Leadership Award -2026

The Adventist Robotics Leadership Award recognizes the dedication and individual contributions of outstanding secondary school students participating on FIRST Tech Challenge teams. Students in 10th or 11th grade are eligible to be nominated by their team for the Adventist Robotics Leadership Award for excelling in areas such as leadership, entrepreneurship, and dedication to advancing the mission of FIRST within their communities.

Required Nomination Information

Although a single coach or mentor must submit the nomination, members of the team must verify the accuracy of the submission. Adventist Robotics is relying upon the team to review the accuracy of the submission data.

The mentor, who is not related to either of the students chosen as the team’s Adventist Robotics Leadership Award, should gather the required information for the student team member to interview for the Adventist Robotics Leadership Award finalist designation at a Leadership Award Interview Only Event. Applications will require:

  • Nominee name
  • Nominee year of graduation
    • This award is intended for students who are a Sophomore or Junior. Students who are graduating this year are not eligible.
  • Nomination essay of no more than 4,000 characters (including spaces and punctuation)
    • Student Address (Coaches can use the address of the school)
  • Additional information about the student including academic performance, specialized skills, or additional extracurricular activities.
  • How many years the student has participated in FIRST
  • Students MUST have a signed FIRST Consent and Release form to be nominated and interviewed. Submission of a FIRST team roster with the nominee’s name is sufficient.

Every student participating in FIRST must have a signed consent and release form on file. FIRST requires all youth to be registered through the www.firstinspires.org dashboard, where the parent can complete the consent and release form electronically. Instructions on how to register youth can be found on our website: https://www.firstinspires.org/resource-library/youth-registration-system

Essay Requirements

The Leadership Award honors students who are true ambassadors of FIRST. These students are leaders who participate in fundraising, outreach, and spreading the word about FIRST; all while excelling in school and other extracurricular activities.

Mentors must write and submit essays following the five prompts below. Each essay section is limited to 800 characters (punctuation and spaces included) with a total 4,000-character limit. Essays should be specific about the semi-finalist’s contributions to FIRST generally and to their team specifically, as well as inform judges of specifics on the semi-finalist’s entrepreneurial, technical, creativity, and innovation skills. Specific examples are helpful to the judges. Information about the nominee outside of FIRST may also be supportive of the nomination (as it relates to skills learned in FIRST) but is secondary to information about the student’s participation in FIRST.

  1. Explain how the student embodies the philosophies of Gracious Professionalism® and Coopertition® through the FIRST Core Values: Discovery, Innovation, Impact, Inclusion, Teamwork and Fun. Please provide examples.
  2. How has the student increased the awareness of FIRST? Describe the student’s interest and/or plans to continue to engage with FIRST beyond high school. Please provide examples.
  3. How does the student's individual contribution to the team benefit the team as a whole? Please provide examples.
  4. Describe the students' experience in and mastery of areas of STEM. This could include but is not limited to, skills in engineering, software, CAD, fabrication, etc. Please provide examples.
  5. Explain the student’s leadership to their fellow team members and/or others in the community. How do they motivate others? What is their leadership style? Please provide examples.

Additionally, there is a 500-character limit prompt for sharing additional information about the student:

  1. Please share anything else you’d like us to know about the student, including academic performance, specialized skills, technical expertise, or additional extracurricular activities. Best Practices for Writing the Nomination

Only including a few short sentences in the essay can limit an otherwise great candidate from moving to the next level. Try to be as detailed as possible while remaining in the character limit. Additional tips to keep in mind when writing an essay are:

  • The nomination essay should mainly focus on FIRST related activities and accomplishments.
    • Mentioning other achievements outside of FIRST as they demonstrate leadership, entrepreneurship, etc. is okay but should not be the sole focus of the nomination.
  • Include specific examples of what makes the nominee so exceptional and how they meet the award criteria. Don’t just say it – prove it!
  • Describe the difference your nominee’s contributions have made and show why they are important. Include benefits from their efforts and what the impact was. Use measurable results whenever possible.
  • What sets this student apart from others? Focus on why you selected this student, apart from all others on the team, to nominate.
  • Consider: How this student is a model FIRST participant – for example, major position on the team, has created/furthered the team's initiatives in a meaningful way, and believes in the missions of FIRST.
  • Avoid sweeping generalities.
  • Avoid run-on sentences.
  • Be concise. Make the narrative clear and easy to read.
  • Topics in the nomination should be able to be validated in an interview. If the nomination talks about certain things the student should expect questions about those things during the interview.
  • We recommend reviewing the Leaderhips Awards Helpful Terms in this document.
  • Follow the prompts and keep the criteria for the award in mind. Remember things such as:
    • How is the student a leader?
    • How has the student helped increase the awareness of FIRST?
    • Describe the student’s interest and passion that demonstrates their long-term commitment to FIRST.
    • Describe their experience in areas of STEM.
    • Describe their entrepreneurship and creativity.
    • What are the student’s individual contributions to outreach or fundraising efforts?
    • What are the student’s individual contributions to the Team, whether it is building, programming, team captain, etc.?

Please note that nominations made without an essay will not be considered for an interview.

Nomination Form

It is recommended that coaches complete the essays in a word processor and copy/paste them into this form.

Leadership Award Nomination 2026 – Fill out form

Preparing for the Interview

What to Expect

Upon the nomination window closing, every semi-finalist will receive an email from FIRST which provides the Semi-finalist the nomination written by the coach. Semi-finalists should make sure to read the nomination to help prepare for the interview. Be prepared to discuss topics written in your nomination and anything else that you might what to mention that is relevant. It is also helpful to prepare a list of topics you want to discuss during the interview.

The interview is where the Leadership Award Interviewers can meet you and potentially learn some new information about you. There is no need to dress up for your interview, but we do recommend that you prepare for it as if it were a job interview. Come up with some talking points so you can remember things that you want to tell the judges in response to questions, do mock interviews, and come into the interview planning to be confident and engaging. Remember that this is a conversational interview, there are no presentations, video links provided to the interviewer for post-interview review, or informational handouts involved.

Only the nominated student is allowed to present information or answer questions from the interviewers. In instances where a mentor is present, the adult team mentor may observe and later provide feedback to the student, but the mentor is not allowed to provide any assistance during the interview.

Recording video, audio or taking pictures (including screenshots) are prohibited during the interview. In addition to FIRST prohibiting recording, there may be other legal restrictions governing recording.

Although the interviewers are not prescribed a list of required questions to ask, they are given a list of suggestions. Examples of questions you might expect:

- Describe your roles and responsibilities.

- Describe one example of how you are a leader.

- Describe how you plan to continue to be active in FIRST through college and beyond.

- Describe a time you had to motivate fellow teammates. How did you do it? What were the results?

- Can you provide examples of your FIRST activities in your school and/or community? What technical innovations have you brought to your team’s robot?

- What are your plans for post-high school?

- Is there anything not included in your essay, or that we haven’t discussed, that you would like to share?

We also recommend reviewing the Leadership Award Award Helpful Terms in the section below in preparation for your interview.

During the interview, please remember that it is about YOU, your contributions, leadership, etc. in relation to the criteria of the award. For example, if you are discussing accomplishments of your team as a whole, make sure to specify how your individual efforts were vital in the success of those accomplishments. Do not be shy about sharing your personal successes!

When is My Interview?

Interviews will be conducted by Zoom. Coaches will be contacted by the Judge Advisor to schedule when the interview will take place. Interviews are always completed prior to the championship event.

Leadership Award: Helpful Terms

These terms are intended to assist mentors in writing the nomination essays and for students to use during the interview. The use of these terms is not a requirement for submitting a nomination.

  • Adventist Robotics Leadership Award Finalists – Comprised of the two (2) students in their 10th or 11th school year nominated by each team.
  • Leadership titles:
    • Captain - a top-level position of responsibility over the team.
      • Teams with a flat leadership structure may have captains that cover specific areas, while making larger decisions as a group with no defined leader.
      • Teams with a structured leadership would have one or more captains with multiple Leads working under them to lead smaller team areas.
    • Lead - A leadership position over a specific area of responsibility and should include a "team area" below.
    • Either of the above can be preceded by "co-" to indicate they shared that responsibility with one or more individuals.
  • Team Areas
    • Marketing - responsible for items like team branding, newsletters, website, etc.
    • Awards - responsible for working on award submissions or pit presenting preparation.
    • Finance - responsible for fundraising, grant writing, and sponsor relationships.
    • Outreach - responsible for organizing and leading demonstrations and events not tied to competitions.
    • Drive Team/Scouting/Strategy - responsible for guiding the team's strategy, representing the team at competitions, and collecting data on the performance of other teams.
    • Mechanical - responsible for the mechanical design and build of the robot.
      • CAD can be included as a separate lead position or included alongside mechanical.
    • Electrical - responsible for the electrical design and build of the robot, including any sensors or custom circuits.
    • Programming - responsible for programming the robot.
    • Any team area that falls outside of the areas listed above should be detailed to provide the judges with appropriate context.
  • Action-specific words:
    • Mentored – the student advises or trains, either in person or via phone/email/video conference, another team or team member, helping with technical or non-technical FIRST program specific issues.
    • Lead - the student leads an event if they are responsible for planning and execution. Can be preceded with "co-" to indicate a shared responsibility.
      • Planned - worked on the planning of the event, but did not lead the execution.
      • Executed - responsible for the execution of the event - onsite leader throughout the event.
    • Conceived - Indicates the student introduced the initial concept.
    • Helped/Assisted - Indicates the student had significant impact or participation, without being a leader in that situation