FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

New FIRST Robotics Competition Rules for 2021

We've made a number of rules changes for the 2021 FRC Season. Check them out here. These are not changes to the game itself (sorry, you'll have to wait until Kickoff for those!) but other rules changes we thought you need to know now so you could plan your approach to 2021.

First, as we noted in the COVID-19 Impact Update you will be able to keep working on your 2020 robot and use it in the 2021 season. Also, any robot that was legal for competition use in 2020 will be legal for competition use in 2021! This means that if you wanted to, or had no other choice, you could show up at a 2021 competition with your same robot from 2020 and still compete.

Second, we are eliminating the BOM requirement. While we had good intentions with the BOM, the rules were probably the most complex we had in the manual and a source of frequent frustration. Also, we feel that with the strengthening of the 'you need to build your own robot' rules, the fact that we are still keeping the $500 individual component limit, and the diminishing returns teams eventually experience by spending more and more on their robot, this is unlikely to exacerbate equity issues. However, we recognize this is a very new approach, so we will be keeping a close eye on 2021 to see if this goes in an unintended and undesired direction, and we may adjust in 2022.

Please note that, as we say in the doc, the 'use last year's robot' changes are only for 2021, and the BOM rules changes are likely to be long-term unless we run into issues.

Other Updates

If you can, check out the 'May the Cake Be With You' episode of Food Network’s Duff Takes the Cake! on June 22 at 10 PM Eastern Time. This episode was partly filmed at the LA North Regional this year, and you just may see some familiar teams!

Also, I wanted to let everyone know that while things may seem quiet at FIRST HQ, we are working very hard behind the scenes to plan for 2021 and even 2022! Just yesterday a large group of FRC staffers went into the office for some necessary in-person 2022 game design work - keeping safe of course! The great majority of the FIRST staff is still working remotely and on the rare occasions when we need to be in the office for critical work, we're wearing masks, having our temperatures checked at the door, keeping social distance, etc. We're being safe and I hope you are too! 

And about those 2021 plans - we are considering the full range of what 2021 may look like with respect to the FRC season. As you can imagine, it's slow going with the amount of uncertainty involved. But I promise you we are not sitting on our hands, and when we have more definitive information to share we will do so.

Frank