Amazon moves freight across the country every day. Thousands of trailers carry everything from household essentials to squirrel finger puppets. It’s a network built on precision, scale, and the belief that Amazon can solve problems others can’t.
That same belief drives thousands of high school students across the country every year who build and compete with robots of their own. The difference? Their logistics challenges. Getting everything from a school workshop to a competition venue hundreds of miles away is a freight problem most teams aren’t equipped to solve on their own.
So, for the fourth consecutive year, Amazon solved it for them. For the 2026 FIRST Championship, Amazon donated the use of three 53’ trailers for 24 high school teams across Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota to get their robots to and from Houston, where the competition is held.
A heavy lift (and an expensive one)
The robots themselves weigh about 130 pounds. Then there’s usually a 300+ pound tool chest. It’s the logistics equivalent of a band going on tour, except the roadies are high schoolers and the budget is funded by car washes.
Without Amazon, most teams rely on parents driving down with their own hitched trailers or paying out of pocket for transportation. For a round trip of nearly 2,800 miles, that can mean thousands of dollars in rental, fuel, and lodging costs—a significant financial burden on top of the fundraising teams already do just to participate.
Freeing teams to focus on what matters
For approximately 400 students across the teams, the donation meant one less headache standing between them and the national stage. For Team 4674, a first-time qualifier, the amount of logistics needed to get equipment to Houston was approaching overwhelming. Having the robot shipped there and back allowed mentor Kirk Anderson to focus on other needs such as making sure students were prepared to compete, not stuck coordinating freight.
“There’s something special about moving a robot that a group of high schoolers spent months building from scratch,” says Mike Lindahl, Senior Manager at Amazon Supply Chain Services who helped organize the donation. “Every one of those machines represents hundreds of hours of teamwork, and the goal is simple: make sure they arrive in Houston ready to compete.”
Looking ahead
The FIRST Championship draws 600 teams from all over the world to compete in a single venue each year. It’s a chance for students to work together, explore the role STEM skills play in the world, and bring their ideas to life. Amazon is proud to play a small part in making that possible.
You can learn more about the FIRST Championship at firstinspires.org.
