Community Outreach & Spreading the FIRST Mission

What outreach means in FRC#

Outreach is how your team spreads the FIRST mission: to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and innovators. It is also the backbone of FRC's culture of Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition - values long championed by the late Dr. Woodie Flowers, after whom the legacy Woodie Flowers Award (recognizing an outstanding mentor) is named. (The separate award honoring outstanding student leaders was known as the FIRST Dean's List - named for FIRST founder Dean Kamen - from 2010 through the 2025 season; it was renamed the FIRST Leadership Award starting in 2026.)

The three areas FIRST recognizes#

The Rev. Jan 2026 FIRST Impact Award judging guidelines divide outreach into three areas. Plan activities across all three:

1. Spreading the FIRST Mission - starting new FIRST LEGO League, FIRST Tech Challenge, or FRC teams; local volunteering; doing demonstrations and presentations about FIRST; and reaching people who are not familiar with FIRST.
2. Impact on the FIRST community - mentoring FLL/FTC/FRC teams, hosting or supporting FIRST events and off-season events, providing public resources (documents, presentations, or other resources to help other teams), and hosting or supporting workshops for other FIRST teams.
3. Inspiring the STEM Future - increasing interest in STEM and the number of college-bound students, helping create science/technology curriculum for your school, building community awareness around STEM, engaging in advocacy, and helping other non-FIRST STEM-based programs.

High-impact, sustainable activity ideas#

• Start or mentor a feeder team (FLL or FTC) at a local school - among the most valued, sustainable forms of impact.
• Run STEM demos at libraries, fairs, elementary schools, and community events with your robot or a driveable demo bot.
• Host a workshop for rookie teams on CAD, scouting, or - fittingly - branding and media.
• Advocacy: invite local officials to an event or write to legislators about STEM funding.
• Create open resources: publish guides (like this branding playbook) for other teams.

Make it sustainable, not a one-off#

Judges are explicitly told to evaluate the sustainability of each activity and to favor outreach that is "done repeatedly year over year and is successful for the community." They are cautioned to watch for claimed activities that are older than the past 2-3 years with no recent follow-through, and to consider your impact relative to your resources (it is "not apples and oranges" - a small team with deep local impact can shine).

Documenting outreach (this is where media meets outreach)#

Every outreach event is a media opportunity and a future award data point:

• Assign someone to photograph and (with consent) video each event.
• Log it: date, activity, number of people reached, and outcomes. Judges are told to evaluate "the total number of people engaged through their efforts."
• Post a recap to social and your website's Outreach page, tagging partners.
• Save everything in your archive for the Impact Award presentation. An optional FIRST Impact Award Documentation Form can capture this.

Good outreach with no documentation barely counts at awards time. Make capturing it a built-in step of every event.