DW
Dana Whitfield
Director of collections
Runs the acquisition calendar and decides what comes off the truck first. Started as an FRC mentor in 2009.
Museum-wide
About us
A place for the parts nobody kept.
FIRST Place is a museum dedicated to the FIRST robotics programs: a permanent home for the machines, field elements, and paper trails that make up four decades of student engineering.
- Named for
- FIRST Place, Manchester, New Hampshire
- Built by
- The FIRST community, for the FIRST community
- Collections policy
- Every object documented online
The museum
Named after the room where FIRST keeps learning.
FIRST Place takes its name from the research, education, and day camp facility at FIRST headquarters in Manchester, New Hampshire. This museum borrows that name because it does the same work in another direction: keeping what the programs have already taught us.
The museum is community-made and community-maintained. Teams, mentors, alumni, and volunteers lend the objects, write the entries, and correct the record when a detail is wrong.
We exist to preserve the records of FIRST and to bring a new understanding to an ever-changing sport.
Collections policy
Every in-person exhibit must have an online exhibit.
Nothing in this collection is kept behind a door. Anything on the gallery floor is documented in the online collection, so a rookie team in another state can study the same object the same week it arrives.
What we do
Three jobs, in this order.
Preserve
We take in retired robots, drive trains, field elements, and the notebooks that explain how they were built, then stabilise and store them properly.
Document
Every object gets a wiki entry with a spec sheet, photographs, and the story of the season it came from. Records are corrected by the people who were there.
Put it back in the room
Objects go on the gallery floor, on loan to teams and events, or into the online collection where a rookie team can study them before kickoff.
The four programs
Each program has a color. We use it everywhere.
- FRC
FIRST Robotics Competition
High-school teams build 120-pound robots in six weeks and compete on a field the size of a gymnasium floor.
- FTC
FIRST Tech Challenge
Smaller robots, tighter budgets, and a heavier emphasis on CAD, sensors, and autonomous code.
- FLL
FIRST LEGO League
Students engineer LEGO-based robots against a themed challenge and present an innovation project.
- Explore
FIRST LEGO League Explore
The youngest builders work in teams on a real-world theme, then share what they learned at an expo.
The curators
The people who keep the record straight.
Every curator is a volunteer from the FIRST community. They answer corrections, take in loans, and write the entries you read here.
MO
Marcus Ojo
Robot conservator
Rebuilds drive trains, replaces brittle 3D prints, and works out what on a retired robot still spins.
FRC
PR
Priya Raghunathan
Digital exhibits editor
Turns donated notebooks and photographs into wiki entries with a spec sheet and a revision history.
FTC
SE
Sam Ellery
Field elements archivist
Catalogues game pieces, field models, and the rulebooks that explain why they were built that way.
FLL
Curators are appointed from the community. If you know a collection that needs a keeper, tell us.
Get in touchPlan a visit
Come look at the underside of a robot.
The gallery takes about an hour. Team visits can be booked ahead, and the archive table is open to anyone researching a build.
- Tuesday – Saturday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Sunday
- 12:00 – 17:00
- Monday
- Closed
- Admission
- Pay what you can · $12 suggested
- Students & teams
- Free with a team shirt or member card
- Address
- 1320 Commercial Street, Weymouth, MA 02189
- Accessibility
- Step-free entry, wide gallery aisles, seating throughout
- Parking
- Free lot on the north side of the building
Support the museum