Teams from AZFirst — an Arizona 501(c)3 organization supporting FIRST, or  For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology — took home top honors at the recent FIRST World Championship in Houston.

Arizona students, representing less than 1 percent of competitors, earned the FIRST Impact Award, Engineering Inspiration Award, Judge’s Choice Award, Engineering Excellence Award, Rising Stars Award and were a part of the Winning Alliance.

FIRST is a program that connects students, educators, the community and the expanding technology industry in a collaborative effort to teach science, technology, engineering and math principles through project-based robot building. These efforts culminate in a robotics competition. 

In addition, all high-school students who participate on a FIRST team are eligible to apply for more than $95 million in scholarship opportunities.

During the 2023-2024 season, Arizona supported 449 teams across the state through five different levels of competition.

The season kicked off with the FIRST LEGO League challenge release in August, followed by FIRST Tech Challenge in September and FIRST Robotics Competition in January, culminating in April with the 2024 FIRST Championship.

More than 3,500 FIRST Robotics Competition teams competed during the 2024 season in regional and district events.

Internationally, 600 teams advanced to the championship, where they competed in rotating alliances, in one of eight divisions, for several matches to earn ranking points and advance to playoffs.

At the FIRST Robotics Championship, 13 teams from Arizona competed against 1,015 teams from 57 countries to earn recognition for design, excellence, creativity, outreach and teamwork.

Competing local teams included:

FIRST LEGO League (grades K-6)

• Warrior Bots from Flagstaff
• Golden Phoenix from Chandler
• The Alienators from Gilbert

FIRST Tech Challenge (grades 7-12)

• Automatons from Buckeye
• Knights of the Lab Table from Gilbert
• Rocksisaan Tech from Tonalea
• Trivium Knightmares from Avondale

FIRST Robotics Competition (grades 9-12)

• The Cobra Commanders from Glendale
• The CocoNuts from Flagstaff
• Dragon Robotics from Phoenix
• Sabercats from Scottsdale
• Degrees of Freedom from Chandler
• Team 8-Bit from Phoenix

Arizona Team Wins:

• Team CocoNuts, Flagstaff, won the FIRST Impact Award, the highest honor given at the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship, recognizing the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST.
• The Dean’s List Award celebrates outstanding student leaders whose passion for and effectiveness at attaining FIRST ideals is exemplary. Elizabeth Seaton from Degrees of Freedom in Chandler was one of 10 FIRST Robotics Competition students to be awarded.
• The Winning Alliance of the FIRST Robotics Competition included team 8-Bit, Phoenix; team Orbit, Binyamina, Israel; team SCREAM, Sedalia, Missouri; and team RoboLancers, Philadelphia.
• The Cobra Commanders from Glendale were recognized as a Hopper Championship Division Finalist.

• Team Rocksisaan Tech of Tonalea was the Ochoa Division Judge’s Choice Award Winner.
• Golden Phoenix of Chandler won the Engineering Excellence Award.
• The Alienators of Gilbert won the Rising All Stars Award.

Those who are interested in learning more about how to get involved with AZFirst can visit the website www.azfirst.info and follow @azfirstrobotics on Instagram.