The 2009 FIRST Championship will take place April 16-18 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Admission is free and open to the public.

We invite you to join us as we watch over 500 robots compete on six fields in the Georgia Dome, make our way through more than 250,000 square feet of team pits and activities in the Georgia World Congress Center, or just get swept away by the energy of over 10,000 students. It's all a wonderful assault on the senses!

The FIRST Championship is the culmination of the season's FIRST programs, bringing together three separate robotics competitions for the ultimate Sport for the Mind. The event includes the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship, the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship, and the FIRST LEGO® League World Festival.

Teams of students in four different age groups accept the FIRST challenge to fund, design, build, and compete with robots of their own creation in local, national, and international contests. Some win medals and substantial scholarships, but everybody wins new friends, skills, confidence, and untold personal rewards.

Our programs include the:

• Well-known FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) for high-school students, now in its eighteenth season.
  
  
• FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) that offers high-school students the traditional challenge of the FIRST Robotics Competition but with a more accessible and affordable robotics set.
  
  
• FIRST LEGO® League (FLL) for 9 to 14 year-olds and the Junior FIRST LEGO League (Jr.FLL) for 6 to 9 year-olds.