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BIOBUZZ is here: FTC teams watch the season reveal at 10th Street

September 15, 2026 · Piedmont Makers

Dozens of students and volunteer coaches packed the 10th Street Maker Space on Saturday morning to watch FIRST reveal BIOBUZZ, this season's FIRST Tech Challenge game.

Dozens of students, many in red team hoodies, seated on benches in a warehouse maker space with parents and coaches standing behind them, all watching the FIRST Tech Challenge kickoff broadcast on a large projection screen.
FTC teams, coaches, and parents watching the BIOBUZZ reveal at the 10th Street Maker Space on Saturday, September 12.

Dozens of students and volunteer coaches from across the East Bay Hills League filled the 10th Street Maker Space on Saturday morning, September 12, to watch FIRST reveal BIOBUZZ, the 2026-27 FIRST Tech Challenge game. Teams settled in at 8:30, the game reveal broadcast came at 9:00, and the NorCal kickoff webinar followed with the specifics for our region. By late morning the room had broken into huddles: teams reading the competition manual together, sketching intake ideas, and pacing out the field we set up so they could stand on it the moment the game dropped.

A big thank you to Paul Morrison and Lara Oliver, our two VPs for FIRST Tech Challenge, for hosting the morning and emceeing the reveal. Coaches and commissioners were on hand all morning to field the first round of “wait, is that legal?” questions.

The game

BIOBUZZ, presented by RTX, is the FIRST Tech Challenge game in FIRST CANOPY, this year’s biodiversity-themed season across every FIRST program. Two-team alliances, red and blue, play on a 12-foot square field, and the whole match is about pollination. We are excited about this one. A few of the details that got the room talking:

  • Two scoring elements, two sizes. Pollen are the roughly three-inch yellow balls teams have been playing with since the summer, and both alliances can use them. Nectar are bigger balls in alliance colors, eight red and eight blue on the field, and a robot may only handle its own alliance’s color. The size difference is deliberate: an intake tuned for one has to cope with the other.
  • The Hive tips. The centerpiece of the field is a pair of Hives on a pivot. Launch enough Pollen and Nectar into the upward-facing cell and the whole structure tips over, presenting the other cell. The AprilTags ride on the cells, so for the first time in FTC, robots are aiming at a target that moves.
  • Flowers open late. Four Flowers around the field take Pollen and Nectar too, and alliances fight over who owns them as the match winds down, which should make for some frantic final minutes.
  • Same rhythm, new judgment calls. Matches run a 30-second autonomous period followed by two minutes of driver control. This year’s competition manual also leans on the “spirit of the rule” and gives referees more room for good-faith calls, which will be a change for veteran teams used to arguing the fine print.

The full manual, this season’s FTC software, and the StarterBot designs all landed on Saturday, and FIRST keeps them on the FTC game and season page. The kickoff broadcast is worth a rewatch with your team.

What comes next

Teams have about five weeks before they need to put a robot on a field in front of other people. The season runs through the league tournament in January, and the FIRST Championship is April 28 to May 1, 2027, in Houston.

  • Scrimmage, Saturday, October 17, 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. Coaches can find the season resources and the coach Slack on the robotics page.

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. Saturday was a good reminder of why we wanted a room like this: the game dropped, and thirty seconds later there were kids standing on a field.