Autonomy is not the only discriminator on whether or not something is a robot.
My washer and dryer use a variety of sensors and pre-programmed instructions to wet my clothes, dispense detergent, rinse them, and dry them automatically until they have reached a certain level of dryness. Yet they are not called robots.
At the same time, EOD (explosive ordinance disposal, ie. bomb defusing) robots are (currently) almost always teleoperated, yet the military, industry, and academia call them robots far more often than not.
As it turns out, it is easy to come up with counter examples to any cut-and-dry "is it or isn't it a robot" rule. The higher the levels of physical agency (mobility and manipulation within/of the environment), mental agency (automatic controls, feedback, and reactive behaviors), and anthropomorphism or zoomorphism (the more they physically or functionally resemble a living organism), the more likely something is to be agreed upon as a robot, but it's hard to unambiguously draw the separators.
I recommend that people read the following two Wikipedia pages, which have excellent discussions on the topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot#Definitions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telerobotics
My personal opinion is that a large number of FIRST robots have enough (a) physical agency to manipulate and maneuver through an environment, (b) mental agency via autonomous mode and sensor-guided control (via onboard or offboard - ex. joystick - sensors), and (c) functional resemblance to a human or animal - e.g. a soccer or basketball player - to be considered "robots" and not just "machines" or "systems" (an even more ambiguous term).