First Tech Challenge

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The Ernst-Abbe-Gymnasium in Oberkochen also sent a team to the FTC World Championship in Detroit in 2019.

The First Tech Challenge ( FTC ) ( English for: "FIRST technology challenge") is a worldwide educational program in the field of robotics , which is designed for students aged 13 to 18 years; outside of North America, the target group is sometimes a bit older. The young people work in teams and develop, build and program robots that have to perform given tasks that change every year and finally compete against each other. The program was launched in 2005 by the non-profit organization FIRST in order to inspire young people for MINT subjects and at the same time to orient them towards non-profit thinking (“Gracious Professionalism”). In 2016, more than 4,600 FTC teams were active worldwide, compared to 7,010 in the 2018/2019 season.

history

Woodie Flowers and Dean Kamen (2007)
The robot of the Frog Robots Of Germany team in the 2020 season

The FIRST Tech Challenge is a founding of the non-profit organization FIRST ( For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology ), founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers in Manchester , New Hampshire . FIRST's programs also include the FIRST Robotics Competition (1992), the FIRST Lego League (2004) and the FIRST Lego League Jr. (2004) and, since 2017, the FIRST Global Challenge.

Together with the retail chain RadioShack and the manufacturing company Innovation First International, Inc. , FIRST developed an improved version of the IFI Robovation Kit . This new set of prefabricated parts, which can be used for robots of very different types, was named VEX Robotics Design System and was used from the 2005/2006 season in the new FIRST Vex Challenge program , which now ran parallel to the FIRST Robotics Competition . Two years later the program was renamed the FIRST Tech Challenge .

For the 2008/2009 season, the manufacturer Pitsco, Inc. developed a construction platform which, in addition to additional construction parts and a new framework, used the Lego Mindstorm NXT control computer, which could be programmed with LabVIEW or RobotC . The set was called the TETRIX Robotics Kit .

For the 2015/2016 season, the Mindstorm NXT was again replaced by Android mobile phones. Since then, programming has been done with Java . The kits cost about $ 1,000; in the USA sponsors often help with the financing.

Teamwork and competition

Two robots in competition (2017)

After the organization has announced the topic and task of the year, the teams have 10 weeks to design, build and program a robot from given materials, which is later judged on its performance in the competition. A central role is played by keeping a work journal ( engineering notebook ) in which the development work and the team experience are logged in detail; it provides insights into the group dynamics and, in addition to the performance in the actual competition, decisively decides whether a team is awarded a prize. The team leaders work on a voluntary basis; some have practical work experience from MINT subjects, others are self-taught . Many team leaders come to their job through their own technology-interested children or through their teaching profession.

In the competition, one - ad hoc formed - alliance of two teams competes against a second alliance, which also consists of two teams. Each round of the competition is divided into two parts: in the first the robots operate autonomously for 30 seconds, in the second they are remotely controlled by the teams for two minutes.

In the United States, the competitions are initially held at the local level. Teams that qualify - a small number also progress through the lottery route - can advance to regional (“Regionals”), supra-regional (“Super-Regionals”) and finally international competitions (“World Championship”) and win prizes. The latter reward technical achievements as well as design, inventiveness or charitable commitment of the team.

The prizes that teams can win as part of the FIRST Tech Challenge include the Inspire Award, the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award, the Motivate Award, the Connect Award, the Think Award, the PTC Design Award, the Control Award, the Promote Award , the Winning Alliance Award and the Finalist Alliance Award. Team leaders who have made exceptional contributions to their FTC work can win the Compass Award or be included in the FIRST Tech Challenge Dean's List.

The 2016/2017 World Cup took place in the United States in April 2017. Because of the large number of teams participating, there were two separate events in Houston , Texas and St. Louis , Missouri. The 2017/2018 world championship took place on 25. – 28. April 2018 in Detroit .

The assessment is not just about the robots themselves. In keeping with the motto “more than robots”, the students must also use an “engineering notebook” to write their meetings, ideas and planning, as well as the Document the functionality of the hardware and software. In the competitions it is very important to show team spirit but also friendliness, respect and willingness to help the other teams ("Gracious Professionalism"). Only those who implement all of this can receive an Inspire Award from the jury, the highest price that is almost always associated with further qualification. Another important point is to spread FTC and FIRST. So it is e.g. B. a goal to recruit new teams or to participate in numerous so-called community outreach events at which the robot is presented. Other robot competitions, trade fairs or visits to companies are possible here.

Competition topics

The competitions are each year with individual topics, which include a. reflected in the task to the robots:

  • 2005-2006: Half-Pipe Hustle
  • 2006-2007: Hangin'-A-Round
  • 2007-2008: Quad Quandary
  • 2008–2009: Face Off
  • 2009–2010: Hot Shot!
  • 2010–2011: Get Over It!
  • 2011–2012: Bowled Over!
  • 2012–2013: Ring It Up!
  • 2013–2014: Block Party!
  • 2014-2015: Cascade Effect
  • 2015–2016: FIRST RES-Q
  • 2016–2017: Velocity Vortex
  • 2017–2018: FIRST Relic Recovery
  • 2018–2019: FIRST Rover Ruckus
  • 2019–2020: SKYSTONE
  • 2020–2021: FIRST Game Changers

FIRST Tech Challenge outside of the United States

The vast majority of the teams are from the United States.

A pilot organizer for FTC in Germany was the Leipzig- based association Hands on Technology , which discontinued this work in 2016. In Germany there are currently (2017/2018) five teams:

  • One of them is the team at the English-speaking Ramstein High School , where American soldiers' children study.
  • The most successful German team in the 2015/2016 season was the team from the Stuttgart Königin-Katharina-Stift-Gymnasium ("KKST-Girls"), which won the Inspire Award (2nd place) and the Murata Control Award in the FTC Dutch Open won. At the world championships in St. Louis at the end of April 2017 , a team from this school, What the Frog , was able to achieve one of the middle ranks. At the 2018 World Cup in Detroit, the team took part again under the name FROG Frog Robots Of Germany. In the 2020 season, the team won the Think Award at the Netherlands Championship and reached the semi-finals. At the Kaiserslautern Invitational it received the Motivate Award for the successful overall presentation. At the Spain Open she was able to move into the finals as a captain and secure a ticket for the world finals in Detroit with the Inspire Award.
  • The third German team, the RoboCats , also has its home at the Königin-Katharina-Stift in Stuttgart.
  • The fourth German team, Legacy, comes from the Max-Planck-Gymnasium in Düsseldorf .
  • Another German team that is also committed to the spread of FIRST in Germany is the RobotIGS from Göttingen, from the Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg Comprehensive School. They reached the finals in Stuttgart in the 2017/18 season and won the "Connect Award" for spreading the idea of ​​FIRST.
  • In the 2018/2019 season, the German EAGles , the team from the Ernst-Abbe-Gymnasium in Oberkochen , were the only FTC team from German-speaking countries that had qualified up to the FIRST Championship in Detroit .
  • There is a third team at the Stuttgart Queen-Katharina Stift in the 2020 season, the Royal Frogs

The biggest obstacle that is currently preventing the FIRST Tech Challenge from spreading in the German-speaking region is, in addition to the relatively difficult procurement of the robot parts, above all the low level of awareness of the program among potential sponsors.

FTC is relatively well represented in the Netherlands (around 60 teams), where the program is organized by FIRST Brabant , which organizes the FTC Dutch Open every year . In the 2015/2016 season this competition took place in conjunction with the RoboCup European Open . A league system was introduced in the Netherlands in the 2019 season. To qualify for the Netherlands Championship, you first have to qualify for it at two League Meet. The league is mainly for Dutch teams, but occasionally international teams are also allowed to compete. Other countries that sent teams to the World Cup in St. Louis in April 2017 are India (in the country temporarily up to approx. 80 teams), Romania (approx. 50), Russia (approx. 30 teams), South Korea (approx. 25 teams), Taiwan (approx. 20 teams) and Latvia (one team). There were around 40-50 teams in Israel in the 2018/2019 season.

Web links

Commons : FIRST Tech Challenge  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

German language pages:

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Vision and Mission. Retrieved March 22, 2017 .
  2. ↑ 2016-2017 FIRST® Tech Challenge League Meet Guide. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 23, 2017 ; accessed on March 22, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.firstinspires.org
  3. ^ VEX Robotics. Retrieved March 22, 2017 .
  4. ↑ FIRST Tech Challenge. Retrieved March 22, 2017 .
  5. ↑ FTC FIRST Tech Challenge: 2012-2013 Game Manual Part 1. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 23, 2017 ; accessed on March 22, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tinorobotics.org
  6. ↑ TETRIX. Retrieved March 22, 2017 . RobotC. Retrieved March 22, 2017 .
  7. ↑ FIRST® Announces 'Game-Changing' Technology Platform for use in Worldwide Student Robotics Competitions. Retrieved March 22, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Programming Resources. Retrieved March 22, 2017 .
  9. ↑ 2015-2016 FIRST Tech Challenge Engineering Notebook Guidelines. Retrieved March 22, 2017 .
  10. ^ Autonomous. Retrieved April 11, 2019 . Tele-op. Retrieved April 11, 2019 .
  11. ↑ 2017 & 2018 FIRST Championships Information Update. Retrieved March 23, 2017 .
  12. ^ FIRST Championship Detroit. Retrieved April 10, 2018 .
  13. ↑ FIRST RELIC RECOVERY Game & Season Materials. Retrieved December 1, 2017 .
  14. ↑ Hands on Technology eV Accessed March 22, 2017 .
  15. ^ Winners of the FTC Dutch Open 2016. Accessed March 23, 2017 . FIRST-Tech-Challenge - February 1st, TU-Munich. Retrieved March 23, 2017 . The capsules from the cat pen. Retrieved May 4, 2017 .
  16. ^ FTC-Netherlands - Think-Award -. Retrieved March 5, 2020 .
  17. ^ FTC-Kaiserslautern - Motivate-Award and Design-Award -. Retrieved March 5, 2020 .
  18. ↑ La jornada STEAM à la UVic-UCC acull més de 1500 entre persones participants i públic. Retrieved March 5, 2020 .
  19. ↑ FTC Spain: Inspire Award -. Retrieved March 5, 2020 .
  20. ↑ FTC Stuttgart | Home page. Retrieved June 26, 2019 .
  21. ↑ Registered Teams - FTC Dutch Open 2017. Accessed May 3, 2017 .
  22. ↑ Official website of the team on Facebook. Retrieved December 1, 2017 .
  23. ↑ RobotIGS website. Retrieved September 9, 2018 .
  24. ↑ FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship Detroit Team List. Retrieved May 6, 2019 .
  25. ↑ FTC Stuttgart | Team RoyalFrogs. Retrieved December 7, 2019 .
  26. ↑ first-brabant.nl. Retrieved March 23, 2017 . firsttechchallenge.nl. Retrieved March 23, 2017 .
  27. ↑ www.robocupeuropeanopen.org. Retrieved March 23, 2017 .
  28. ↑ www.indiastemfoundation.org. Retrieved May 4, 2017 .
  29. ↑ www.firstromania.com. Retrieved May 4, 2017 .