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The new FTC game drops Saturday morning

September 8, 2026 · Piedmont Makers

Every FTC team member is invited to the season kickoff watch party at 10th Street on Saturday, September 12, 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM.

FIRST reveals BIOBUZZ, this season’s FIRST Tech Challenge game, on Saturday morning. All eighteen teams in the East Bay Hills League are watching it together at the 10th Street Maker Space, and every team member should plan to be there.

The basics

  • Saturday, September 12, 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM
  • 10th Street Maker Space, 3100 E 10th St, Oakland, CA 94601
  • All team members attend. Parents and mentors are welcome to stay for the morning.
  • There will be a field set up at 10th Street, so teams can get on it as soon as the game drops.
  • Arrive at 8:30 and get settled. The morning runs on two broadcasts:
    • 9:00 AM, the FIRST game reveal on the FTC YouTube channel
    • around 10:00 AM, the NorCal kickoff webinar with the specifics for our region

What happens once the game drops

Everything teams need to start designing lands at the same moment: the complete competition manual with the game-specific rules, this season’s FTC SDK, and the full StarterBot designs. The StarterBot bases are already published, so teams that want a head start can study the drivetrain and intake foundation before Saturday.

That is what the rest of the morning is for, and it is the reason to be in the room rather than watching from a laptop at home. We are setting up a field at 10th Street, so teams go straight from the broadcast to standing on one: pacing it out, handling Pollen, and working out what a scoring run looks like. Teams read the manual together and start arguing about strategy while the coaches and commissioners are there to answer questions. Our league’s head referee plans to join to take rules questions once everyone has the manual in hand, which is the fastest way to settle the “wait, is that legal?” questions before they turn into a bad surprise at a meet.

BIOBUZZ digs into the earth’s ecosystems. The scoring pieces are three-inch plastic balls called Pollen, already available so teams can experiment with intake and scoring mechanisms ahead of time. The season teaser is worth watching with your team before Saturday.

Coaches

If your team wants to run a session at kickoff, an FTC strategy talk or anything else useful to the league, reply to the coach email or write robotics@piedmontmakers.org and we will add you to the agenda. It is good outreach experience for the students who lead it.

The rest of the season

Kickoff starts a run that ends with the league tournament in January.

  • Scrimmage, Sunday, October 18, 10th Street Maker Space
  • East Bay Hills Meet 1, Sunday, November 1, Piedmont Middle School
  • East Bay Hills Meet 2, Sunday, December 6, Acalanes High School, Lafayette
  • East Bay Hills Meet 3, Saturday, January 9, Berean Christian High School, Walnut Creek
  • East Bay Hills League Tournament, Sunday, January 31, Piedmont Middle School

Every date is on the calendar and in TeamSnap. FIRST posts all the season materials on the FTC game and season page, which is the one link worth bookmarking today.

10th Street is the Oakland practice facility that Highlander Robotics 8033 raised the money for and runs day to day, and our FTC teams work there through the season. See you Saturday.