Who can start a FIRST® Robotics Competition team?

Anyone with an interest in changing lives through STEM can start a team – educators, parents, anyone with the time and motivation.

The role of the lead mentor(s) varies by teams.

Each team will need two adults to act as lead mentors that are registered in the FIRST Dashboard. Some teams have one person who does the majority of the role, others may have school administrators listed as the lead mentors but the work is done by other mentors, and some teams even have multiple mentors who share the workload.

How you divide up the work is completely up to your team, but these are the main responsibilities of the lead mentor(s):

• Act as the primary point of contact for the team
• Register the team for the season
• Preference events for the team to attend
• Organize team meetings
• Assign team roles
• Delegate team tasks
• Manage team roster via the FIRST Dashboard; invite youth, ensure they register and complete Consent & Release forms
• Read team email blasts and blog posts
• Both lead mentor 1 and 2 are automatically signed up for email blasts, other mentors can subscribe by signing up here.
• Ensure team meets deadlines for events and award submissions
• Assign designated question asker for the Q&A Forum
• Follow information related to the Game and Season, including Team Updates
• Utilize voucher codes to access software and other Kit of Parts elements for the team
• Maintaining a safe and inclusive team environment