How to Start an FTC Team

What is FTC?

FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) is a robotics program for students in grades 7-12. Teams design, build, and program a robot to compete in a brand-new game each year. Each match pairs your team with another team in an alliance to compete 2-vs-2 against another alliance on a 12×12 foot field. Robots must fit inside an 18×18 inch starting volume.

What makes FTC special is that the robot is only part of it. Through a single season, students take on real engineering — designing, building, programming, failing, iterating — alongside public speaking, outreach, project management, and teamwork. The culture is unusually collaborative: alliances are random, opponents become friends, and teams routinely loan parts to their rivals. FIRST calls this Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition. There’s a place on an FTC team for almost every interest — one of our members was hesitant to join because she thought it was all about programming, but ended up really loving driving, robot building, and presentation work.

It’s More Than Robots

The mantra in FIRST is “More Than Robots” — and it’s true. Yes, the robot is fun, but the program is built around something deeper.

FIRST Core Values: Discovery, Innovation, Impact, Inclusion, Teamwork, Fun.

Awards aren’t just about robot performance. There are 8 awards at most tournaments, and many of them recognize things like the engineering process, outreach to the community, creative thinking, and team culture. Teams can submit a 15-page Engineering Portfolio to be considered for the judged awards. Judged awards are scored separately from the robot game — so a team can have a tough day on the field and still walk away with a major award.

What we learn is more important than what we win. Do your best, but don’t worry if you don’t get any awards in your first year. Embrace the challenge and your team will grow.

Skills students develop:

• Project management, time management, leadership
• Public speaking and team communication
• Problem solving, decision making, compromise
• Programming, CAD, mechanical engineering, the engineering design process
• Marketing, video production, social media

A community, not just a competition. By the end of your first tournament you’ll know other teams names. Alumni networks open doors to colleges, internships, and lifelong friendships.

It’s a great extracurricular activity, and it looks fantastic on college applications and resumes.

What you need

• An Adventist affiliation: To compete in Adventist Robotics, your team must be affiliated with an Adventist organization such as a church, Pathfinder club, or school.
• People: 2-15 students in grades 7-12, plus 2 registered adult coaches (the second coach doesn’t need to be at every meeting).
• Money: Roughly $5,000 the first year. The second year is much cheaper because most parts are reusable.
  • Help is available — you can raise money from your local church and community who will be supportive, and you can get sponsorships from local businesses.
• Time: Whatever cadence works for your team — we recommend weekly meetings during the build season.
• Space: You’ll need room to build and store the robot, and ideally at least a partial practice field.

How to start

You don’t need to wait for kickoff in September to get going. The 2026-2027 game (BIOBUZZ) has already been previewed, and there’s plenty teams can do right now:

• Register — Register your team at firstinspires.org.
  • For Adventist Robotics teams, after entering your zip code during registration, change your Region to “Adventist Robotics League”. This connects your team with the Adventist Robotics community and the championship event.
• Contact Mel Wade - Let him know you’re starting a team. For Adventist Robotics teams, he may be able to supply a Control Hub and Driver Hub, saving you about $650.
• Order the starter kit — A starter kit includes everything you need to build a basic robot that can play the game for the season. There are also instructions you can follow to build that basic bot. Several different companies offer starter kits and StarterBot designs. We recommend the GoBilda FTC Starter Kit. Make sure you get the 25% FTC team discount.
• Read the game preview to see what challenges your robot will face this season.
• Buy pollen — The scoring element for the 2026-2027 game is available now from AndyMark so your team can practice acquiring and handling it.
• Build the preseason StarterBot - The full StarterBot instructions will be released in September with the full game details, but you can get started with the Preseason StarterBot which can drive around and pick up pollen. Then when the full design is released you can finish building the full StarterBot.
• Take the FIRST Skill Builders course — FIRST has launched a free Skill Builders course on FIRST Training with activities and challenges that directly apply to the new game.

That said — don’t let a late start stop you from creating a team. You can join mid-season and still have a great experience. Plenty of teams have done it.

What to do next

Here are some suggestions for what to do next:

• Discuss team roles — Talk as a team about the different roles that are available and associated skills, and which ones each team member is interested in.
• Learn about awards — Research the different awards that are available and the requirements for each. Decide which ones your team wants to focus on. (As a beginning team, you probably don’t want to try to focus on all of them. You can only win one of them anyway.)
• Read the rules - The FTC Competition Manual each season is long: about 180 pages. It covers everything from the game rules to the awards to how tournaments and the championship are run. The most important sections for your team are probably the ones covering the game rules and the awards. You could assign different team members to be familiar with different sections of the manual.
• Build the full StarterBot, then improve on it — Once the full game is released in September, you can finish building the StarterBot. Once you’ve done that, try it out and begin thinking about what you could improve on it. If you’re ambitious, you could use what you learned and build a new bot from scratch. If you are well-funded and can afford a second set of hardware, you could build a second bot while keeping the StarterBot. This can let your builders and programmers work at the same time, and you can get more realistic practice with multiple bots on the field.
• Look for robot designs you can copy - Several groups publish full robot designs that you can copy from, in whole or in part. These will typically have some advantages over the base StarterBots. Here are some from the FTC DECODE season which will likely also publish BIOBUZZ designs:
  • GoBilda Robot in 3 Days (Ri3D): GoBilda does a livestream with a robotics team where they design and build a robot over 3 days. Later, they publish a parts list and a CAD model. In the DECODE season, we built a robot based off of the GoBilda Ri3D, and it worked well. At the Adventist Robotics championship, there were two other teams who had done the same thing, and each of the top 3 placing alliances included a team with a Ri3D-based robot. Here’s an overview video of the FTC DECODE GoBilda Ri3D.
  • EveryBot: From the EveryBot website: “The mission of Everybot is to provide a comprehensive set of build resources to field a competitive and affordable robot intended to play the FIRST Robotics Competition and FIRST Tech Challenge games; specifically targeted towards under-resourced and under-mentored teams.” Their FTC designs rely heavily on 3D printing, so you would need a 3D printer.
  • BaseBot: From the BaseBot website: “​Our mission is to provide a competitive, low-cost “Base” for every team, using widely available components such as aluminium extrusion/profiles from hardware stores, common tools, and 3D printed parts.”
• Research hardware upgrades - You’ll probably want more robot parts beyond what came in the starter kit to improve your robot. Some of that will depend on the game for the season and your design ideas. There are some that are generally useful. You can create a prioritized list of what you want, and then use that to fundraise towards those goals. Upgrades to consider include:
  • Odometry: Odometry helps your robot keep track of its position and direction as it moves around the field. This can help your auto routines be a lot more reliable, and can also help with driver assistance functions (such as auto-aim) during teleop. We went with the GoBilda Odometry Kit, which is probably the most popular solution for FTC teams.
  • Camera: A camera can also help your robot figure out where it is on the field or where specific elements are via AprilTags (which are similar to QR codes). You can also use it for computer vision, for example to find out where pollen is during auto. The top of the line camera legal in FTC is the Limelight 3A (also available from GoBilda). It has a lot of recognition functionality built in. You can also use much cheaper webcams.
  • Mecanum Wheels: This type of wheel lets your robot drive in any direction, regardless of what direction it is facing. This makes your robot much more maneuverable which is often a big advantage in the game. This is also a relatively expensive upgrade, as you need the wheels as well as a separate motor to drive each one. GoBilda’s Mecanum Wheel Kit is $525 with the FTC team discount. On top of that, you will need a REV Expansion Hub if you don’t already have one, as the REV Control Hub only supports 4 motors on its own.
  • 3D Printer: This will let you design and print your own custom parts for your robot. You’ll need someone to learn 3D design / CAD to take advantage of it, but it can give you a lot more options for your robot design. A good 3D printer for an FTC team is probably the Centauri Carbon (this is what the EveryBot team recommended).
• Find mentors - Beyond your two adult coaches, mentors can help your team grow in specific areas. They can be technical (programming, CAD, engineering, mechanical) or non-technical (project management, marketing, social media, public speaking). Mentoring doesn’t have to be a big commitment — sometimes it’s just meeting with the team once to teach them a specific skill.
• Participate in a scrimmage: It is extremely helpful to be able to participate in at least one scrimmage (practice tournament) before a real competition. It’s a great way to practice driving, learn how you can improve your robot, and meet other teams.

Budget

We recommend budgeting roughly $5,000 for your first year. Here’s what that breaks down to:

Item	Approximate Cost
FIRST team registration	$295
GoBilda starter kit (with 25% FTC discount)	$675
Control Hub (REV)	$375
Driver Hub (REV, includes gamepads)	$275
Expansion Hub (REV, recommended)	$275
Field Perimeter (AndyMark)	$709
Soft Tiles, full set of 36 (AndyMark)	$279
Game Set ($399 partial / $599 full, AndyMark)	$399-599
Event registration	$350
Shipping (field + game set)	$200

A few ways to save money:

• Share with nearby teams. If there are other teams in your area, you can split the cost of a practice field and game set.
• Get a partial game set instead of the full set if you’re tight on budget.
• Year two is much cheaper — your field, hubs, and most of your robot kit carry over.

You can also raise money from your local church, community, and businesses. Fundraising is another aspect of FTC and those activities can help you with awards such as the Sustain and Reach awards.

Resources

There are so many resources available to help FTC teams that it can be overwhelming trying to sort through them. Below are some that we recommend. Consider having different team members investigate different resources and bring what they learn back to the team.

• FIRST Tech Challenge home — official program page
• Game Manual 0 — A comprehensive guide for FTC teams.
• Brogan M. Pratt on YouTube — This channnel has excellent guides for FTC teams, from wiring and different types of robot systems to programming and computer vision. His FTC Fridays series during the FTC season summarizes what various teams are sharing about their progress each week.
• FUN Robotics Network on YouTube — This channel covers several different robotics competitions, including FTC. Their Behind the Bot series interviews FTC teams about how their robots work. These are usually the best of the best teams, so try to be inspired by them rather than discouraged. 😀
• Effective FIRST Strategies — Great presentation on how to be a great team. More focused on FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) than FTC but still applicable.
• Learn Java for FTC — Guide for Java programming for FTC. You can also use blocks programming which is probably easier, but we recommend trying to use Java if you can.
• Beginner’s Guide to Wiring Robots — Great guide from Brogan M. Pratt.
• r/FTC subreddit — Discussion, build threads, and Q&A.

Get in touch

• Our team’s page — see what we’ve been up to as a real-world example
• Daniel (our coach) is happy to help new coaches directly — reach out via the contact page