**FIRST EMAIL**/FIRST announces pricing for upcoming 2010 FRC season

[Mark McLeod]

Greetings FRC Teams:

FIRST® announces pricing for upcoming 2010 FRC season

• Lower cost for FRC Veteran teams due to 2009 kit component recycle; and
• FIRST Founder, Dean Kamen, provides $1,000.00 grant to each new FRC Rookie team to be used towards the 2010 registration fee.

Reaffirming its commitment to bring robotics to all young people to increase their interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers, FIRST®, the leader in after school robotics competitions for K-12, today announced a price reduction of $1,000.00 for Veteran teams in its high-school program, the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). This represents a 17 percent reduction in the initial registration cost for the upcoming 2010 season for Veteran teams compared to last year.

The new FRC prices are effective immediately.


In 2009 FIRST created a technology roadmap for FRC which included the use of certain technically advanced parts from one year to the next. In 2010, the organization is able to deliver on this technology roadmap promise by reducing the cost of Veteran team registration fees to a level that represents the re-use of certain Kit of Parts (KoP) components while delivering new components including an upgraded Driver’s Station with a classmate PC.

With this price reduction -- a fee rollback equal to the 2000-2004 season’s’ pricing-- the organization has also made significant strides in cost controls for the new season which allows FIRST to pass cost reductions on to the Veteran teams.


Highlights of the new fee structure include:

• The registration fee for FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Veteran teams will be $5000.00 for the 2010 season. This represents a reduction of $1000.00 from the price during each of the past five seasons, and is due in large part to the design and reuse of the new control system introduced this past year;
• The FRC registration fee for Rookie teams will be increased to $6500.00. This represents the cost differential of $1,500.00 for key items from the 2009 KoP – including the cRio - which all Rookie teams will receive;
• All FRC Rookie teams will receive a $1,000.00 grant for the 2010 season. This grant is to be applied to the overall registration fee, so that the effective cost for Rookie teams is $5500.00, a $500.00 decrease from the actual 2009 season price of $6,000.00 which had applied to all FRC teams at that time;
• All Veteran FRC teams are able to reuse several key components from last year’s Kit of Parts, including the cRio control system developed by National Instruments (NI) and other specific control system components, thus enabling FIRST to reduce the cost for participation in the upcoming season for Veteran teams; and
• All FRC teams registered for the 2010 season will receive a new Kit of Parts with hundreds of components including a new classmate PC. Each FRC team will also have the ability to purchase additional “re-usable” components from the 2009 KoP if they wish. Information on how and where to purchase additional parts will be provided to teams in the near future.

In these difficult times, FIRST is foremost dedicated to its mission to expose students to hands-on science, engineering and technology. FIRST Founder, Dean Kamen’s continued commitment to this mission is evidenced again this year with a donation of grant monies to assist FRC Rookie Teams with the registration fee. Mr. Kamen will make the $1000.00 donation to FIRST for each new Rookie team that joins the FRC program this season.

Prices for the current season for all other FIRST robotics programs will remain the same as last year and pricing for additional FIRST FRC “plays” and the FIRST Championship remain the same as last year.


Initial Event Registration opens on October 1, 2009.


Go Teams!