FIRST Mentor Conference

Conference SOLD OUT!
Santa Clara, California | August 23-24, 2025

At facility capacity – Sold Out

Event Details
Schedule
Sessions
FAQs

FMC 2025 by the numbers

represented countries

Represented States

FRC Teams REPRESENTED

Panels & Roundtables

Workshops

2025 Schedule & Sessions

 See the schedules and sessions from the 2024 FMC for examples of possible technical and team management workshops, round tables and panel discussion.

FMC 2025 Schedule
FMC 2025 Sessions

Our Expected Workshop Line Up includes…

Technical

Scouting and Strategy

Team Organization

Project Management

v

Marketing

Awards

Event Logistics

Much More!

Learn More

How Do I Know If I should attend?

What is the FIRST Mentor Conference?

The FIRST Mentor Conference is a 2-day event aimed at creating and growing a one-stop conference for FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) community mentors to share their experiences, best practices, and further build community. This year, 2025, will be the third time this event occurs, though we hope for it to become an annual staple within the FIRST Community. This is a volunteer created and run event, not operated by FIRST HQ.

What is the conference cost?

FIRST Mentor Conference attendance ticket is $100, which includes food for the 2 days of the event (breakfast and lunch each day), and a commemorative event shirt.

Earlybird registration tickets are now sold out.

A limited number of scholarships are available for attendance.

No refunds are available, but you are able to transfer a ticket to another attendee.
https://help.tickettailor.com/en/articles/1549513-how-can-i-edit-an-order

.

Can tickets be refunded?

Refunds are not available, but tickets may be transferred to another person.

Go to the event page (https://www.tickettailor.com/events/firstmentorconference/1666289)
and click "Manage Tickets"
Enter the email address you used to purchase the ticket
How can I transfer my ticket to another person?

Refunds are not available, but tickets may be transferred to another person.

Go to the event page (https://www.tickettailor.com/events/firstmentorconference/1666289)
and click "Manage Tickets"
Enter the email address you used to purchase the ticket
Is there a deadline to register?

There is no deadline to register, however there is a max number of tickets we can sell due to space constraints. Last year the conference sold out with an extensive waiting list, so purchase your ticket asap!

Where will the 2025 Conference take place?

Necessitated change to location announced 07-25-25

Blue River Technology
3303 Scott Blvd
Santa Clara, CA 95054

See the Event Details page for more information on nearby accomodations.

What is the setup of the conference?

The conference will feature 3 tracks of content for different stages of FRC teams: Pre-season/rookie stage teams, early year teams, and established teams. Content will be taught/shared by established mentors and leaders within the FIRST Robotics Community. Various activities for overcoming early team hurdles will also be built-in, such as a grant writing workshop, a kit bot assembly session, and other interactive sessions.

What is the schedule for the conference?

This is the rough outline for the conference; specific details about the schedule will be updated as more information is available.  Some specifics will only be found in the Slack Workspace.

Friday, Optional activities:

  • 1:00-3:00pm - Company Tours
  • 5:00-9:00pm - Lab Crawl
  • Meet up after at Guildhouse Bar, 420 First St, San Jose, CA 95113
  • location addresses and times will posted on Slack - as well as registration links when finalized

Saturday:  

  • 7:30-8:50am - Registration/breakfast
  • 9:00-9:45am - Keynote
  • 10:00am-4:45pm (1 hr for lunch) - Workshops/sessions

Sunday: 

  • 8:00-8:40am - breakfast
  • 8:45-9:15am - Keynote
  • 9:30am-3:00pm (1 hr for lunch) - Workshops/sessions
  • 3:00-5:00pm - Networking
  • 6:00-9:00pm - Optional evening social event - tentative
Who can attend this conference?

The FIRST Mentor Conference is for post-high school FRC mentors and potential mentors. Students should not attend this event without express permission from the planning committee.

Will the event be livestreamed or recorded?

FIRST Mentor Conference is for mentors, old and new, to share their experiences, best practices, and further build community. As such, this event will be in-person only with no livestreaming.

Have more questions? Get In Touch

Join FMC 2025

Coaches & Mentors

Register to attend the Class of 2025 FIRST Mentor Conference and choose from numerous technical and non-technical workshops as well as panel discussions, round tables and the opportunities to network with mentors from around the country.

feedback from previous attendees

Hosting a mentor networking event was an extremely valuable endeavor for the FRC community. It was of great benefit to my team to learn from the FRC idols and discuss strategies on how to improve the overall student experience.
Everything at the conference was positive, meaning that the sessions and speakers and people there were uplifting and positive. People were open and sharing, and no one was there just for themselves.
I loved having the opportunity to talk to other mentors from around the world without the heat of competition looming over our heads. The lab crawls were awesome!!

Helpful, friendly volunteers
Good communication (slack was great)
Enthusiasm and excitement of participants
Lots of good presentations
I like panel discussions for getting perspectives from multiple teams.

This is my 24th year and I was getting a bit down with the effort to sustain the program both financially and finding mentors. It was a shot in the arm for me.

One of the most valuable and honest conversations I had was during a happy hour after the event with a group of Title I school mentors. We had a really frank and serious conversation about inequity and resources in FIRST–I know there were a number of DEI sessions, so thank you for having those.

All of the women presenters were the most fun to listen to.
I love the way everybody was open to talk with anybody to share experiences.
Everyone was wonderful and being able to see and hear from my fellow mentors without the chaos of competition was wonderful, almost therapeutic .
Really great conversations with mentors from other teams and they were all very gracious about offering help

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Wow! What a great event. When you put something like this on, everyone’s a critic, right? I think the committee should be very proud to have made an event that ran on-time, with LOTS of food, a fantastic venue, and a great set of speakers and diverse array of topics. I appreciated that there was an emphasis on technical AND team AND DEI. Thank you.