each other as they get to grips with the Ul...
Dom’s strategy tips
We asked a Dom, previous Strategy Officer from the Binary Bots team in London, what tips and tricks they would pass along to help other teams when planning their season. They had l...
Let’s get kick-off readyyy!
Teams, it’s time to launch! Suit up with the tools you need to jumpstart the season during Kick-off Month, Monday 11 - Friday 29 January 2021. While many of you are remote lea...
Impress the judges with these five engineering notebook principles
Forget about robots for a second, the engineering notebook is hands down the most important material any team will produce in FIRST Tech Challenge UK. No team can be assessed for a...
Ideas to organise your team around Covid-19 safety measures
Hey teams and Team Leads, how’s it going? 👋 We’re seeing plenty of teams get creative with building a team and running sessions while protective measures are in place. Hereâ...
Bring on 2020-21 – new provision, new tech, new opportunities!
We have news! No, there are no FIRST baby bots on the horizon, although technically… kind of? More on that later... Registration for next season is NOW OPEN! That’s right, head...
Next season’s tech just got better
Let’s face it, we’re entering the 2020-21 season in a very different world, and recognise this presents new challenges for teams to connect and collaborate. This season, we’r...
Cross-party support for #FurloughForGood
Baroness Tyler and 14 cross-party members of the House of Lords have supported the #furloughforgood campaign by writing directly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer seeking urgent c...
Charities Minister urged to rethink furlough
Baroness Barran, Minister for Civil Society yesterday responded to questions from peers surrounding support for charities and allowing fuloughed charity employees to volunteer for ...
Surveying the impact of furlough and Covid-19 on charities
Whilst the Chancellor’s injection of £750 million for the sector is welcome, this funding will largely be accessible only to organisations involved in the covid-19 response and ...
Furlough for good – an open letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
UK Charities risk grinding to a halt just as they are needed most. COVID-19 is affecting all aspects of our lives and society in ways we are only just beginning to contemplate. Mea...
Coronavirus – statement from CEO
The arrival of coronavirus (Covid-19) on UK shores could not have happened at a more challenging time for the charity and the young people we serve. The inaugural UK Championship s...
FAQ: Championship cancellation
Not sure what to do next about the champs? No problem. Find details regarding changes to the national championship, the new virtual tournament and how to recover costs on this FAQ ...
Elated teams progress at South East mega regional
Largest regional competition drives inclusion among teenagers in an area with great socio-economic divide, powered by Arm and Qualcomm Incorporated 10 February 2020: Robots buil...
West Midlands double whammy soars 35 teams to the Olympic Park
Automotive and aerospace engineering heartland hosted competition powered by Collins Aerospace and its mega squad of industry volunteers, geared to make STEM less intimidating and ...
Northern Ireland feat advances top teams to London
Prime for innovation growth following its Aerospace engineering roots, Northern Ireland hosted competition to develop local STEM talent. Robots built by students in Northern Ire...
North West alliance wins by one point in nail-biting finish!
Wade Deacon High School, Cheadle Hulme High School and The Observatory School are crowned North West's Winning Alliance after a knife-edged final robotics match, winning by 39 poin...
South West competitors set sights on champs after regional triumph
The competition run by FIRST® Tech Challenge UK aims to ignite aspirations in young people and connect Bristol’s tech and engineering workforce with emerging talent Robots bu...
Looking back on 2019
It's been a phenomenal three months of robotics action since we kicked-off with SKYSTONE, this season's challenge. Teams have been phenomenal, with some ups, downs, and mini triump...
Building a strong game strategy – a lesson from team Binary Bots
Having a game strategy is critical when competing in the FIRST Tech Challenge. Not only does it help teams to focus on how they’ll score points, it also guides the robot’s desi...
Makerspace launches in Alpha
We’re excited to share the launch of our digital educational platform ‘Makerspace’ in Alpha. After a solid six months of development and consultation with industry, educators...
FIRST Tech Challenge UK 2019-20 kicks off at Bloomberg’s European HQ
Last year was the pilot, this year we're going big! Kicking off at Bloomberg's European HQ, the world's largest robotics competition has officially launched nationwide to make S...
‘I don’t like robots but that’s why I loved interning at FIRST UK’ confesses Jacob
Jacob, aged 17 from Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School, Elstree, jumped at the chance to intern with us this summer, despite his detest for robots (we don’t judge here at FI...
Beat the FIRST robot maze blindfolded
We're on a road trip exhibiting at local Big Bang Fairs near you. Think your school could drive a robot blindfolded? We're challenging young people in pairs to drive a mini-bot ...
Building the technologists of the future
'Passion for progress’, ‘we, not I’, and ‘be your brilliant self’ As Community & Inclusion Specialist at Arm, Anna Malan drives engagement of the technology giant'...
Pioneers represent UK at FIRST world robotics championships!
UK Inspire Award winners from Newcastle Academy (Newbotics101) and St. Christopher School (St Chris Snowflakes) broke UK boundaries at the world’s largest robotics competition th...
2019 game theme announced – registration open!
FIRST has offically announced what we’ve all been waiting for! The global theme for the 2019-20 season is drumroll… FIRST RISE powered by Star Wars: Force for Change But ...
A royal FIRST! – CEO meets Her Majesty the Queen
…and Rover holds a street party to celebrate. It’s been an exciting year for the team at FIRST® UK – a full-on rollercoaster ride working hard to lift this programme off ...
Robotics team share their ‘whirlwind of a journey’ ahead of global championship
Written by Hugo Cracknell, from St Chris Snowflakes, team 002. Right now, I’m sat with the team trying to find words to sum up this whole crazy experience; however, we are sti...
Elated Newcastle Academy team prevail at northern championships
Robot-savvy staffordshire students secure once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to represent the UK at global robotics tournament in the USA Almost 600 students from across the North W...
Judges ‘tickled pink’ by Inspire Award winners
Robot-savvy Cambridgeshire students secure once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to represent the UK at global robotics tournament in the USA Almost 500 students from across the South ...
Tomorrow’s innovators get robot ready
Students from schools across Greater Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent and the wider Staffordshire area are gearing up to compete in the inaugural FIRST® Tech Challenge UK Championship...
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube