FIRST Robotics (Alberta) is affiliated with FIRST® the world’s leading youth-serving non-profit advancing STEM education.
For over 30 years, FIRST has combined the rigour of STEM learning with the fun and excitement of traditional sports and the inspiration that comes from the community through programs that have a proven impact on learning, motivation and skill-building inside and outside of the classroom.
In Alberta, FIRST was incorporated in 2013 and is proud of its reach in numerous elementary and secondary schools across the province.
These numbers are for the 2019-2020 FIRST®season, our most recent fully active season prior to Covid restrictions.
FIRST programs inspire and engage students. 680,000 students participate worldwide, and of the students participating or graduated:
-
- 83% of students report feeling more confident in leadership roles
- 74% of students feel more prepared for higher education courses
- 81% of alumni major in STEM
- 68% of alumni major in engineering or computer science
The positive impact on FIRST Robotics Competition participants is gratifying and well documented. According to research done by the Centre for Youth and Communities at Brandeis University in Maryland (April 2018) show that in FIRST students 88% have more interest in doing well in school and 92% are more interested in attending college.