FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

Founder’s Reception

I am excited to extend an invitation to the 2024 Founder’s Reception! The event will be Friday night, January 5, 2024 from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM ET. The Founder’s Reception is hosted by FIRST^® Founder Dean Kamen at his home, WestWind, in Bedford, New Hampshire.

Each registered FIRST^® Robotics Competition team is invited to register two adult attendees. Registration for the event will be open via the FIRST Dashboard beginning noon eastern time, October 5. Registration for the event closes at noon eastern time December 14.

FIRST^® Robotics Competition Kickoff

Kickoff for the 2024 FIRST Robotics Competition season is at noon eastern, Saturday January 6, 2024! That’s just 93 days!

For folks from New Hampshire, or those accustomed to travelling to New Hampshire for Kickoff, this year will be a little different. For participants and volunteers who are used to watching the broadcast on Twitch at a local kickoff, at your team’s workspace, or at home, things may look relatively similar.

In recent years, we’ve had a mix of live (like the segments with Dean Kamen, Chris Moore, and me last year) and pre-recorded content (like the video of 2022 Woodie Flowers Award winner Christine Sapio). This year, we are fully pre-recording the broadcast. We think that pre-recording the content will allow us to create a more engaging Kickoff broadcast that better reflects the global FIRST Robotics Competition community.

The broadcast will still have the content you need to get started with CRESCENDO^SM presented by Haas, including a field walkthrough, field tour videos, and a first look at the 2024 KitBot.

Teams who traditionally attended the live Kickoff event can attend the New Hampshire local kickoff event being coordinated by FIRST New Hampshire. Specific details on that event are coming soon.