On Saturday, September 12, 2026, the Manchester Machine Makers FTC #16221 gathered with the Cookie Clickers FTC #16850, the Bennington Bolts & Biscuits, the new team from Equinox Valley Middle School in Manchester, and a representative from the Rutland FTC team to view the worldwide livestream revealing the FIRST® CANOPY™ game BIOBUZZ™ presented by RTX.The whole season draws inspiration from the cycles of the natural world, and BIOBUZZ, as you might expect, is influenced by the activity of pollinators.

Click here to watch the full broadcast; for just the game animation, click here instead. The field walk-through is here, and the overview of starter bots is here.

We had been given small pieces of information over the summer, between last Spring’s World Championships (where the Cookie Clickers represented Vermont!) and Saturday’s game release. But these did not give us a real picture of what the game would be, and we were all very surprised to find a game that involves launching game elements, with a scoring system that is quite unique among recent games.

So we uncovered the field, provided by FIRST in Vermont, and calibrated the hive according to the Event Field Setup Guide from FIRST. From that point, there was not a moment when “pollen” and “nectar” wasn’t being scientifically tossed into the cells to make them tip; and senior team members grabbed pencil and paper to sketch ideas with junior members and newbies, and kids from different teams worked together to discuss the game’s challenges.

Now, teams all around the world are starting to build robots to address the various challenges of the BIOBUZZ game, and we are no different – only now we’ve all gotten to collaborate first. We’re looking forward to seeing you all at the Qualifiers!