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Game Preview
We are excited to share a preview of the upcoming 2026-2027 FIRST® Tech Challenge Game, BIOBUZZ™ presented by RTX, which will be released on September 12, 2026.
We are providing information to help teams explore some foundational aspects of the new game and get a head start helping each other prepare for the new season.
In BIOBUZZ™ teams will use engineering skills and amplify the excitement and energy found within the natural world. BIOBUZZ is part of the FIRST® CANOPY™ season.
The scoring element used in the 2026-2027 game will be Pollen! Pollen are plastic balls approximately 3 inch in diameter, that have similar characteristics to the Artifacts used in the 2025-2026 FIRST Tech Challenge game: DECODE™ presented by RTX.
Pollen is now available for purchase from AndyMark for anyone who wants to begin experimenting with them.
While the full gameplay details and robot regulations for BIOBUZZ will not be unveiled until Kickoff on September 12, 2026, there are a few challenges teams can explore.
Intake Pollen – Robots will need to acquire pollen off the foam field surface.
Intake Multiple Pollen – Teams should consider how their robots might intake/acquire multiple pollen at the same time. Teams can experiment acquiring pollen in a line, and piles of pollen.
Intake off Field Walls & out of Field Corners –Pollen will naturally roll against the field border, and into the field corners. Teams should consider how their robots could still acquire pollen from these locations.
Navigate and Intake Pollen Autonomously – Teams should consider how their robot can autonomously navigate between known locations and intake pollen, without any human intervention.
StarterBot Base
AndyMark, goBILDA, REV Robotics, and Studica have created StarterBots which can be built from their Robot Starter kits. These StarterBots are intended to give teams a foundation to build on during their design process as well as help teams get their first experience playing BIOBUZZ as quickly as possible. The full StarterBot designs will be released at Kickoff.
To support teams who are using this Game Preview to guide their pre-season learning, each of our robot ecosystem partners has also published a “StarterBot Base” design. For BIOBUZZ, each StarterBot Base consists of a drivetrain and intake which will be used as part of the full StarterBot builds.
To give you an impression we are sharing the StarterBot Base from Rev Robotics. All other Bases can be found under Resources as soon as they are available.