Beyond the Bot: Navigating Technical and Team Roles as a FIRST® Tech Challenge Mentor

From Open-Ended Systems to Regional Excellence: Guiding the Season Timeline, Technical Skills, and the Engineering Process.

By Koyuki Massey | February 27, 2026

Welcome to the FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC). If you are transitioning from the world of LEGO® or jumping in for the first time, you are stepping into a sphere of advanced engineering and high-intensity collaboration. As a mentor of students aged 12-18 you are now a technical advisor and project manager. 

In FTC, the training wheels of LEGO® bricks are replaced by aluminum channels, custom 3D-printed parts, and professional-grade code. Your mission is to help students bridge the gap between play and professional engineering.

Season Ins and Outs

The FTC season is a significant step up in complexity. Unlike younger levels where robots are built from LEGO® bricks, FTC robots are constrained to an 18” x 18” x 18” cube, and are built using aluminum, 3D-printed parts, motors, and complex sensors. FTC is split into two parts: the robot game and documentation.

The Robot Game

Every September, a new game is revealed. It is played on a 12 x 12 foot square mat. Each game lasts 2.5 minutes. For the first 30 seconds, the robot moves using only pre-written code, or autonomously. For the final 2 minutes, students use controllers (typically Xbox or PlayStation controllers) to drive the robot during the tele-op period. In the last 20-30 seconds of tele-op, there is an endgame period where robots can do special challenges.

Teams also do not play alone. They are paired with another team to form an “Alliance.” Your opponent in one match might be your partner in the next, reinforcing the FIRST value of Coopertition®.

Documentation and Awards

In FTC, you present more than just the robot—you present the complex process and work put into making it. Teams can create an optional Engineering Portfolio (a 15-page summary) that explains how they designed the robot, what went wrong, and how they fixed it. 

There are multiple awards that teams can win at competitions. These are divided between how the team’s robot performs and judged awards. During competitions, a group of 2-5 students will present to a small panel of judges for 7 minutes, followed by a 5-minute Q&A session. Judges will consider the presentation and answers to questions, as well as how the team demonstrates Gracious Professionalism® and Coopertition®, which are the FIRST® Core Values, when selecting teams for awards.

Robot Performance: During the competition, teams play a series of Qualification Matches. Teams can earn ranking points that change their overall rank among the teams competing, giving them the opportunity to be alliance captains for the playoffs.

• Match Wins: Earning points for winning or tying a match.

• In-Game Objectives: Earning points for specific tasks achieved during the autonomous and tele-op periods.

Judged Awards: These awards are given out to teams based on the interview and Q&A with the judges. They can be split into three categories.

• Machine, Creativity, Innovation (MCI): Recognize the technical accomplishments of teams in the brainstorming, design, construction, operation, and control of their robot.

  • Innovate Award sponsored by RTX: Celebrates the team that thinks imaginatively and has the ingenuity, creativity and inventiveness to make their designs come together. 

  • Design Award: Celebrates the team that demonstrates an understanding of industrial design principles by harmonizing conflicts between form, function, and aesthetics, while meeting the requirements of this season’s challenge.

  • Control Award: Celebrates the team that uses sensors and software to increase the robot’s functionality during gameplay, often in the autonomous period.

• Team Attributes: Recognize the teams who have expanded their skillset, created a plan to sustain their program and team, and spread the message of FIRST® through their outreach.

  • Connect Award: This award is given to the team that connects with their local Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) community to learn through effort and persistence.

  • Reach Award: Celebrates the team that has introduced and recruited new people into FIRST®.

  • Sustain Award: This award celebrates the team that has considered their future team members and has worked to ensure that their team and program will continue to exist after students have gone to develop their careers.

• Special Recognition:

  • Inspire Award: This is the highest award a team can achieve. It recognizes teams who excel in all MCI, Team Attributes and Think Award accomplishments. The team is an inspiration to others.

  • Think Award: Recognizes teams who skillfully document their team’s process and robot using their Engineering Portfolio.

  • Compass Award (optional): Recognizes an adult coach or mentor who has given outstanding guidance and support to the team throughout the year and demonstrates to the team what it means to be a Gracious Professional. The winner will be chosen from candidates nominated by students via a 40-60 second video submission. Teams are not required to submit for this award.

  • Judges’ Choice Award (optional): Recognizes a team whose unique efforts, performance, or dynamics deserve recognition, but does not fit into any of the other award categories. This award is not always given out at competitions.

  • FIRST® Dean’s List: Mentors select one or two students in 10th or 11th grade who they believe have shown outstanding leadership and dedication. Mentors will submit an essay on the student and the student will interview with judges at the competition.

The Season Timeline

The FTC season is considered the longest out of the three levels in FIRST and is as follows:

• September: Season Kickoff.

  • FIRST® reveals the robot game with official season videos.

• October - November: The Build Phase.

  • Students will be building prototypes out of cardboard or scrap metal.

  • You will see a lot of “failed” versions.

• November - February: Competition Season.

  • Teams attend “Meets” or “Qualifiers.”

  • Teams are judged on their robot’s performance as well as information they present in their 10-minute interview with the Judges.

• February - March: Regional/State Championship

  • Top performing teams from meets or qualifiers advance to compete with the best teams in their area

• April: FIRST® Championship.

  • The global event held in Houston, Texas, featuring top teams from around the world.

• April-July: Premiere Events

  • Teams can advance to special events around the world from regional/state championships

  • There are more spots for these compared to the FIRST® Championship

Mentorship Role

A common misconception is that you need to be a programmer or an engineer to mentor. The truth is, you don’t. As a first-time mentor, your primary job is to keep the team organized and moving forward. If the robot is not working, try not to pick up the screwdriver. Instead, ask: “What part of the robot is making that noise?” or “Where in the manual does it explain this rule?” Asking guiding questions will allow students to own their successes and learn from their mistakes. 

Middle and high schoolers can easily argue about the color of a wheel for five hours. Your job is to watch the time and keep the students on track, making sure that they are making productive decisions and staying on track.

In FTC, things will break. A wire will snap or the code will crash. When it happens, celebrate it as a learning moment. Some days, nothing will go the way the students planned, and those days can be especially hard. It is easy to get lost in mistakes and stress, but your job is to make sure they take a step back, take a deep breath, and keep going. 

As a mentor, you do not have to know everything. Your greatest contribution is not your technical knowledge, but your ability to model Gracious Professionalism®. By guiding their process rather than doing the work for them, you are helping them build something much more durable than a robot: you are building the next generation of leaders and problem-solvers.

Building More Than a Robot

As you wrap up your first year, remember that your success as a mentor is not measured by the weight of the trophies, but by the growth of the students standing beside you. You are the project manager of potential, bridging the gap between a complex machine and the sophisticated Engineering Portfolio that tells its story.

Your most valuable contribution is not your technical expertise, it is your ability to guide them through the frustrations of the build-test-fail cycle. Each time the team chooses to iterate rather than give up, or finds a way to integrate a teammate’s idea into a custom 3D design, they are gaining skills that will outlast the season. They are learning that in the professional world, documentation is just as vital as the final product.

The robot serves as the training ground, but the true goal is cultivating a generation of critical thinkers who lead with Gracious Professionalism®. By stepping back and letting them hold the tools, you are giving them the space to become the engineers, programmers, designers, and leaders of tomorrow. Your role is to keep them focused, curious, and keep them moving forward. The FTC season is an intense, rewarding climb, enjoy the view from the top!