Consent, Assumption of Risk, Release & Emergency Authorization

This Consent, Assumption of Risk, Release, Hold Harmless, and Emergency Authorization (this “Agreement”) relates to participation by the person identified during registration (the “Participant”) in activities of STEM+C. If the Participant is under 18 years of age, this Agreement must also be signed by the Participant’s parent or legal guardian (the “Parent/Guardian”). The Participant and Parent/Guardian are referred to together as the “Signing Parties.”

Important notice

Please read this entire Agreement carefully. It describes serious hazards, including hazards from industrial machinery, fabrication equipment, robots, electricity, batteries, chemicals, and travel. It also contains a release of claims, including certain claims based on ordinary negligence, and may affect legal rights.

Signing this Agreement does not replace STEM+C’s responsibility to maintain and enforce appropriate safety rules, training, supervision, equipment safeguards, and insurance.

Definitions

“Activities” means all STEM+C-sponsored, organized, or approved activities, whether occurring at a STEM+C location or elsewhere. Activities include team meetings; shop and build sessions; design, construction, programming, inspection, testing, maintenance, repair, and operation of robots and other devices; training; outreach, demonstrations, fundraising, league play, and competitions; loading and unloading; and travel, lodging, meals, and other activities incidental to those events.

“STEM+C” means STEM+C, an Arizona nonprofit corporation, Arizona Corporation Commission Entity ID 1949945, EIN 83-3523903. “Released Parties” means STEM+C and its current and former directors, officers, employees, coaches, mentors, volunteers, agents, insurers, affiliates, successors, and assigns, in each case only to the extent acting in connection with an Activity. The term also includes Activity hosts, facility owners and occupants, sponsors, competition organizers, and transportation providers identified in or covered by the registration materials.

1. Description and acknowledgment of risks

The Signing Parties understand that participation may expose the Participant to known and unknown risks that cannot be eliminated completely, even when reasonable safety measures are used. Depending on the Activity and the equipment then in use, risks may include:

• designing, constructing, programming, testing, transporting, maintaining, and operating robots and mechanisms, including heavy robots, mechanisms, and subassemblies capable of rapid or unexpected movement;
• hand tools, portable power tools, and industrial or machine-shop equipment, which may include mills, lathes, CNC machines and routers, drill presses, saws, grinders, sanders, shears, brakes, presses, welding and cutting equipment, soldering equipment, laser cutters, 3D printers, hoists, lifts, and material-handling equipment;
• points of operation, rotating parts, belts, gears, blades, cutters, ingoing nip points, pinch/crush points, entanglement, kickback, ejected workpieces, flying chips and sparks, sharp edges and swarf, hot surfaces, molten material, and unexpected startup or release of stored mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, gravitational, thermal, or electrical energy;
• electricity, energized circuits, motors, control systems, chargers, batteries, battery acid, high current, fire, explosion, thermal runaway, compressed air, and compressed-gas cylinders;
• welding arc radiation, heat, flame, smoke, metal fumes, dust, vapors, adhesives, solvents, paints, lubricants, cleaning products, resins, and other chemicals or particulates;
• noise, vibration, inadequate ventilation, slips, trips, falls, lifting or moving heavy or awkward objects, falling objects, struck-by hazards, and repetitive motion or overexertion;
• the acts or omissions of the Participant, other participants, spectators, facility owners, event organizers, drivers, or other third parties; crowded public venues; weather; illness; food; and unfamiliar premises; and
• transportation in organization-arranged, volunteer-driven, rented, or privately owned vehicles; loading and unloading; overnight stays; and multi-day travel to regional or championship events.

These hazards may cause equipment or property damage; cuts, punctures, burns, eye or hearing injury, respiratory injury, electric shock, chemical exposure, allergic reaction, strains, fractures, crush injury, amputation, paralysis, illness, permanent disability, or death.

2. Safety obligations

The Participant agrees to follow all safety rules and instructions; complete required training; use required personal protective equipment; keep guards, barriers, interlocks, and other safety devices in place; avoid operating equipment without express authorization and required supervision; immediately report unsafe conditions, damaged equipment, injuries, and near misses; and stop work whenever the Participant believes a condition is unsafe. The Participant must not use equipment while impaired by alcohol, drugs, fatigue, illness, or medication that makes the work unsafe.

STEM+C may restrict or end a Participant’s access to any Activity or equipment for safety reasons. The Participant may decline or stop any task and should ask a coach or mentor for an alternative task when the Participant lacks training, authorization, appropriate protective equipment, or confidence that the task can be performed safely.

3. Voluntary participation and assumption of inherent risks

Participation is voluntary. The Signing Parties acknowledge the nature of the Activities and the risks described above, have had an opportunity to ask questions, and knowingly accept and assume the inherent and other risks of participation to the fullest extent permitted by Arizona law. The Signing Parties understand that this assumption of risk may be considered by a court or jury and is not a guarantee that every claim will be barred.

4. Release of claims and covenant not to sue

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, each adult Signing Party, for that adult and that adult’s heirs, estate, personal representatives, and assigns, releases and agrees not to sue the Released Parties for claims for bodily injury, death, or property damage arising from or related to participation in the Activities, including claims alleging the ordinary negligence of a Released Party.

This release does not apply to gross negligence, reckless or willful misconduct, intentional misconduct, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be released. It also does not waive any nonwaivable workers’ compensation or employment rights, or any rights or benefits available under an applicable insurance policy, although the insurer may have rights of reimbursement or subrogation.

If the Participant is a minor, the Parent/Guardian signs this section in the Parent/Guardian’s individual capacity and, only to the extent Arizona law permits, on behalf of the minor Participant. The parties acknowledge that a parent or guardian may not have authority to waive all claims belonging to a minor. Any separate parental indemnity must appear expressly in this Agreement; none is implied.

5. Responsibility for damage and third-party claims

To the extent permitted by law, an adult Participant is responsible for property damage or third-party injury caused by that adult Participant’s intentional misconduct or negligent failure to follow safety rules. For a minor Participant, any Parent/Guardian responsibility or indemnity is limited to obligations that applicable law permits and that are stated expressly in this Agreement. This section does not require a Signing Party to indemnify a Released Party for that Released Party’s own negligence.

6. Emergency information and medical authorization

The Participant or Parent/Guardian will provide accurate emergency-contact information and will disclose allergies, medical conditions, activity restrictions, and medications that STEM+C personnel reasonably need to know to respond to an emergency. The Signing Parties will keep that information current and may discuss necessary accommodations privately with a designated STEM+C representative.

If the Participant becomes injured or ill and the appropriate Signing Party cannot be reached promptly, the Signing Parties authorize STEM+C personnel to provide or arrange reasonable first aid, emergency medical services, ambulance transportation, and evaluation or treatment by licensed medical professionals. This authorization does not require STEM+C personnel to diagnose a condition, provide professional medical care, or administer prescription medication except under a separate written medication plan. The Signing Parties remain responsible for medical costs not paid by insurance.

7. Optional media authorization

The media choice must be presented separately during registration and is not a condition of participation. The Participant or Parent/Guardian must select one of the following:

• I authorize program media. STEM+C may photograph, record, edit, reproduce, publish, display, and distribute the Participant’s name, image, voice, statements, and submitted creative contributions in any medium for STEM+C educational, documentary, fundraising, and promotional purposes, without compensation. This permission includes use by vendors acting for STEM+C, but does not authorize endorsement of an unrelated commercial product or service.
• I do not authorize program media. STEM+C will use reasonable efforts not to feature the Participant in media created or controlled by STEM+C. The Signing Parties understand that STEM+C cannot control incidental appearance in crowd or background images, or recordings made or published by FIRST, event hosts, sponsors, other teams, news media, spectators, or other third parties at public events.

A media choice may be changed prospectively by writing to info@stemplusc.org. A change will not require recall or removal of material already printed, published, distributed, or incorporated into a completed work, but STEM+C will use reasonable efforts to stop new controlled uses after processing the request.

8. Term and other agreements

This Agreement applies to Activities during the 2026–2027 season, including authorized preseason and postseason Activities, and the provisions intended to survive participation remain effective afterward. This Agreement is separate from any consent, release, or registration that FIRST or an event host requires and from the STEM+C Student & Family Team Agreement. If another agreement conflicts with this Agreement, protections do not accumulate automatically.

9. General provisions

Arizona law governs this Agreement, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. If a provision is held invalid or unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent permitted and the remaining provisions will remain effective. No failure to enforce a safety rule or provision is a waiver of future enforcement. This Agreement contains the complete agreement on its subject matter and may be modified only in a written record accepted by STEM+C and the affected Signing Party. The headings are for convenience only.

Electronic acknowledgment and signatures

The registration system should display or provide a downloadable copy of this Agreement before acceptance and retain the accepted version, signer name and capacity, Participant name, date and time, and reliable audit information linking the signer to the record. The signing workflow includes separate acknowledgments for:

1. the adult Participant, if the Participant is 18 or older;
2. the Parent/Guardian, if the Participant is under 18;
3. the minor Participant’s acknowledgment of safety rules and instructions; and
4. the optional media choice.