Sample Questions

The Impact Award presentation includes 5 minutes of Q&A after the team is finished presenting. By then the judges will have all written submissions and the presentation to base their questions around.

General Questions

Team Identity & Vision

• Describe your team in one sentence

• What problem in your community does your team exist to solve?

• What makes your team uniquely positioned to create impact?

• If your team disappeared tomorrow, what would your community lose?

• How do you define “impact”?

• What is your long-term vision beyond building robots?

• How do you measure whether you’re achieving your mission?

• How has your definition of success evolved over time?

Outreach & Community Impact

• What outreach initiative are you most proud of and why?

• How do you ensure your outreach is meaningful rather than one-time events?

• Who is your target audience and why did you choose them?

• What community need did you identify, and how did you verify it?

• How do you evaluate the effectiveness of your outreach programs?

• Can you share a story of one individual impacted by your team?

• What partnerships have been most critical to your outreach success?

• How do you adapt outreach for different age groups or communities?

• How do you ensure your programs are accessible to all students?

• What outreach effort required the most iteration? What changed?

FIRST Expansion & Mentorship

• How have you increased participation in FIRST programs in your area?

• What does your FLL/FTC mentoring structure look like?

• How do you train mentors to ensure quality support?

• How do you transition FLL or FTC students into FRC?

• What systems ensure those programs are sustainable without your constant involvement?

• How do you support teams beyond technical help?

• What challenges have you faced while expanding FIRST locally?

• How do you collaborate rather than compete with neighboring teams?

Sustainability & Infrastructure

• What systems have you built that will outlast current student leaders?

• How do you document processes for future members?

• What would happen if key mentors left?

• How do you protect institutional knowledge?

• What percentage of your funding is recurring vs. one-time?

• How do you diversify funding sources?

• What risks threaten your long-term sustainability?

• How do you manage growth without losing culture?

Data & Impact Measurement

• What metrics do you track to evaluate success?

• How do you collect and store outreach data?

• How has data changed a decision your team made?

• Do you track longitudinal impact (years later)? How?

• How do you ensure reported numbers are accurate?

• What qualitative feedback have you received?

Inclusion & Culture

• How do you ensure new members feel welcomed and valued?

• What steps have you taken to increase diversity on your team?

• How do you support students who have never coded or built before?

• How do you prevent burnout?

• How do you resolve conflict within the team?

• What does Gracious Professionalism® look like in action on your team?

• How do you create leadership opportunities for younger students?

Leadership & Student Ownership

• How are decisions made on your team?

• What does student-led mean in practice?

• How do underclassmen transition into leadership roles?

• How do you train new leaders?

• What was a difficult leadership decision this year?

• How do you balance mentor guidance with student autonomy?

Advocacy & Broader Influence

• Have you engaged with school boards, legislators, or industry leaders?

• What policy or systemic change are you working toward?

• How have you amplified student voice outside your team?

• How do you advocate for STEM access in underserved communities?

• What ripple effects has your advocacy created?

Reflection & Growth

• What failed this year, and what did you learn from it?

• How have you improved since last season?

• What is one assumption your team challenged this year?

• What would you scale if given unlimited resources?

• What would you cut if forced to simplify?

• What was your biggest internal challenge?

Personal Impact

• How has being on this team changed your future plans?

• What skill did you gain that you didn’t expect?

• When did you feel most proud this season?

• What moment best represents your team’s culture?

• What will you miss most after graduating?

Strategic & Curveball Questions

• Why should you win the Impact Award over every other team here?

• If you had to defend one program as your most impactful, which would it be and why?

• What part of your submission do you think judges might misunderstand?

• If we visited your community, what would we see as evidence of your impact?

• What is one misconception about your team?

• If another team wanted to replicate your success, what would they need first?

• What question do you wish we had asked?

Questions Specific to Team 167

The following are questions that Team 167 has been asked in judging. They may not pertain to all teams, but offer insight into the kinds of questions judges may come up with during Q&A.

• How do you recruit from FTC? Are they a sister program?

• Why should you win the Impact Award?

• What does the curriculum for Junior Bots look like?

• How do you collect data on graduating seniors/college plans?

• What is a veteran member?

• Have you considered sharing resources for your fundraising or sponsor forms in your docs project?

• What program are you using for inclusivity training? Are you reaching out to a certified program?

• What role specifically did you play in the advocacy project with other FIRST teams?

• How do you collect analytics on docs project and do other teams use it?

• What makes your team unique?

• What is the success rate of the sponsorship project at the beginning of the season?

• What is our team’s biggest impact?

• Any other things you’d like us to know?

• Can you tell me about your STEM nights and what does that involve?

• What is a challenge the team as a whole has faced this year?

• Can you tell us more about the Celebration of the Wild Robot? Was this a book?

• Did you travel to Kansas City to work with the GoBabyGo actual organization or was everything handled from Iowa City?

• If you could do the whole season again, what would you change?

• When you walk out of here there is going to be something you wish you said to us. What is it?

• You have a lot of reach in different communities, what has been your biggest struggle in maintaining them and how do you keep events organized?

• What feedback did you receive about your Python camp and what did you do with it?

• What is a challenge you overcame this season & how did you do it?

• What challenges have you faced from the rapid growth your team has experienced?

• Has your recent team growth made you feel better about your year-over-year progress and how do you think it will impact your experience in coming years?

• You mentioned the West High Story, is that a newspaper or magazine?

• What year did you create your FLL teams? Was that this year or last year?

• Elaborate on the PopBot Swerve Initiative. How was this a cost saving measure for other teams?

• Tell us about The Docs Project as a sustainability initiative.

  • What has been the impact beyond our team?

  • What struggles have you faced?

  • How do you handle the administrative burden of such a large project?

  • In order for others to benefit it must be searchable. Do you have stats on what information people are looking for?

• How did you collaborate with education professionals in the creation of your preschool visit curriculum?

Questions Collected from Other Teams

Team #3928 Neutrino

• Describe your team in three words

• What makes you different from every other team?

• If you were given $5000 right now what would you do with it?

• Where do you see your team 5 years from now?

• What do you want your impact on FIRST in your community to be 20 years from now?

• Where do you plan for your team to be in five years?

• What's something new for your team this year?

• What is your team's greatest accomplishment?

• Anything else you want to share with the judges?

• Tell me about your efforts to promote FIRST and STEM.

• How does your outreach impact your community? Team members?

• Tell us more about your outreach program.

• Tell us more about your efforts to expand FRC in general.

• How has your outreach expanded over the past five years?

• How are you connecting with your community in a way that is different from other teams?

• How are you expanding FRC in your state?

• Who are your sponsors and how do they help you?

• What is one important outreach event your teams participated in?

• What is the most important outreach event your team participates in?

• How do you work with other FRC teams?

• If you could only pick one event to continue, what would you pick and why?

• Why is having relationships with your community, sponsors, etc important?

• How do you motivate your team to participate in outreach?

• How have you mentored other FIRST teams?

• How have you positively impacted the "FIRST community?

• How are your FLL programs sustainable?

• How many FLL teams have you mentored this past season?

• How do you design your mentoring programs to run? What are your roles?

• How do you work with sponsors? How do you connect with them and work with them to further your relationships with them?

• How do you fundraise?

• What is your budget? How is that decided on?

• Describe your relationship with your sponsors.

• What are your alumni doing now? How did FIRST help them?

• Tell us more about your website and your published resources.

• Tell me about your team's sustainability plans.

• Tell me about your business plan.

• How have you improved from last year?

• How did you overcome challenges and what were those challenges?

• How has your team grown since last year?

• What will your team do differently next year?

• How do you recruit new members?

• How is your team expanding?

• How is FIRST helping current team members?

• What are you planning to do after high school? After college?

• How has this team impacted you specifically?

• What have you learned from FIRST?

• What will you carry with you from your time in FIRST?

• What does FIRST mean to you?

• What does Gracious Professionalism mean to you?

• What did you do on the team this year?

• How did the FIRST program impact you directly?

• Why did you join robotics?

• What is the mission of FIRST to you?

• What are your roles on the team?

• How is your team structured?

• How many students are on your team? What is the break up between grades?

• Where do you see your team going in the future?

• What do your mentors do on the team?

• What did your robot do this year?

• Give an example of when you embodied gracious professionalism.

• Why did your team pick your name?

• What is your mission statement?

• What has your team done to encourage underrepresented students to get involved in robotics?

• What advice would you give rookie teams or teams in their first few years?

• What is your relationship with your school?

• What is one last thing you want to tell us?

• What is the most important piece of paper you gave me?