The Kickoff of BIOBUZZ presented by RTX is Almost Here!

The Kickoff of BIOBUZZ™ presented by RTX is just over a week away! This new FIRST^® Tech Challenge game, part of the FIRST^®CANOPY™ season, invites teams to use their engineering skills to amplify the excitement and energy found within the natural world.

The season Kickoff and game reveal will take place on Saturday, September 12, at 12:00 pm ET. Whether you join an in-person Kickoff event near you or tune in from your own team space, this is the moment the whole FIRST Tech Challenge community has been waiting for all off-season.

Watch the Reveal Live

The official Kickoff broadcast goes live at 12 noon ET on September 12 on the FIRST Tech Challenge YouTube channel. Teams can sign up now for a tune-in reminder so they don't miss a second of the reveal and can find an in-person Kickoff event near them to celebrate alongside other local teams. In-person events are being organized by partner organizations around the world, so it's worth checking whether one is happening near you.

What We Already Know

Pollen will be utilized. These 3-inch plastic balls are already available for teams to start experimenting with intake and scoring mechanisms ahead of time.
Skill Builders are seven mini-games teams can run with Pollen right now, covering precision driving, intake and outtake design, scoring cycles, and autonomous routines. These activities are a great way to onboard new members and warm up veterans before the season officially begins.
StarterBot Bases from AndyMark, goBILDA, REV Robotics, and Studica are already published, giving teams a drivetrain-and-intake foundation to build on. The full StarterBot designs will be released alongside everything else at Kickoff.

Help Keep It Special

If you're attending an in-person Kickoff event, help preserve the excitement and surprise for every student and every team by holding off on sharing any game specifics until after 12:30 p.m. ET. That means no restreaming local broadcasts and no posting game-specific photos or content on social media until the reveal has had a chance to reach everyone.

Manuals and Questions at Kickoff

A preview release of the BIOBUZZ Competition Manual is already available, covering the non-game-specific information teams need to start planning. The complete Competition Manual, with all the game-specific rules, will be released right after the Kickoff broadcast airs.

Most local volunteers are learning the full game details at the same time as teams on Kickoff day, so they won't be rule experts in the moment. Rather than expecting a definitive answer on the spot, direct detailed game questions to the official Team Q&A once it opens. Every team should ensure they understand the complete Competition Manual, if tackling it in one sitting feels like a lot, work through it together as a team, section by section.

New this season, BIOBUZZ's manual is written to emphasize the "spirit of the rule" rather than covering every possible scenario, empowering event volunteers to make good-faith judgment calls on larger behaviors and strategies rather than tracking every single incident. More details about our plans were announced in this blog post, and everyone will get to see the full impact of what this change really means when they read the Competition Manual for the first time.

Team and Volunteer Calls

FIRST will again host team and volunteer calls throughout the season. These calls are an opportunity to bring questions and get real-time feedback from staff and volunteer experts. These calls are best for higher-level questions where live group discussion helps understanding; save very detailed game questions for the Q&A system and technical questions for the FIRST Tech Challenge community technical forum.

Mark Your Calendars

September 12 — FIRST Tech Challenge Kickoff and BIOBUZZ game reveal, 12:00 pm ET
September 12 — FTC Scoring Event Configuration opens; complete Competition Manual releases after the broadcast
Kickoff Week — FTC SDK Release and FTC Live Preview Release (Beta) become available
September 14 — Nominations open for the FIRST Leadership Award
September 17 — Volunteer Training will start becoming available
September 28, 12:00 pm ET — Team Q&A and Volunteer Q&A both open for the BIOBUZZ season

Find a Kickoff event near you, sign up for a tune-in reminder for the broadcast on YouTube, and follow FIRST Tech Challenge on Facebook to stay in the loop all season long.