FRC 2027 BIOCORE: Everything We Know Before Kickoff

FIRST has already told you the name. The 2027 FIRST Robotics Competition game is BIOCORE™ presented by Haas, and it is revealed Saturday, January 9, 2027 at 12:00 p.m. ET on the FIRST Robotics Competition YouTube channel. That is not a leak or a rumor — it is printed on FIRST's own game and season page, and it has been public since FIRST announced the FIRST CANOPY season in spring 2026. What FIRST has not told you is what the game actually is.

That gap between knowing the name and knowing the game is where every August-to-December FRC conversation lives. This year the gap matters more than usual, because BIOCORE is the season FRC changes robot controllers. The roboRIO era ends and SystemCore begins in the same eight weeks that you are also solving a brand-new game. Teams that treat the fall as dead time are going to feel that in February.

This article is a running inventory: every fact FIRST has published with a date attached, every piece of community speculation flagged as speculation, and what your team can do between now and kickoff. Where FIRST has said nothing, this article says so. Last updated August 3, 2026.

What is actually confirmed about BIOCORE

Here is the list of things you can put on a whiteboard and trust, all sourced from firstinspires.org, the FIRST Community Blog, or WPILib.

The name and sponsor. BIOCORE™ presented by Haas, with support through the Gene Haas Foundation. Haas has now presented multiple consecutive FRC seasons — REEFSCAPE in 2025 and REBUILT in 2026 — so 2027 continues an established relationship rather than starting one. FIRST's one-line framing is that teams will "use engineering skills and delve into the heart of what sustains life on Earth."

The season it belongs to. BIOCORE sits inside FIRST CANOPY, the 2026–2027 season, whose stated tagline is "Engineer a thriving planet with FIRST." CANOPY is a nature and living-systems theme running across all three programs: FLL BIOGLOW (released August 4, 2026), FTC BIOBUZZ presented by RTX (kickoff September 12, 2026), and FRC BIOCORE (January 9, 2027). Worth noting for anyone with younger siblings in the pipeline: FIRST's CANOPY page states that BIOGLOW is the final FIRST LEGO League season, and FIRST announced a transition to a new model for the program in January 2026.

Reveal date and time. Saturday, January 9, 2027. The FIRST calendar lists the kickoff broadcast window as 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. ET.

One scoring element, and a holding limit above one. This is the single most informative thing FIRST has published. The June 8, 2026 "Pre-Orders for 2027 Scoring Elements" blog post states that "BIOCORE has one type of scoring element" and that "robots will have a holding limit during the match (the holding limit is more than one)." FIRST also wrote that all teams will receive a quantity of scoring elements in the Kickoff Kit Season Specific Box greater than the holding limit. So: one game piece type, and robots will carry at least two.

The part number and the pre-order structure. AndyMark is the vendor. Two SKUs: am-5901_kop (Kickoff Kit quantity) and am-5901_partial (one-fifth of a field). Five partial orders equal one full field. Pre-orders opened June 8, 2026 and stay open until kickoff on January 9, 2027; they ship starting January 11, 2027 and are not eligible for return. FIRST also confirmed no additional scoring elements will be available through FIRST Choice.

Season pricing and registration. FRC team registration for 2026–2027 is $6,500 per season, which includes one Regional or two District events plus the Kit of Parts (Kickoff Kit, Virtual Kit, and FIRST Choice credits). Initial payment is due November 17, 2026. Additional Regional events are $3,200 each, with payment due January 21, 2027. District Championship is $4,000 and FIRST Championship is $6,000, though FIRST still lists the Championship payment due date as coming soon. If you are building next year's budget, the FRC budget calculator will take these numbers directly.

Registration changes specific to BIOCORE. Round 1 event preferencing opens September 24, 2026, with first late registration October 2 and a Round 2 window October 15–22. New this season, teams must register for an event in their home country during Round 1 if one exists — FIRST's stated goal is making sure local teams get access without depending on waitlists. Teams with no domestic event may select any Regional instead. Inter-District Registration opens November 5, 2026, letting Regional-model teams register for District events at $1,000 each; those teams cannot advance directly to Championship, earn Regional points, or qualify for the major cultural awards at that event. FIRST has also said a new Regional is planned in the Netherlands, with the full new-and-returning event list coming closer to September. If you are still deciding your event strategy, districts vs. regionals covers the structural differences.

The rest of the 2027 calendar. Week Zero is February 20, 2027. Competition weeks run March 3–7 (Week 1) through April 14–18 (Week 7). The Q&A system opens January 13 and closes April 21, 2027. FIRST Championship is April 28 – May 1, 2027 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. Impact Award applications open October 29, 2026 and close February 11, 2027 — that is more than three months of runway, and how to win the Impact Award is worth reading in October, not January.

One honest caveat: as of August 3, 2026, frc-events.firstinspires.org does not yet list a 2027 season. Event listings there still stop at 2026. The playing field page and the Kit of Parts page also still show 2026 content only.

What is speculation, clearly labeled

Everything in this section is community guesswork. None of it comes from FIRST.

Chief Delphi's Rumor Mill fills up with game-prediction threads every year, and the CANOPY announcement gave people a name and a theme to chew on months early. The usual pattern applies: people read the season branding and teaser artwork for hints about terrain, field geometry, and whether scoring will be color-coded, then argue about it until January. Treat all of it as entertainment. The specific readings change week to week and none of them are sourced from anything FIRST has published.

The most repeated mechanical prediction for a game like this is some form of pick-and-place: robots move game pieces into correct locations in a central structure, with human players scoring elsewhere. That is a reasonable guess, and it describes a large fraction of FRC games ever played. It is still a guess.

A related trap worth naming early: do not assume BIOCORE's scoring element resembles anything from FTC's BIOBUZZ. As of early August 2026 BIOBUZZ has not even been released — its kickoff is September 12, 2026 — so nobody outside FIRST knows what its scoring elements are. And FIRST explicitly described the BIOCORE element as a custom item manufactured with properties specific to BIOCORE. FRC and FTC have not historically shared game pieces within a season. Designing an intake around an assumed game-piece diameter in November is how teams waste six weeks.

Separate constraints from predictions. "One element type" and "holding limit greater than one" are constraints — prototype against them. "Rough terrain because the branding looked topographic" is a prediction, and building a rock-crawler drivetrain on it is a bet, not preparation.

How FIRST drips information from October to kickoff

FIRST runs the same pre-kickoff cadence most years, and the 2026 cycle gives you dated precedent for what to expect in 2027. As of early August 2026, the most recent FRC blog post is "2026 Usage Reporting Data" from July 29, so none of the fall 2027 items below have shipped yet.

October: robot rules preview. The 2026 Robot Rules Preview posted October 24, 2025. It gave teams the size, weight, and bumper rules ahead of the manual so mechanical design could start early. Expect the 2027 equivalent in late October 2026 — and expect it to be unusually important, because SystemCore changes the packaging problem. Our robot rules: size and weight breakdown is a good baseline for what usually carries over.

November and December: game hints. FIRST typically releases short teaser images or clips in the weeks before kickoff. These are deliberately ambiguous and generate enormous Chief Delphi traffic. They are fun. They are not actionable.

Early December: KitBot materials. The 2026 KitBot Shopping List posted December 1, 2025, letting teams order stock before the holidays. If you plan to run a KitBot-based robot, watch for the 2027 version.

Days before kickoff: the encrypted manual. FIRST posts encrypted PDFs of the game manual and Team Update 00 shortly before kickoff. In the 2026 cycle, FIRST's "Just a few days until Kickoff!" post on January 7 told teams to download the encrypted files in advance and unlock them "with the code that's revealed at the end of the main section of the broadcast." Download them the night before so you are not hitting the same server as every other team on kickoff day.

The pre-kickoff virtual kit: November 12, 2026

This is the date most teams miss, and it is on FIRST's official calendar: the pre-kickoff virtual kit releases November 12, 2026. (A second Virtual Kit release lands on kickoff day itself, January 9, 2027.)

The Virtual Kit is the voucher and discount-code half of the Kit of Parts — credits with vendors that you redeem in their stores, as opposed to the physical Kickoff Kit you pick up on kickoff day. Releasing part of it in November is deliberate: it lets teams buy motors, gearboxes, and structural stock during the offseason instead of competing with every other team for the same inventory in January. Our Kit of Parts explained guide covers how the physical kit, virtual kit, and FIRST Choice fit together.

Two registration mechanics attach to this window. First, the Kit and Kickoff selection period runs September 24, 2026 (noon ET) through November 17, 2026 (noon ET) — by that deadline you must either pick a local Kickoff location to collect your Kickoff Kit, arrange a surrogate, or become a MySite team and have the kit shipped, which carries extra charges. Second, the Drive Base and Black Tote opt-outs are now folded into the checkout flow, along with Kickoff kit shipping selection, per FIRST's June 17, 2026 registration-changes post. That same post tells teams using purchase orders or tax exemption to set up a financial guarantor with their organization's EIN ahead of time, and notes that grant funding applied to team accounts now carries across more than one season. Team registration opened June 17, 2026 and FIRST said the new Storefront would open in July, so if your team has not logged in since last season, do that before September rather than at 11:50 a.m. on November 17.

On kickoff day itself, the replacement-parts ordering window runs January 9–16, 2027, and FIRST Choice priority lists are open January 9–18, with regular FIRST Choice ordering from January 29 to April 21, 2027.

SystemCore: a new game and a new control system in one season

This is the part of 2027 that should change how you plan the fall.

FIRST is replacing the roboRIO with SystemCore, built by Limelight. WPILib's April 24, 2026 blog post on the 2027 FIRST Driver Station states that the new Driver Station application is "currently planned to be used for the 2027 FRC season and any FTC teams using Systemcore starting in the 2027-2028 season," and that only SystemCore is compatible with it — "the roboRIO and existing FTC SDK devices will continue to use their existing Driver Station systems." WPILib's current documentation already describes SystemCore as "the main robot controller used for FRC."

The published hardware, per Limelight's specification sheet: SystemCore is built around a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 with a quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 at 2.4 GHz, 4 GB of RAM and 16 GB of eMMC, paired with an RP2350 running a real-time I/O subsystem. It weighs 215 g and measures 135.5 × 71.5 × 28.13 mm — roughly a large phone's footprint, but about an inch thick. Ports include 5 CAN-FD-capable interfaces, 6 runtime-reconfigurable I/O ports (digital in/out, PWM in/out, analog in), 2 I2C, 4 USB 3.0 Type-A host ports, a USB-C LINK port for cross-platform connectivity and recovery flashing, gigabit Ethernet, an RSL port, a power input, and a BRIDGE port designed to be used only with MotionCore, a companion device carrying power and CAN over one cable. It has a built-in IMU outputting fused robot yaw at 400 Hz, dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, an onboard OLED status display, and an M.2 A+E key slot supporting 30 mm modules over PCIe 2.0.

Two caveats on the hardware. Limelight's published spec sheet is marked as alpha and subject to change, and it does not name any specific supported M.2 accelerator module — so treat community chatter about particular AI accelerators as unconfirmed. FIRST announced the first wave of alpha testing on June 12, 2025, selecting 50 teams from more than 400 applications.

Two things FIRST has not published, which matter for your budget: there is no announced SystemCore price, and the full 2027 Kit of Parts contents list is not out yet — the Kit of Parts page still shows 2026 content. Do not assume the controller is free in the KOP and do not assume it is a line item. Plan for the uncertainty.

What this means practically:

The Driver Station is a new application. It is cross-platform — Windows, macOS, and Linux, all on both x64 and arm64 — though at-event FMS support is enabled only on Windows and the hardware appliance, to keep event-staff configuration simple. WPILib says the application needs at least 1280 effective pixel width after scaling, and that the KOP laptop should run it fine.

Install and test it early. WPILib has designed the new Driver Station for use across both FTC and FRC, and the software stack around SystemCore is still moving. If your team already writes clean command-based code, you are in good shape for whatever the 2027 API looks like. If your codebase is one 900-line Robot.java, the fall is the time to fix that regardless of what changes.

There is a second hardware change queued. The FIRST A301, announced December 9, 2025, is a standardized brushless smart motor built exclusively by REV Robotics for FIRST: 30 W peak motor power, 38 × 28 × 81 mm, an integrated absolute encoder on the output shaft, CAN over a 4-pin Molex Micro-Fit+ connector, interchangeable gearboxes spanning roughly 100–6,000 RPM, and both closed-loop servo-emulation and open-loop modes. FIRST listed planned availability and legality for FRC beginning in the 2027 season, with pricing to be shared during the 2026 offseason and distribution through the FIRST Storefront and approved resellers. FIRST also said legacy motors remain legal in legacy configurations through at least the 2030–31 season, so this is an addition, not a forced migration.

One thing to be careful about: FIRST has not yet published the 2027 robot rules or game manual, so the exact legality language around the roboRIO in 2027 is not something anyone can quote yet. Treat "the roboRIO is illegal in 2027" as very likely but formally unconfirmed until the manual posts. Our FRC control system explained guide covers the current stack, and the roboRIO guide remains accurate for 2026 hardware you still have on the shelf.

Kickoff day: what January 9, 2027 looks like

The broadcast runs 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. ET on the FIRST Robotics Competition YouTube channel. Based on the 2026 structure, expect remarks from FIRST leadership, season logistics reminders, the game reveal animation, the manual decryption code at the end of the main section, and detailed field tour videos. The animation and field tours are posted separately to YouTube afterward, which matters because you will want to scrub through the field tour frame by frame — that is where the dimensions live.

If you are picking up your Kickoff Kit at a local Kickoff, the day usually runs longer than the broadcast: kit distribution, a local field walkthrough, and often a first strategy session. Our what happens at FRC kickoff walkthrough covers the day hour by hour.

The single highest-value thing your team does on January 9 is read the manual carefully rather than starting CAD. The scoring table and the penalty section decide your robot architecture more than the field render does. How to read the FRC game manual is built for exactly that first afternoon. Then look at the build season timeline and work backward from your Week 1 event on March 3.

Ri3D and where to watch

Ri3D — Robot in 3 Days — is a community tradition with no official FIRST affiliation. Groups of alumni, college students, and veteran mentors start building the moment the reveal ends and produce a legal, functional robot in 72 hours, streaming and documenting the whole thing. For rookie teams, Ri3D is the fastest possible education in what a viable BIOCORE robot looks like: you get a working intake and scoring mechanism concept before your own team has finished arguing about strategy.

Most Ri3D groups are university- or alumni-based, and the roster shifts year to year. No 2027 lineup has been published yet; historically these firm up in December. Chief Delphi has a dedicated Robot in 3 Days category where reveals get posted as they drop, and vendors typically round up participating groups closer to kickoff.

Worth repeating every year: Ri3D robots are proof-of-concept builds under a 72-hour clock. Copying one wholesale is usually a mistake. Watching three to learn which mechanisms are cheap and which are expensive is not.

What your team should actually do before January

Nothing on this list requires knowing the game.

September 24 – November 17: register, pay, pick your Kickoff Kit pickup location, and handle Drive Base and Black Tote opt-outs in checkout. Set up your financial guarantor with your organization's EIN first if you use purchase orders or tax exemption — that step is what makes checkout slow.

November 12: claim the pre-kickoff virtual kit vouchers the day they release and place vendor orders before the December rush.

October through December: get every programmer through a WPILib install and a command-based refactor. Our WPILib installation guide is the starting point. Follow the WPILib blog for Driver Station and API changes.

All fall: run an offseason project that is not a robot. Rewrite your scouting system against the scouting guide, audit your wiring practices, and start the Impact Award submission when the window opens October 29. The offseason guide has more.

The teams that look prepared in Week 1 are almost never the ones who guessed the game right. They are the ones whose electrical board was already designed, whose drivers already had practice hours, and whose code already compiled.

Update log

August 3, 2026 — Initial publication. Confirmed: game name BIOCORE presented by Haas, January 9, 2027 reveal at 12:00 p.m. ET, single scoring element am-5901 with holding limit greater than one, $6,500 registration and $3,200 additional Regional fee, pre-kickoff virtual kit November 12, 2026, the 2027 Driver Station supporting only SystemCore, full 2027 event calendar through Championship April 28 – May 1 in Houston. Still unpublished by FIRST as of this date: 2027 robot rules preview, 2027 game manual, 2027 Kit of Parts contents, 2027 KitBot materials, game hints, SystemCore pricing, A301 pricing, 2027 playing field assets, and any 2027 event listings on frc-events.

Frequently asked questions

Is BIOCORE the official name of the 2027 FRC game, or just a rumor?**

It is official. BIOCORE™ presented by Haas appears on FIRST's own FRC game and season page and on the FIRST CANOPY season page, alongside FLL's BIOGLOW and FTC's BIOBUZZ. FIRST published the name in spring 2026 — announcing the name months ahead while keeping the game itself secret until kickoff is now standard practice. What remains unknown is the field, the scoring, and the rules.

What time is FRC kickoff 2027 and where do I watch it?

Saturday, January 9, 2027, starting at 12:00 p.m. ET, streamed on the FIRST Robotics Competition YouTube channel. FIRST's calendar lists the broadcast window as 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. ET. Many teams also attend a local Kickoff to pick up their Kickoff Kit, and you must select that pickup location — or arrange a surrogate or MySite shipping — by November 17, 2026 at noon ET.

Will my team have to buy a new control system for 2027?

You will need SystemCore. WPILib has stated that the new 2027 Driver Station is planned for the 2027 FRC season and supports only SystemCore, not the roboRIO. What FIRST has not published is a SystemCore price or the full 2027 Kit of Parts contents list, so there is no confirmed answer yet on what it costs your team directly. Budget conservatively until FIRST publishes numbers.

Can I buy BIOCORE game pieces before kickoff?

Yes. AndyMark opened pre-orders June 8, 2026 and they stay open until kickoff on January 9, 2027. There are two options: am-5901_kop for the Kickoff Kit quantity and am-5901_partial for one-fifth of a field, with five partials making a full field. Orders ship starting January 11, 2027 and are not eligible for return. FIRST confirmed no additional elements will be available through FIRST Choice, so if you want a practice field's worth, pre-order.

What can we tell about BIOCORE from what FIRST has released?

Two real constraints. First, FIRST stated that BIOCORE has one type of scoring element — no multi-piece game like 2023's cones and cubes. Second, the robot holding limit is more than one, and FIRST said every team's Kickoff Kit Season Specific Box will contain more elements than the holding limit. Everything else circulating — terrain, elevation, a central structure, color-coded scoring — is community speculation drawn from branding, not published fact.

**When does FIRST release the 2027 game manual?

Based on recent seasons, an encrypted PDF posts to the Season Materials page a few days before kickoff, and the decryption code is revealed at the end of the main section of the kickoff broadcast. Download the encrypted file the night before to avoid the kickoff-day traffic spike. The Q&A system for BIOCORE opens January 13, 2027 and closes April 21, 2027, and Team Updates follow through the season.