A plan that knows your role
Students see their build tasks. Parents see travel and forms. Mentors see only what they were asked to help with. One set of records, projected for the person reading it.
One place your team actually runs on.
connectFIRST pulls a team's official events, decisions, tasks, mentor guidance, files, and coach approvals into a single workspace — and shows every person exactly what needs them next.
Your coach sets up the team. Members join by email; a guardian consents for every student under 18 before they get in.
Why connectFIRST exists
Most robotics teams coordinate on tools built for a general audience — a group chat, a shared drive, a Discord server. They work, but none of them was designed around who is actually on a FIRST robotics team — FTC, FRC, or FIRST LEGO League: mostly middle-school and early-high-school students. Mostly minors.
On a general-purpose platform there is no guardian visibility, adults and students can message each other privately, channels go unmoderated, and accounts carry on long after the season ends. None of that is anyone's fault — it just isn't what those tools are for.
connectFIRST starts from the opposite assumption. It treats the team as one with minors on it, and the defaults follow from there: a guardian consents before a student's account goes live, the app has no private messaging at all, parents follow the team's channels rather than posting in them, and a student's records never reach a third-party AI provider. The safety model isn't a settings page — it's the shape of the product.
Decisions reach the coach — or don't stall waiting for one
A student requests approval on a real decision. If the coach hasn't answered in the time the coach set, a named mentor can step in. Every approval is written down with who decided and when.
The calendar is the official one
FTC and FRC competition dates sync from the FIRST Events API; FIRST LEGO League teams add theirs by hand. Put practices and meetings alongside them, and a parent can subscribe to their own filtered feed from any calendar app.
Files, evidence, and conversation in context
Google Drive links carry role-specific visibility. Channel posts take
#channel
references and @name
mentions. An append-only history records every consequential change.
Notifications that respect a school night
Each member routes their own alerts — push, email, or off — with a daily digest, quiet hours, and school-hours silence computed in their own timezone.
AI that organizes, never freelances
The assistant writes permission-filtered summaries with their evidence attached. It is not an open chatbot, and it cannot reach a record that belongs to a minor.
Built for a team with minors on it
- Passwordless sign-in. A link that works once, and a coach approves every person who joins the team.
- Guardian consent for every member under 18. Recorded, versioned, and revocable — re-asked when the terms change.
- The AI provider can't see a minor's records. That boundary is enforced in code on every request, not left to a policy document.
Getting a team started
-
1
The coach picks a program, enters the team number
We check FTC and FRC numbers against the official FIRST directory before anything is created; FIRST LEGO League teams enter their details by hand.
-
2
The coach claims the team
They approve members, set roles, and decide what gets delegated.
-
3
Everyone else joins by email
Guardians of students under 18 get a consent link first.
Ready when your team is.
Questions? Talk to a person.
Weighing connectFIRST for a team, or for a school or district? Send a note — a real person reads every message and usually replies within a couple of days.