17 May FIRST Global Unveils 2025 Robotics Challenge: “Eco Equilibrium”
WASHINGTON, DC – FIRST Global, the international nonprofit empowering youth to tackle global challenges using STEM, has officially unveiled the Robotics Challenge for the 2025 FIRST Global Challenge: Eco Equilibrium. As students from more than 190 nations prepare to compete in Panama City, Panama, this year’s game tasks them with engineering solutions to one of the planet’s most urgent needs—maximizing biodiversity.
In Eco Equilibrium, national teams collaborate with their robots in a dynamic, tournament-style competition. Each high-energy match reinforces the shared responsibility of both global cooperation and regional stewardship. During each match, six nations work together as a global alliance to restore a healthy planet by removing barriers and maximizing biodiversity in ecosystems. Towards the end of the match, teams divide into two three-team regional alliances to secure protection for biodiversity in the future. A Coopertition® Bonus rewards global alliances that ensure most nations contribute to protecting biodiversity, driving home the real-world message of international interdependence.
The game is designed to spark both engineering innovation and environmental awareness. Students must design and build a robot using a standard kit of parts, while learning the science of biodiversity and building teamwork skills. By removing barriers to biodiversity, maximizing biodiversity across ecosystems, and protecting these achievements for the future, teams score points for both strategy and sustainability.
Dean Kamen, famed inventor and founder of FIRST Global, said, “By far the most well-established problem to be faced by the next generation is all related to climate change—and it has many aspects. One of them is its impact on biodiversity.” Kamen continued, “Balancing human needs with environmental impact comes down to finding ways to develop better technologies that can both give people access to all the things we want in an evolving society, but at the same time, keep reducing the negative impact it has on the global environment. Our theme will give kids a new way to look at other aspects of technology as they approach their future careers.”
Beyond the field, students will also take part in the Eco Equilibrium New Technology Experience, where they’ll develop and present tech-based solutions to protect the biodiversity of their home countries—blending robotics with real-world environmental innovation.
For more information about the 2025 FIRST Global Challenge and the Eco Equilibrium game, visit first.global/fgc/.
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