Eligibility and the Two-Tier Competition System

Who is eligible

The single hardest eligibility rule is this: first-year teams cannot win the FIRST Impact Award. FIRST is explicit that first-year teams (including rookie teams and new teams that have been assigned a veteran number) will not be considered for the award and will not be interviewed. The award is about sustained impact, and one season is not enough history to judge.

Every veteran team is eligible. Team size, budget, and location do not disqualify anyone. In fact, the judging guidelines explicitly tell judges to compare teams fairly, considering "utilization of team resources, especially when comparing large teams vs small teams," and to weigh what a team accomplished with the resources available to it. A small, under-resourced team that does a lot with a little can beat a large, wealthy team.

You can only win once per level per season

A team cannot win the Impact Award twice at the same competition level in one season. Once you win at a Regional or District event, you can't win it again at that level that season. District winners are automatically forwarded to the District Championship, but since the 2026 season, Regional winners aren't automatically advanced to the FIRST Championship — they still have to qualify on points (or through the Regional Pool), with a guaranteed remote interview only if they don't otherwise qualify. This keeps the award circulating and prevents a single dominant team from sweeping every event. Separately, a team that has already won the Championship Impact Award (a Hall of Fame team) is ineligible to resubmit for the Championship award for five years.

Regionals vs. Districts

FRC runs two parallel competition structures, and the Impact Award works slightly differently in each:

• Regional model (used in many parts of the world): teams attend standalone Regional events. Winning the Impact Award at a Regional earns valuable points toward the FIRST Championship, but since the 2026 season it no longer guarantees a berth by itself — teams still have to qualify through event points or the Regional Pool, and a winner who hasn't otherwise qualified is instead offered a remote interview at the Championship.
• District model (used in areas organized into districts, such as FIRST in Michigan, FIRST in Texas, and the FIRST Mid-Atlantic / FMA district): teams play District qualifying events, earn ranking points, and the top teams advance to a District Championship. The Impact Award is contested at District Championships, and the District Championship Impact Award winner advances to the FIRST Championship.

Know which structure your team competes in, because it changes when and where you submit and present.

The same submission, used at multiple events

Your written submission (executive summaries plus essay) is created once per season through the FIRST Dashboard and is the same at every event you attend that season. What changes between events is the live presentation and interview, which you can refine each time based on judge feedback (more on feedback later).

Plan around the deadline

The written submission has a hard, season-wide deadline in early February (for the 2026 season it was Thursday, February 12, 2026, at 3:00 PM ET). You cannot edit it after that. This means your writing has to be largely done before your first event, so the Getting Organized work needs to start in the fall.