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First and Lego Education Partnership Update

50 points by jchin 5 days ago | 22 comments

I was a coach the last two years for this and I found the FIRST program to not be productive or enjoyable for the children or the adults. We all joined for the robotics but 75% of your score is not about robotics, fully 50% is about displays and presentations. On top of that, as others have alluded to, the missions rewarded brute force attempts at perfect replays as opposed to problems solving and didn't get into some of the more interesting sensors available. Add to that the upcoming year is focused on inclusion by relying on vibe coding so which is the opposite direction they should be going.

I hope Lego can find a partner more focused on the robotics and not the pageantry and performance.

theyCallMeSwift 21 hours ago

Anyone have thoughts or insights about why Lego is ending the partnership with FIRST? Thirty years is a long enough track record that it doesn't seem like an overnight decision...

tedivm 20 hours ago

The Lego Mindstorm robotics kit that powered the whole thing was discontinued in 2022. Since they're no longer making the robotics kits they have nothing to donate to the competition (or run the competition on).

teovall 19 hours ago

The LEGO Education version of MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor, SPIKE Prime, is still available and a new robot kit, Computer Science and AI, is being released this year. After next season, LEGO will be continuing on with their own K-8 robotics program (as will FIRST).

mcphage 19 hours ago

> The LEGO Education version of MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor, SPIKE Prime, is still available

Well, the Spike line is being discontinued also: https://education.lego.com/en-us/spike-update-2026/

But you’re right in that they’ll have another new line—“Lego Education Computer Science & AI”, which is different in a way I don’t really understand and doesn’t fill me with a ton of confidence.

ragebol 14 hours ago

Which is a shame in itself

awa 5 hours ago

Personally, the Lego stuff was unreliable and a lot of time was spent by kids in making sure the robot worked across different conditions and there was a lot of pressure on them on ideal placement etc. Again, great things to learn for kids but very frustrating as this is the first foray for elementary kids into programming/robotics.

FTC in comparison has been way more fulfilling for my children and I am hoping the next version of FLL is a lighter version of something similar.

bartvbl 14 hours ago

This is so sad to read. Been a judge in this competition for many years, and it's such a wholesome celebration of excitement about technology. I really don't understand why this needed to go.

benwen 21 hours ago

Maybe this: https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2026-03-12/dean-kamen-resigns-f...

syntaxing 21 hours ago

What a bummer. FIRST robotics was a big part of why I’m an engineer today.

MrDarcy 18 hours ago

I was a mentor for an all girls high school FIRST team and I have to say, the way they were treated at competition by other teams and the way the organization handled that sexual objectification of them at competition leads me to a “that checks out” conclusion of Kamen and Epstein.

Culture propagates from the top.

mikegreenberg 2 hours ago

I am currently a mentor and previously a judge and volunteer for many years at regional events. In all my years I have never seen anything remotely like sexual objectification. I obviously can't know your experience but I would be very very surprised to find this occurring... especially at competitions.

I believe this implication goes against core values of the org and certainly it's local volunteers. I have no skin here except to defend a program that is doing amazing work. My kids are participants and I have contributed to the org for more than 10y.

Just offering some more anecdata for passers-by.

mindslight 2 hours ago

How did you rule out the much simpler explanation that the culture propagates from the hormones of high school boys, and going against that is a hard problem? You're going to have to be explicit about the details of "the way the organization handled that", as the obvious assumption is that they'd be stuck between a rock and a hard place trying to post-facto punish at the organizational level (as opposed to proactive policies for team mentors to follow going forward).

ocdtrekkie 16 hours ago

Jeez it is darkly impressive how that man got around.

liamkinne 18 hours ago

It feels like LEGO for a while have been dumbing-down their education products.

I saw it with computer science education as a whole during my schooling. Instead of focusing on fundamentals there was more and more layers of abstraction added, lying to you about what you were actually learning.

There is also another competitive event that will be affected by this: RoboCup Junior.

FinnKuhn 9 hours ago

This competition was my first experience with programming, but from what I can see RoboCup Junior is still thriving - just with different products controlling the robots now.

watwut 13 hours ago

LEGO are fundamentally toy company. You cant really compare it to a school.

syntaxing 21 hours ago

such a shame, I’m a FIRST FRC alum from about 20 years ago. I hope they bring back vex robots to replace Lego.

sitagosan 5 days ago

I hope they manage the transition well. If it's a lightswitch change it will such for schools to have to pivot and buy new equipment.

teovall 19 hours ago

LEGO is releasing a new robot kit, Computer Science and AI, later this year. It isn't able to run autonomously so it is essentially incompatible with the way FIRST LEGO League has worked for the last 28 years.

Earlier this year, FIRST and LEGO announced that FIRST LEGO League would split into two editions--Founders Edition and Future Edition. Both editions would run concurrently for the next two seasons. Founders Edition would continue the current autonomous format and teams could use any of the previous robot kits (RCX, NXT, EV3, SPIKE). Future Edition would be a new remote control format using the new robot kit. After the two transition seasons, Founders Edition would be discontinued and Future Edition would become the one and only format and ending the use of all previous robot kits.

Now that LEGO has announced they are ending their relationship with FIRST after next season, a lot of that is up in the air. Next season will proceed as previously announced, with both Founders Edition and Future Edition. After that, both FIRST and LEGO are each continuing on with their own, separate K-8 robotics programs.

Future Edition requires teams have two of the $530 Computer Science and AI kits. One for their robot and one for the interactive mission models. That's a huge investment for a lot of teams.

LEGO has said they will support SPIKE through the next three seasons but they have not said how that will work or if older robot kits (RCX, NTX, EV3) will also be supported.

FIRST has not announced anything about how their program will work after next season.

fn-mote 21 hours ago

It used to be usual to buy a new Lego kit for each robot built, each season.

Schools may have Lego kits, but there’s not a lot of stuff that would be carried over from season to season.(1)

I think the roughest part of the transition will be the software, but that has always been a relatively small part of the whole FLL “game”.

(1) Massive exception for schools that are all-in on a Lego+FLL program, but I think that is a tiny minority.

teovall 19 hours ago

The robot kit can be kept and used again each season. Only the challenge kit (mat and mission models) change each season. The current robot kit is $540 vs just $95 for the challenge kit.