Checkmate

FIRST is a "competitive" robotics organization that celebrates the spirit of STEAM and cooperation.  The name FIRST is an acronym that means "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology."  It works a bit like any youth sporting event mixed with Battle Bots (though sadly without all he violence).  Each year, there is a new challenge or game, the difficulty of which varies based on the level of your FIRST team.  Each team must build a robot to score points in that season's game.  But your robot isn't the only thing that can get you to win.  You can also win awards for your Outreach and Engineering Notebook.  But what do those words even mean?  Well, Outreach is an essential part of FIRST.  You go out into the world and teach/show everyone STEAM and FIRST.  Your Engineering notebook is your record of your team and robot.  There are different levels for FIRST based on difficulty and age:

Jr. FLL- ages 5-9: Jr. FLL or Jr. FIRST Lego League is where young adolescents can build small simple lego robots.
FLL- ages 9-13: FLL or FIRST Lego League is where tweens can build medium level lego robots.
FTC ages 12-17: FTC or FIRST Tech Challenge (that's us!) Is where teens can build medium level real metal-based robots.
FRC ages 14-17: FRC or FIRST Robotics Challenge is where teens can build large advanced robots.