Our team attempted to get involved with this. Unless we are very badly mistaken, registration for this program ended early October and there was a briefing a couple Thursdays ago on what exactly was going on with it. All of us are very confused and the briefing didn't help at all since it was during school hours and we missed the first part of it where they explained what was going on.
As for the connection with FIRST, I believe that there was somebody high up in this program who used to be involved with FIRST. Paul Eremenko, perhaps?
As you can see, I'm very hazy on the details of the program and am about as in the dark as everyone else in terms of what they have planned. However, I'm very excited to see what will happen with it. As far as we can tell, there's no costs involved and maybe, just maybe, we'll find a 3d printer in the mail!
