I’ve been beating the volunteer age requirement drum for a long time. We’ve seen improvement in recent years, and over the past few months, even more roles have been updated (mostly lowered).
Tl;dr: 18 year old judges, 21 year old VCs; 23 year old JAs; 18 year olds post high schools in most positions.
Ambitious young people: remember that most volunteer age requirements are NOT hard and fast rules and exceptions can be granted by your local Program Delivery Partner. If there’s every a role you want to do, but you don’t meet the listed age, contact your local PDP or Volunteer Coordinator and see if they can make it happen. Even if they can’t, you’ll be on their radar and they might find an opportunity for you to shadow the position or otherwise prepare.
Here are some of the changes (source), hope I didn’t miss anything crucial:
Judge Advisor: Was 26, now 23
Judge Advisors previously had a minimum age of 26. People now only need to be 23. This makes some of my favorite JAs street legal, woohoo!
Volunteer Coordinator: Was 23, now 21
VCs can now be 21. Now I’m old so this doesn’t impact me personally, but, if we went back a few years in time, I wouldn’t have had to be an exception to the rule. Anyone who graduated a few years ago wanting to give up every waking minute to this program, hit me up, let’s talk. This is a good change, sincerely someone who was a VC starting at the age of 18 for unofficial events/21 for official events.
Was “Adults/Older Teens Preferred,” now 13 years old, 18 preferred
These roles haven’t had specific age limits listed but gave preference to adults or older teens. They now explicitly do not have an age restriction (other than the general rule that official FRC volunteers must be at least 13). The roles are:
- Field Reset
- Load in/Load out
Was 19 years old, now 18 years old + post high school
This is a minor, technical change, but will make a difference for a lot of recent FIRST Alumni. Many roles previously required volunteers to be at least 19 (presumably as a shortcut to try and weed out high school students who could be current participants) but the new verbiage allows for 18 year olds who have already graduated high school. The roles are:
- Control System Advisor
- Judge Advisor Assistant
- Lead Queuer
- Pit Administrator
- Emcee
- Field Supervisor
- Scorekeeper
- FIRST Technical Adviser Assistant
- Safety Manager
- Practice Field Attendant
- Quiet Room Attendant
- Referee
FTA: Was 19/21, now 18/21
Similar to the above, FIRST Technical Advisors (FTAs) were previously 19 and up with 21 and up preferred. Now it’s 18/post high school and up and 21 still preferred.
Judge: Was 19/23, now 18/21
Similar to the above, Judges were previously 19 and up with 23 and up preferred. Now it’s 18/post high school and up, but goes one step further and the preferred age is down to 21 and up. Nice!
Was “Not specified”
Some roles didn’t have any age information listed at all.
These roles now have a minimum of 18 years old/post high school:
- Student Ambassador Coordinator
- Machine Shop Staff
These roles now have a minimum of 13 years old:
- Safety Attendant
- Spare Parts Attendanrt
- Volunteer Room Assistant
These roles now have a minimum of 13 years old with 15+ preferred :
- Queuers
Pit Admin Supervisor: 19 → 21 [sic]
This is the only instance I can find of age requirements increasing. Pit Admin Supervisors previously had to be 19, now it’s 21. It makes sense, though, since this is a supervisory position and other supervisory positions have higher ages. This person also has to deal with serious incident reporting requirements.