March 22, 2026
Bricks, bots, and breakup drama
First and Lego Education Partnership Update
LEGO walks away after 30 years — fans panic, speculate, and yell “bring back VEX”
TLDR: LEGO Education won’t renew its deal with FIRST, making 2026–27 the final season of FIRST LEGO League, while FIRST plans new K–8 programs. Comments split between panic about costly transitions, debates over LEGO’s direction, calls to switch to VEX, and speculation about why the split happened — with other contests potentially affected.
After nearly three decades of kids building robots with LEGO under the FIRST LEGO League banner, the partnership is ending — the 2026–27 season will be the last. FIRST says it’s cooking up new K–8 programs next, but the community’s reaction? A full-on comment section rollercoaster.
On one side, educators and mentors are sweating the logistics. “If it’s a lightswitch change,” one warned, schools could be forced to buy all-new gear and retrain overnight. Others are in full detective mode asking why LEGO walked, with one commenter even dropping a local news link about leadership shakeups to stoke the rumor mill. Meanwhile, longtime alums get nostalgic and partisan: one pleaded to “bring back VEX” (another robotics system), while another blasted LEGO for “dumbing-down” education kits instead of teaching real fundamentals. Even other competitions like RoboCup Junior got dragged into the fallout worries.
Between the hand-wringing, the jokes flew. Memes compared it to a breakup text — “It’s not you, it’s my bricks” — and quips about who gets custody of the robots. FIRST promises a great final season and shiny new programs after, but the crowd is split: team hopeful, team skeptical, and team VEX-or-bust. Buckle up, the bricks are officially in play. For official updates, watch FIRST and LEGO Education.
Key Points
- •LEGO Education will not renew its long-running partnership with FIRST.
- •The 2026–2027 season will be the final season of FIRST LEGO League.
- •FIRST will proceed with the 2026–2027 season as planned, emphasizing a high-quality experience.
- •FIRST is developing new K–8 program offerings to succeed the current joint program.
- •Further details and opportunities for the community will be shared in the coming months.