At the 2010 FIRST Championship in Atlanta, Georgia, a group of college students and faculty were invited to a discussion in which FIRST Founders Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers and Editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine Chris Anderson proposed the idea[2] of a college-level FIRST program.

As a result of the meeting, a planning committee was formed to design and promote a college-level program, chaired by Dr. Karina J. Powell and Dr. Christopher L. Jones.

Ground robots score points by shooting projectiles across a large trapezoidal barrier placed at midfield into mobile goals on the other side.

A third game design, named FIRST Flight, was removed from the schedule for the inaugural competition and was replaced with a practice course for the aerial robots.

However, the schools and organizations involved in CARD are working toward setting up a separate competition to continue this program.

[5] The 2012 game, whose tournament was to be held at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, involved robots trying to score in a series of towers.