0.4 Building a team and registering

At the end of the last lesson, we said that the people who will do all of this are the team members themselves. This lesson looks at who the team is made of and where registration happens.

Who we build the team with

In Türkiye, an FTC team is set up under an institution. This can be a school, an association, a club or an activity center. Independent teams are not accepted. According to the FTC Türkiye guide, official tournaments in Türkiye are limited to the middle school level, so the students on the team must be attending middle school. Worldwide, however, the FIRST program is open to students aged 12 to 18, in grades seven through twelve.

For team size, the Türkiye registration guide recommends around ten students. FIRST does not give an ideal number; it says teams of eight to twelve are common around the world. These are recommendations, not a minimum required for registration.

The work can roughly be shared under these headings: mechanical, programming, drivers and drive coach, portfolio and judging, scouting and communication. This is only an example split, and it does not tie anyone to a single job. A student interested in programming can also connect cables, and a student interested in mechanical work can also read code. Students do not need any technical experience. The point of the split is not to build a hierarchy, but to make sure every job has an owner.

A team needs two adult lead mentors. There is no limit on the number of extra mentors. A mentor does not need to know robotics. The mentor guides the team on the schedule, payments and safety in the workshop, and handles communication with the institution and with parents. Students can take on these tasks too. On event day, at least one, and preferably two, responsible adults are with the team. We will see where to find answers to technical questions in the 0.5 Support and news channels lesson.

FIRST registration

The team is registered in FIRST's online system. Here are the steps.

1. Create a FIRST account, or sign in with your account. Account registration page
2. In your account, go to My Roles, then Team, then Create New Team. Choose FIRST Tech Challenge as the program, then enter the team's name and the details of the institution it belongs to. Coach and mentor checklist
3. Add the second lead mentor in this same flow, with their contact details. If you need to add them later, send an invitation from the Team Leadership section of the team list.
4. The invited person signs in to their own account and accepts the invitation from the invitations list in Settings. This way both mentors show up on the same team.

For registration and payment, FIRST refers teams outside the United States, Canada and Mexico to the program partner in their own country. In Türkiye, this partner is the Fikret Yüksel Foundation (Fikret Yüksel Vakfı, FYF). Payment and local registration conditions are in the next section. FIRST cost explanation

Adding students to the team

To add students to the team, you can send an invitation to their parents. Here are the parent invitation steps that FIRST describes for the Global Dashboard. FIRST youth registration page

1. The mentor goes to the Youth Members section of the team's Team Roster page, picks Parent/Guardian under Invite Contacts (Legacy), enters the parent's name and email address, and sends the invitation.
2. The parent signs in with their own account. The account is opened with the parent's details, and the student's details are entered inside the account.
3. The parent fills in the student's details, gives Consent & Release approval, selects FTC as the program and completes the application with the team number.
4. The mentor goes back to the team's Pending Applications list and accepts the application with Approve Membership under Options.

Sending invitations requires both of the team's lead mentors to have completed their registration and approvals. If the invitation does not show up, check the account and mentor requirements and ask local registration support.

Registering for tournaments in Türkiye

A team showing up in FIRST does not mean it has a spot at a tournament in Türkiye. The tournaments are organized by the Fikret Yüksel Foundation, and the event a team will attend is registered separately on the foundation's panel. The panel account is separate from the FIRST account. FTC Türkiye team registration guide · FYF Panel

Here is the order on the panel.

1. Create an account on the panel, or sign in with your account. FYF Panel login · Create an account
2. Fill in the season's team registration application.
3. Choose the event you will attend during a selection period, and pay the event's service fee.

The registration guide asks teams to choose the event they will attend during set periods. The periods and the fees for the 2026-27 season are in the tables below.

The fee is paid separately for each tournament. The tables are based on the registration guide as accessed on 9 September 2026. Before you register, check the current amounts on the same page.

The permission documents needed to take part in an event are listed in that event's announcement. For example, the announcement for the in-person BIOBUZZ Kickoff asks for a printed form signed by a parent or guardian for participants under eighteen. Kickoff participation requirements

When you qualify for the championship

A team that qualifies for the Türkiye Championship from a regional tournament registers again. In the 2026-27 season, the championship's event service fee is 30,000 TL, separate from the tournament fees paid during the season. FTC Türkiye team registration guide

A team that qualifies for the world championship from the Türkiye Championship also has a separate registration waiting for it. FIRST Championship registration and its fee are not included in the amounts paid in Türkiye. The event's registration and accommodation information is announced on its own page. FIRST Championship We will cover the registration, cost and preparation for this journey in the 0.15 Going to the world championship lesson.

Extras

• Registration checklist PDF · HTML
• Resources and printables
• 0.2 Awards and the road to the world championship - how advancing between tournaments works