Building a Winning Submission

The Submission Components#

A complete Impact Award entry has several parts:

• Executive summaries — a series of short-answer questions, each capped at 500 characters (including spaces and punctuation). They cover topics like program impact on participants, your community, how you spread the FIRST mission, your goals and how you measure progress, how you serve as a role model, assistance to other teams, other STEM initiatives, partnerships, Equity/Diversity/Inclusion efforts, and your sustainability plan.
• The essay — a single essay capped at 10,000 characters (including spaces and punctuation) telling your team's story in depth.
• The Documentation Form — an optional but strongly encouraged form listing the evidence behind your claims; submitting it shows judges your activities are well planned and documented.
• An optional video — shown publicly only if your team wins at the Championship.
• A live presentation and interview at the event.

Key Deadlines and Rules (2026 Season)#

• Submission deadline: Thursday, February 12, 2026, at 3:00 PM ET, squarely in the middle of build season.
• Submitters: Lead Coach 1 or 2 may assign up to two student award submitters in the FIRST Dashboard (with parent/guardian consent), and may submit themselves as backup.
• Presentation: maximum 12 minutes total, up to 7 minutes for the team presentation (including setup) and the remaining time (up to 5 minutes) for judge Q&A; a maximum of 3 pre-college members may present, and one adult mentor may attend as a silent observer (no assistance allowed).
• Finalize the documentation form roughly a week before each event for judges to review.

Writing Strategy#

• Show, do not tell — replace "we do lots of outreach" with specific, quantified, documented activities using the official definitions.
• Lead with impact and recency — emphasize accomplishments from the last three years.
• Tell a cohesive story — the essay should read as a narrative about your team's mission and impact, not a bullet dump.
• Use metrics — reach numbers, teams started/mentored, dollars raised, members retained. Estimate reach conservatively.
• Make it a team submission — describe collective efforts, per the spirit of the award.

Preparing the Presentation#

The live presentation is where many awards are won or lost. Practice extensively, keep within time, present as a team, and prepare for judge questions. Business members typically lead this, drawing on the business plan and documentation prepared all year.

Start Early, Reuse Your Work#

Because the deadline falls during build season, do not start in January. Maintain your business plan, documentation, and outreach records year-round so that assembling the submission is mostly editing, not creating. Studying past winners' submissions, published on FIRST's site, is one of the best ways to calibrate quality.