RCJ vs. FIRST

The Robot game itself (the technical aspect)...

The goal of the following is to provide  parents and students a clear overview of the difference between the two tournaments. Visit the FLL and RCJ site for more game-specific details.

FIRST - FLL, FTC,FRC	RCJ
Highly Publicized: The administration of this event is financed by strong-armed company such as the LEGO Company, while the judges and referees are volunteers. FIRST has been very successful in gaining awareness and participation from grade school children.	Less Publicized. This event is run and supported completely by volunteers. The administrative work, judges are run by college professors themselves.
Static field: Fields and locations of objects are 100% predefined. In FLL, fields objects are given an exact dimension and location.	Dynamic field: Field is filled with variable elements.  In other words, dimensions and locations of objects remained uncertain in the most part of the game.
Broader and more general: Encourage learning  in variety of topics, from helping seniors, to mars exploration. It focuses on simulation of various real-world topics using robotics.  For FLL, it requires research and presentation work on the topics itself as well.	More specific: Stress the learning in automation gearing towards artificial intelligence. RCJ delves much more deeply into computer science and algorithmic programming due to its emphasis on autonomous robotics.
Dead-Reckoning: Mostly based on dead-reckoning method, (relying on motor rotations). Thus, the robustness of the machine itself (the drive train and gear system) is a highly important in order to allow consistent rotation and movements. In FLL (age9-14), most activities are based on accuracy in turning. May use sensors as well, but limited. The Robot game portion requires full automation.  In FTC or FRC (age14-17), very little requirement in robot automation, but "heavily" in mechanical, and somewhat electronic aspects as well. Participants use remote controlling for motion navigation during the game.	Self-awareness: Closer to behavior based robotics, application of  interrupt driven, and stress in algorithmic analysis. From elementary to high school levels, participants MUST focus on robot's self-awareness of the environment with effective usage of various sensor. Therefore, the game heavily focus in algorithms and programming the intelligence of the robot, and no remote controlling is allowed. Soccer is an especially challenging in terms of robot automation. It features a constantly changing environment in which the outcome of every action is uncertain. It also require the robots to cooperate with one another via wireless communication.
Theme changes every year: Theme drastically changes from year to year.  Therefore, participants must deal with a whole new set of rules from year to year. Students need to buy and build new arenas every year.  A whole net set of rules inherently present new set of challenge in strategies, especially in mechanical  building aspects. In FLL level, you will be required to conduct studies and research in the topics.	Theme remain mostly the same from year to year. The theme does not have drastic change every year in order to provide scaffolded learning opportunities as it allows students to develop much more sophisticated solutions. It aims to encourage students explore and study algorithms studied at college or even professional level.
Cost: Considerably much higher due to investment in new arena, and mechanical requirement.   it can be very costly in materials and time in order to adapt new rules. The registration cost is also higher.	Cost: The investment in the field is only at first participation.  After that, it will be slight increments. Most cost will be in robot  hardware such as more sophisticated controller, or sensors, etc., if you decide to change platform.   The registration is considerably much lower than most others'.
Very different requirement on the Mechancial requirement from year to year : The mechanical portion is very demanding and very different from year to year.  Since theme changes from year to year, you will need to invest much in new hardware in order to build new field and new robot. Some require SUPERB mechanical building skill.	Continuous improvement need in the mechanical requirement from year to year :   It  heavily stresses on improving algorithms from year to year. Thus, this naturally led to improvement of the robot structure.   Although the mechanical portion may remain the same every year, most teams often need to improve their bot from year to year in order to incorporate more efficient algorithms. There are no complete robots that can be used every year.  One of their games called RoboDance, which requires different robots every year.
One single robot game.	Three different robot games - RoboSoccer, RoboRescue, and RoboDance. Participants select only one for each event.
Proprietory Hardware/Software : participants must use hardware/software dictated by the organization.	Non-proprietory Hardware/Software : In RCJ, they are the participants' choice.
Colorful field: Field looks very colorful and appealing, especially to children.  The field simulates the technical topics in a very cartoon way. It usually generates a WOW effect from viewers.	Non-colorful field: Field does not have much color to it, but just have lines, obstacles, ramp, color coded goal, etc.  The goal is to simulate the true algorithms  required to resolve a real-world situation, such as rescuing victims, or human soccer.
Female participants: Just like any other game, higher male participants. However, it has gained ground in getting more female participation every year.	Female participants: Just like any other game, higher male participants. However, the roboDance segment has historical had more female participants than male.
More attainable by novice: Due to the 100% pre-defined field and in-field objects, participants may just use rotations.  They can become extremely tedious, but satisfactory result is attainable by novice.	Less attainable by novice (Rescue & Soccer): Like FLL,  RCJ leagues target all ages and levels. However, due to the nature of the requirement on the robot's self-awarenss capability, most kids may not find this appealing as much algorithmic analysis is required.  However, novice still can participate and continuously improve from year to year.
Routines in programming and building: Theme changes every year. New field is different every year. the challenging portion is in the mechanical aspect. In programming, the difference is sequence of motions (ie. distance traveled and angled motions) but with the same set of deadreckoning basic routines. This alleviates most programming work, especially for those who create a set of library codes for these. Thus, it will give them more time in building.	Requiring to improve algorithms: Although theme remains mostly the same from year to year, it expects students to refine project outcomes over time with more sophisticated algorithms and hardware improvement without performing similar routines every year. In addition, it does not restrict platform. This allows students to explore more sophisticated resources.
Up to High school:  The next level is to FTC, then FRC (high school).  It involves industrial level mechanical machinery which demands high mechanical skill, but mostly human remote-control with minimal automation.	Up to Graduate Research level: , RCJ sits at the entry-level of the international RoboCup initiative. RoboCup is a world renowned A.I intensive game.  There are many graduate schools teams from prestigious US  universities, such as Carnegie Mellon, UPenn, Cornell, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, etc.

Storming Robots' participation level...

We participate in both primary (up to 13) and secondary (14-17) divisions in RCJ.  Storming Robots focuses on the development in the self-awareness of the robots. Besides, RCJ is a Grade-level competition from a world renowned RoboCup, where teams from School of Engineering of various prestigeous universities participate every year. Our participation in RCJ lends our high school nice transition to continue their robotics and A.I. interest in college. Therefore, RCJ is our preference.