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54-548: The competition consists of local and regional qualifiers and the world championship, the FIRST Championship , and in every season, a kickoff is held to showcase the season's theme and game. After kickoff, robots are designed, built, and programmed by teams, and teams are encouraged to conduct outreach with their communities. Local qualifiers are held for teams to compete and qualify for regional qualifiers, and from that point, regional qualifiers are held for teams to qualify for

108-485: A dongle can be used to connect them wirelessly, or the controller can be connected directly to the computer over USB (wired versions of Xbox 360 controllers were marketed by Microsoft as PC gamepads, while the Xbox One controller can be connected to a PC via its Micro USB slot). Gamepads or devices closely modelled on them are sometimes used for controlling real machinery and vehicles, as they are familiar to users and (in

162-732: A 1/3 scale FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar . Fifty teams participated in the FVC tournament at the FIRST Championship in April, 2006. On April 29, 2006, the FIRST Board of Directors voted to extend FVC for the 2006–2007 season. In Summer 2007, after two seasons as the FIRST Vex Challenge, FIRST announced that the program would be renamed to FIRST Tech Challenge. For the 2008 season, Pitsco developed

216-645: A championship, with Detroit , Michigan taking St. Louis's place. The Detroit championships took place at Cobo Center and Ford Field . The FIRST Robotics Competition Championship is the final and largest event of the season. The winners of each regional competition as well as the top teams from each district advance to the FIRST Championship. They are placed into one of the 8 divisions, named after influential individuals in STEM, to compete. The winning alliance from each division (a set of 4 teams) moves on to compete on

270-675: A diamond formation, and two shoulder buttons positioned to be used with the index fingers, a design which has been imitated by most controllers since. The inclusion of six action buttons was influenced by the popularity of the Street Fighter arcade series, which utilized six buttons. For most of the 1980s and early 1990s, analog joysticks were the predominant form of gaming controller for PCs, while console gaming controllers were mostly digital. This changed in 1996 when all three major consoles introduced an optional analog control. The Sony Dual Analog Controller had twin convex analog thumbsticks,

324-466: A game that changes each year. Students are given sets of parts to use, but they can also use off-the-shelf or custom-made parts. The FIRST Tech Challenge is a mid-level competition program for middle school and high school aged students with a more accessible and affordable robotics kit. FIRST LEGO League is a competition program for elementary and middle school students using LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits. Teams for each program compete in tournaments at

378-535: A lottery system. From 2014 and on, teams compete in Qualifying Tournaments in order to qualify for their state/regional Championship. At that Championship, teams compete for a spot at one of 4 Super-Regionals. Depending on the presence/number of teams in each state, determines the number of teams that move on to a Super-Regional. Teams then advance from their Super-Regional to the World Championship. In

432-583: A pilot collegiate FIRST program. In 2015, to expand, it was announced that the FIRST Championship would be divided into multiple venues. The new Innovation Faire featuring displays and demonstrations from FIRST Sponsors, Partners and Suppliers took place at the Renaissance St. Louis Grand Hotel , The FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship and the Junior FIRST Lego League World Festival took place at Union Station (St. Louis) , and

486-570: A platform that uses the NXT brick along with additional hardware and a new structural framework under the new name of TETRIX . Then, in the 2015-2016 FTC season, the NXT bricks that were used previously as the robot controller were replaced by Android phones running Android KitKat (4.4) using Qualcomm Snapdragon (410) chips. In 2020, FTC replaced the Android phones with a Rev Robotics Control Hub and kept one of

540-561: A state and regional level. The winning teams from each of these tournaments join the global competition at the FIRST Championship. The FIRST Championship was formally held in conjunction with the FIRST Robotics Conference, which covers a wide variety of topics in science, technology, engineering, and robotics fields. The 2011 championship was also host to the Collegiate Aerial Robotics Demonstration ,

594-451: A ubiquitous element on console gamepads, though to avoid infringing on Nintendo's patent, most controller manufacturers use a cross in a circle shape for the D-pad instead of a simple cross. The original Sega Genesis/Mega Drive control pad has three face buttons, but a six-button pad was later released. The SNES controller also featured six action buttons, with four face buttons arranged in

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648-566: Is a type of video game controller held in two hands, where the fingers (especially thumbs) are used to provide input. They are typically the main input device for video game consoles . Some common additions to the standard pad include shoulder buttons (also called "bumpers") and triggers placed along the edges of the pad (shoulder buttons are usually digital, i.e. merely on/off; while triggers are usually analog ); centrally placed start , select , and home buttons , and an internal motor to provide force feedback . Analog triggers, like that of

702-646: Is also multifunctional and has an expansion port which can be used for a variety of peripherals. An analog stick peripheral, called "Nunchuk," also contains an accelerometer but unlike the Wii Remote, it lacks any pointer functionality. Gamepads are also available for personal computers . Examples of PC gamepads include the Asus Eee Stick , the Gravis PC , the Microsoft SideWinder and Saitek Cyborg range, and

756-575: Is done through a multitude of ways such as team presentations, pit interviews, judges reading teams' portfolios, etc. Every year, in September, FIRST announces the game challenge to FTC teams at Kickoff. Qualifying Tournaments and Regional & State Championships occur from October through March. Teams are allowed to register for three Qualifying Tournaments. Some states, such as New Jersey, hold league meets that are more similar to sporting events. They are smaller and occur more often. For teams advancing from

810-482: Is left behind. Official FTC events are Qualifying or Championship Tournaments ; unofficial events are Scrimmage Tournaments . Based on their performance in their Regional/State Championships (US) teams were invited to one of the World Championship based on predetermined advancement criteria. Winners of Qualifying Tournaments are invited to Championship Tournaments and until 2017-18 winners of Championship tournaments were then invited to Super-Regional Tournaments. After

864-476: The Belkin Nostromo SpeedPad n52 . There are several programs that emulate keyboard and mouse input with a gamepad such as the free and open-source cross-platform software antimicro, Enjoy2, or proprietary commercial solutions such as JoyToKey, Xpadder, and Pinnacle Game Profiler. The 1962 video game Spacewar! initially used toggle switches built into the computer readout display to control

918-798: The FIRST LEGO League World Festival as well as the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship took place at the Edward Jones Dome and America's Center . The new arrangement was designed to give an "Olympic Village" feel and allow for more space to expand each individual program. In 2017, the Championship was split into 2 championships, one occurring in Houston and the other a week later in St. Louis. The second Championship

972-548: The Fairchild Channel F , did have a controller which provided six degrees of freedom , but the processing limitations of the console itself prevented there from being any software to take advantage of this ability. In 1994 Logitech introduced the CyberMan, the first practical six-degrees-of-freedom controller; however, it sold poorly due to its high price, poor build quality, and limited software support. Industry insiders blame

1026-512: The GameCube controller , are pressure-sensitive and games can read in the amount of pressure applied to one to control the intensity of a certain action, such as how forceful water is to be sprayed in Super Mario Sunshine . There are programmable joysticks that can emulate keyboard input. Generally they have been made to circumvent the lack of joystick support in some computer games, e.g.

1080-560: The Sega Saturn 3D Control Pad had a single analog thumbstick, and the Nintendo 64 controller combined digital and analog controllers in a single body, starting a trend to have both an analog stick and a d-pad. Despite these changes, gamepads essentially continued to follow the template set by the NES controller (a horizontally-oriented controller with two or more action buttons positioned for use with

1134-556: The Steam Controller . Third-party USB adapters and software can be employed to utilize console gamepads on PCs; the DualShock 3 , DualShock 4, DualSense , Wii Remote and Joy-Con can be used with third-party software on systems with Bluetooth functionality, with USB additionally usable on DualShock 3, DualShock 4 and DualSense. Xbox 360 and Xbox One controllers are officially supported on Windows with Microsoft-supplied drivers;

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1188-766: The TCF Center and Ford Field . The event comprises four competitions; the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship, the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship, the FIRST Lego League World Festival, and the FIRST Lego League Junior World Expo. The FIRST Robotics Competition is a ten-week program in which high-school students build 125-pound (54 kg) robots designed to compete in

1242-475: The 2018 season onward. Due to this, the winners of both championships would now be considered world champions. Houston: St. Louis/Detroit: In 2022 with the return to a single championship event FRC teams were divided into the 6 Houston divisions seen through the 2019 championship. In 2023 2 additional divisions, Johnson and Milstein , were added to the 6 from 2022 bringing the total to 8 FRC divisions. There are many awards that are presented to FRC teams at

1296-463: The 2018–2019 season, Super-Regionals were abolished and FTC teams advanced to the World Championship directly from their state/regional Championship. At each championship, awards are presented to recognize teams for their performance in the competition, their robot's design, and their efforts to spread the message of FIRST. These awards include World Championship Finalist and Winner, the Design Award,

1350-401: The 2021-2022 season and onwards, only 1 World Championship is held in Houston. Teams advance from one level of competition to the next based on the advancement criteria laid out in the first part of that year's Game Manual. The Advancement criteria were changed for the 2015–2016 season to add criteria 7 "Winning Alliance, 2nd Team selected" and 13 "Finalist Alliance, 2nd Team selected," shifting

1404-1101: The Championship. These awards include the Engineering Inspiration Award, the Industrial Design Award, the Gracious Professionalism Award, the Entrepreneurship Award, the Industrial Safety Award, the Rookie All-Star Award, the Rookie Inspiration Award, the Woodie Flowers Award, and the Dean's List Award. The most prestigious award is the Impact Award (previously called the Chairman's Award), which recognizes

1458-816: The Connect Award, the Innovate Award, the Motivate Award, the Think Award and the Judges' Award. The most notable awards are the World Championship Inspire Award and the award given to the winning alliance. The FTC World Championship was held in Houston and Detroit through the 2019 championship. The event is currently held in Houston. FTC has four divisions that teams are randomly divided into. Up until

1512-427: The CyberMan's high profile and costly failure for the gaming industry's lack of interest in developing 3D control over the next several years. The Wii Remote is shaped like a television remote control and contains tilt sensors and three- dimensional pointing which the system uses to understand all directions of movement and rotation (back and forth around the pitch, roll, and yaw axes ). The controller

1566-508: The Edward Jones Dome, and in Houston, Texas , at the George R. Brown Convention Center , Toyota Center , and Minute Maid Park . 2017 marked St. Louis's final hosting of the event for the foreseeable future, ending its seven years hosting the event, as well as the FIRST Championship's return to Houston, following the 2003 Championships at NRG Park . In 2018 and 2019, Houston continued to host

1620-602: The Einstein Field. The winning alliance on the Einstein Field is declared the FIRST Champion. The FIRST Robotics Competition Championship was initially divided into 4 divisions: In 2015, the 4 divisions were further divided into 8 divisions (not including the final Einstein Field) and expanding naming to share more breadth in hero innovators: In 2017, the first year of the split championship, 4 more divisions were added bringing

1674-513: The Inspire Award, are given higher priority for advancement to the next level of competition. Optional awards are not given at every competition and do not increase a team’s chances to advance. In the past, the challenges have been based on several different themes: FIRST Championship The FIRST Championship is a four-day robotics championship held annually in April at which FIRST student robotics teams compete. For several years,

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1728-660: The United States, from the 2013-14 through the 2017–18 seasons, four Super-Regional Championship Tournaments have been held from March through early April, with the World Championships occurring in late April. Starting with the 2018-19 FTC season , the Super Regional Championships will no longer occur and teams will advance from their local championships directly to one of the formerly two World Championships in Houston or formerly Detroit. On competition days,

1782-516: The awards, and at the awards ceremony, judges present the awards. Winner and finalist teams with awards such as the Inspire Award can advance depending on the number of allowed advancements by the qualifier. The core value that FIRST Tech Challenge promotes is embodied in the phrase " Gracious Professionalism ." Showing gracious professionalism can be done in many ways, from helping another team, to simply having fun at competitions. It means making sure every team has an equal opportunity, and that no one

1836-538: The eminence of gamepads in the video game market. Nintendo developed a gamepad device for directional inputs, a D-pad with a "cross" design for their Donkey Kong handheld game. This design would be incorporated into their " Game & Watch " series and console controllers such as the standard NES controller . Though developed because they were more compact than joysticks, and thus more appropriate for handheld games, D-pads were soon found by developers to be more comfortable to use than joysticks. The D-pad soon became

1890-686: The end of the 2016 season, winning alliances from Franklin and Edison went on to compete in the finals on the DaVinci Field. In 2017, FTC teams joined FRC teams to play their finals matches on the Einstein Field. The top competitions in FLL program are FLL Open Championships and FLL World Festival. The Open Championships are managed by FLL Partners with a goal to bring teams from different regions to complete and showcase their achievements. Currently, there are two Open Championships, FLL Open European Championship and FLL US Open Championship. FLL Open Asian Championship

1944-561: The event was held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia , but moved to the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Missouri in 2011, where it remained through 2017. In 2017, the Championship was split into two events, being additionally held at the George R. Brown Convention Center and Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas . In 2018 and 2019, the Championship was held in Houston and Detroit , Michigan at

1998-566: The existing FIRST Robotics Competition and the IFI Robovation platform. FIRST , RadioShack , and Innovation First collaborated to develop an improved version of the IFI Robovation kit. The kit was significantly upgraded and called the VEX Robotics Design System. In 2004–05, FIRST piloted the FIRST Vex Challenge as a potential program. The pilot season brought together over 130 teams to compete in 6 regional tournaments in

2052-540: The game. These switches were awkward and uncomfortable to use, so Alan Kotok and Bob Saunders built and wired in a detached control device for the game. This device has been called the earliest gamepad. It would take many years for the gamepad to rise to prominence, as during the 1970s and the early 1980s joysticks and paddles were the dominant video game controllers, though several Atari joystick port -compatible pushbutton controllers were also available. The third generation of video games saw many major changes, and

2106-421: The judges give at the end of competition day. Teams are required to submit an engineering notebook and/or engineering portfolio in order to be considered for all judged awards. Before matches begin, teams are required to do a formal interview with the judges. Throughout the day, judges can and will observe the matches and conduct pit interviews with teams. After the end of matches, judges deliberate and discuss about

2160-477: The match, also known as the autonomous period. Then, the 2 minute driver controlled period starts and the match is completely driver-controlled from then on. In the final 30 seconds of the match, drivers attempt to park in a point scoring zone and/or complete tasks that can only be done in the end game period of the match. The winning alliance receives two qualifying points while the losing alliance receives zero. Besides matches, teams can advance through awards, which

2214-415: The number of matches varies based on the number of teams competing. Matches are completely random in their order and alliances. For the matches, teams are assigned to either red alliance or blue alliance, with each alliance consisting of two teams. All parties involved in the match must choose their programs before the match begins. Drivers must not touch the gamepad controllers during the first 30 seconds of

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2268-544: The phones to use for a wireless connection between one and two Logitech or Xbox (Windows compatible) controllers and the control hub. The FTC championship was cancelled that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic . Advancement from one level of competition to another in FIRST Tech Challenge can be achieved by either winning on the field (50%) or by winning the awards listed below during judging (50%). Judging at competitions

2322-538: The point to which they had outgrown the one competition, so they moved to a regional qualifier system, and thus the FIRST championship was born. From 1995 through 2002, the championship was held at Epcot Center in Orlando. Reliant Park in Houston was the venue for 2003. Atlanta served as host city from 2004 through 2010. In 2005, the contract with Atlanta was extended through 2007 with options for 2008 and 2009. In 2009, St. Louis

2376-421: The right thumb, and a directional pad positioned for use with the left thumb). Though three-dimensional games rose to prominence in the mid-1990s, controllers continued to mostly operate on two-dimensional principles. Players would have to hold down a button to change the axes along which the controls operate rather than being able to control movement along all three axes at once. One of the first gaming consoles,

2430-460: The successive criteria down one position. In addition to the Winning and Finalist Alliances receiving recognition for their field performance; the following list includes awards presented at official Championship and Qualifying Tournaments based on judging criterion including engineering notebook, team interview, observation, and/or field performance, etc: Award winners and finalists, especially those of

2484-599: The team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate both on and off the field. Before 2014, after all FTC teams have competed in state / regional championship tournaments, the winning teams move on to the FTC World Championship. The Inspire Award-winning teams and the captain teams of the Winning Alliance in the regional tournaments are automatically eligible for the world championship. If there are still spots available, additional teams may be picked by

2538-674: The total to 12 divisions (not including the final Einstein Field in each city), with six divisions in each city. The six division winning alliances played a round-robin tournament to determine their location's champion, who then played the other city's champion in July at the FIRST Festival of Champions in New Hampshire. On February 6, 2018, FIRST announced that the Festival of Champions would not happen from

2592-530: The winning alliances of the two championships were declared, they were invited to participate in the Festival of Champions in Manchester, New Hampshire to determine the FTC World Champion. On January 10, 2018, FTC announced that Super-Regionals will be abolished after the 2017–2018 season. Due to this, the number of FTC teams that attend each World Championship was increased from 128 to 160 starting in 2019. In

2646-548: The world championship. The robot kit is Android-based, and it is programmed using Java , Kotlin , the Blocks programming interface, or other Android programming systems. Teams, with the guidance of coaches, mentors and volunteers, are required to develop strategy and build robots based on innovative, sound engineering principles. Awards are given for robot performance as well as for community outreach, design, and other real-world accomplishments. The FIRST Tech Challenge grew out of

2700-412: Was held as a virtual competition on April 18 and 19, 2020 and hosted by FLL Share and Learn. The 2021 FIRST Championship in Houston and Detroit were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic . The events were replaced by a virtual ceremony at the 2021 FIRST Global Innovation Awards on June 28–30, 2021. Despite originally announcing dates for both Detroit and Houston for 2022, the 2022 FIRST Championship

2754-973: Was held in 2008 in Tokyo , Japan. However, it did not return in 2009. FLL World Festival is hosted and managed by FIRST. The teams are often the Champion's Award team at the state or national level with some other criteria including special nomination from FLL Operational Partners globally. In 2009, there were 84 teams from 27 countries that joined the festival with the theme Climate Connections . The award categories include Innovative Design Award, Quality Design Award, Programming Award, Research Quality Award, Innovative Solution Award, Creative Presentation Award, Teamwork Award, Team Spirit Awards, Against All Odds Awards, Outstanding Volunteer Awards, Adult Coach/Mentor Awards, Young Adult Mentor Awards, and Judges' Awards. The most notable awards are Champion's Award and Robot Performance Award. ===Recent winners=== Gamepad A gamepad

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2808-666: Was later scheduled solely for Houston and was held from April 20 to April 23, 2022. 1992 was the first year of the FIRST Robotics Competition. Just over 20 teams competed at one event, which was held at Memorial High School in Manchester, New Hampshire. In 1993, the sole competition was held at Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, New Hampshire. In 1994, the competition was held at Nashua High School. In 1995, FIRST had grown to

2862-424: Was moved to Detroit for 2018 and 2019. In 2020, FIRST decided to move the closing ceremonies for all programs from Minute Maid Park and Ford Field to the convention centers in Houston and Detroit respectively. The 2020 FIRST season was suspended on March 12, 2020, resulting in the cancellation of the Championship events in Houston and Detroit, due to the COVID-19 pandemic . The FIRST LEGO League World Championship

2916-430: Was selected, from three finalists, to serve as host city for 2011 through 2013. In 2012, the tenure at St. Louis was extended until 2014. In 2013, the tenure in St. Louis was once again extended for three additional years through 2017. The 2017 through 2019 championships consisted of two championship events, located in two different cities on back to back weekends. The 2017 championships was held in St. Louis, centered at

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