Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Since the submittal period is now closed, I counted the Dean's Homework 2013 submissions in the Box.com submittal folder and gathered the following statistics:

• Out of 2,850 FRC Teams, only 43 submitted a video. That's just 1.5% (The reason I included 2014 rookie teams in that statistic is because a 2014 rookie team did in fact submit an entry, FRC Team 5038 from Israel. If you really wanted to use only the 2013 data, then it'd be 42/2,548 = 1.65%)
  
  
• Out of 3,000 FTC Teams, only 5 submitted a video. That's just 0.166...%.
  
  
• Out of 23,000 FLL Teams, just 2 submitted a video. That rounds to 0.01%
  
  
• And out of 3,800 Jr. FLL Teams, none submitted an entry. 0%.

With 188 days from announcement to due date, I'm wondering, why are these numbers so small? Yes most of the time was during the summer, but there was still about 3 and half months that teams were still in school when a <120 second video could have been made. There are also many teams who struggle to find sponsors, rookies, funds, etc. during the off-season, but I at least expected the percentages to be greater than what they are. If you were a team that didn't submit a video, why didn't you? Did you not have the time/resources, weren't aware, we pursuing other opportunities, etc.? And if you did submit an entry, why did you and how much effort did it take (time required, amount of people that worked on it, etc.)?

*Team Statistics retrieved from FIRST website here: http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/first-at-a-glance

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

That's strange... It wasn't totally mandatory, also there weren't any publicly known awards or incentives for submitting one. If either two were in place the turnout would've been much higher probably, the way I see it. That being said, I was shocked that only a very small number of teams submitted one. Many teams already have had plenty of video experience with Chairman's submissions and more.
What I noticed, apart from actually completing the "assignment", I'm assuming not many knew about it. Nobody really knew what it was or knew about it on my own team until I informed the rest of our leadership about making the video.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Dean's Homework every year is something that all teams should do, because the homework will help teams and FIRST accomplish their goals. Creating a video like this, for example, is something that teams can use in their promotional and fundraising activities, yet few teams do it.

So, why don't teams do it? There are a couple of reasons, I think.

First, most teams aren't at champs, and aren't there to hear the homework being given. For those teams, their season is already over, and they might not meet again until the fall. And once they do meet again, they're probably focused on other things (recruitment, fundraising, training, etc) and just don't think to go look up what Dean's Homework was.

Second, the benefit for teams isn't always directly apparent. It's not like the homework is required or earns them any direct benefit... the benefits come from how a team uses the results of the homework.

So, how do we fix this?

First, word on Dean's Homework needs to get out there more - Teams should be unable to avoid learning what the homework is (and by teams, I mean both mentors and students - it can easily be ignored in e-mail blasts that generally just go to mentors). We need to start talking about it at champs. Word needs to go out to the regional directors/planning committees to talk about it at off-season events in their area. We need to talk about it at kickoff. And it needs to not be due until a team's first regional (I know some teams that haven't even yet met since their last regional back in March!). I would be willing to bet that I could ask at my team's next meeting, and none of the students would be able to tell me what the homework was.

Second, there needs to be some sort of direct benefit/recognition to teams for completing the homework. While it adds some administrative overhead, I would support making completing the homework a requirement for Chairman's in future years. That one small change would get Dean's Homework much more visibility and participation.


I'm not positive, but I don't think my team submitted Dean's Homework this year. But that didn't stop us from creating a similar video to what the homework wanted in order to enter a contest to win $500 for the team from The Original Pink Box. The team saw a chance to get some direct, instant benefit from the activity, and took it. That's really what's missing from Dean's Homework.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

This is actually exactly what happens.

We see it, but its probably a general lack of interest. Its the offseason, not all teams meet, or have higher priorities. It just gets passed over.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Most teams are still just scraping money together during the offseason. Many also don't meet prior to September, or when they do meet after September, it is for very few meetings just prior to Kickoff.

It might be like any other homework assignment that kids don't have to submit for a grade - who's actually going to do it, other than a small minority?

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Unlike Dean's Homework in the past, this "assignment" was something that most teams never have really done, and the bandwidth and overhead required by a team to do a project, that like Jon said, had no direct benefit, is hard to justify even for the relatively small number of teams who "meet year round". Teams have to raise money, train students, do community events, do some optional but beneficial work like putting together training sessions for team members or planning FLL tournaments or drafting legislation or helping kids apply to college...

This year, FIRST wanted teams to submit a 2 minute video about whatever for no clear reason. A lot of teams already put a ridiculous (in a good way) amount of effort and time into creating their 3-minute Chairman's Award video. To pull something liek this off, you'd have to probably be a large team of 70 or more students where a dedicated video subteam can justifiably form and not fold into an operations/outreach/media subteam, you'd have to meet all year, you'd have to have the available equipment, prior b-roll footage, people available to interview, and time on top of everything everyone does inside and outside of robotics the rest of the year,

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Wow, I see a whole lot of excuses here. It's a two minute video. Most everyone has a video camera in their pocket right now. There are various free video editing software suites for educational use. Even if you don't meet during the summer, there were 3 months from Sept to now to get something together.


If it wasn't a priority, that's fine, but don't blame FIRST or Dean if you didn't get your homework done. Blame yourself.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

"Influencer" says you need to target 6 key areas to ensure a culture shift/change or effort occurs:
Personal Motiviation
Personal Ability
Social Motivation
Social Ability
Structural Motiviation
Structural Ability

When looking at the assignment, Dean's Homework does an excellent job with Structual Ability (submission website and tips), Social Ability (forms and easy links and explaining in a public forum). The "tips" are really the only "presonal ability" element, and honestly the rhetoric that it must be exactly 2 minutes (not 1:59, not 2:01) with tight editing and blah blah blah sounds a bit imposing for folks that are not video producers.
On the motiviation column, Dean loosely sights FIRST's desire/motivation, but then does little to explain the social motivation, and there was virtually no tie-back to personal motiviation.

Dean spends 1:40 seconds explaining his desire for material: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBkoD...ature=youtu.be
But having watched it 2-3 times, I ask, "What is in it for me?"

I realize this isn't a "Chairman's attitude", but let's face it, the vast majority of FRC are not Chairman's teams (yet).

Hallry wants to know why? IMO it was a lack of solidly hitting all 6 areas of influence.

************************************************** **
Had FIRST offered (and there is still time), for a reduced or free entrance fee for the top 10 or top 100 submissions... Or a sweet Video camera to the best produced, a laptop to the best story, and championship bid to the most inspirational... I think they would have gotten a ton more material. Instead of focusing on the quality/tight editing, if they just asked for the stories in 1-2 mintue format, they could have found some awesome stories, filtered those out and then asked those folks for a re-do.

For those of you that follow my posts/thoughts, you might have guessed that my biggest/ most upsetting thing for the new points structure was not adding in a points section for a "complete Chairman's submission". If I was on the points committee, that is probably the most important thing I would have gone to bat for (2-5 points for a complete chairman's submission).
************************************************** **

So, to re-wind the clock, imagine some of the incentives I suggest were put in place. Then imagine that in the email blast, you received a notice about how "Some of the best and brightest teams have already submitted".
Imagine that the teams that submit are then asked by FIRST to help 2 more teams make a submission and we will give you producer credits...

************************************************** **

I don't fault FIRST in not seeing this as it is a very high level organization. It has always assumed that if it throws out a noble goal, then folks will want to go for it. While some do, others require the carrot, the tools, the social connection, and the social support system to help go for that goal.

Maybe if we treated a few other areas of FIRST like we treat the robots*...



*In successful areas, the social, structural, and personal motivations/abilities are taken care of:
Kit bot, build it classes, strategy programs, tutorials, key awards linked to doing well in those areas....

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Then we have a lot of work to do, don't we? This paragraph saddens me.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Since going to st. louis, our team has met for less than a total of 5 hours, and most of the students who were on the team in previous years have yet to attend a meeting. A lot of teams just don't meet in the offseason because of other time commitments. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the main reason why there's only a few submitted things.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I probably shouldn't have written this right watching the 1:40 of "motiviational speaking"...

Let me try re-wording it a bit:

Here is a Great Opportunity for a true Role Model team:
While Dean's Homework may have been due Nov. 1, I seriously doubt they wouldn't appreciate some more material (if you can submit it in a timely fashion). As only 43 teams submitted, your team could be responsible for submitting 10% more by helping 4 other teams make a video in the next 30 days. Think about that. By helping 4 others tell their story, you could give FIRST 10% more material. Better yet, interview some of your local Lego League teams and help those kids make a video! If you submit 4 FLL videos, you will have increased FIRST LL submissions by 300%!
Remember, a Chairman's team just doesn't brag about all the stuff they do, they do stuff they make an impact on FIRST's mission of spreading the message. From the website:
Chairman’s Award

The most prestigious award at FIRST, it honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST.

IE, a Chairman's team not only does their homework, but is a role model for others by helping them do their homework as well.

While I don't like doing things just for the sake of winning CA, think about how powerful this phrase would be in your essay and presentation:

"On Nov. 2, we were hoping to see hundreds if not thousands of inspirational videos from fellow FIRSTers. When we saw 50 total videos, we got a lump in our stomach as that is barely a whisper for an effort designed to make a roar. On Nov. 3rd, we stopped wringing our hands, and rolled up our sleeves. We pledged to FIRST we would help out and worked with teams to triple FIRST's FLL videos, doubled their FTC videos, and contributed to 10% of the total FRC videos submitted. "

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

My team didn't know about it. I am sure we all got the email blast, but this one just missed us. This is something we would have done just because it is pretty easy. We do this kind of thing just to show the kids video editing. Truthfully we probably have enough footage to already do this.

Pity we didn't know about it. I guess we (my team) all need to read all of the First emails instead of skimming over them.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Nobody was blaming FIRST.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

We heard about it, we wanted to do it. It would have been really cool to do one, especially since there were so few.
Why didn't we?
Poor time management, poor team organization, poor top of mind awareness.
It wasn't lack of interest on our part - we just flat didn't do it.
Which is a shame, because we did some pretty cool things that could have been highlighted.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Personally, I don't want to submit something that's half-heartedly done. If I do something, it should have quite a bit of effort in it. So a two minute video taken with a phone with impromptu planning is not exactly something I would call "done with effort."

What happens is you have about 20 or so "core" students who do a majority of the items the team does (not true for all teams, but several that I know of this usually happens). Once the school-year starts, we get back into the robotics mood, and then we worry about things like website, recruiting members, several PR events, among the students' other extra-curricular commitments.

Because there is an endless queue of things with immediate consequences, Dean's Homework I'm sure kept getting pushed back in that line repeatedly because there were no immediate benefits or consequences to completing it.

I don't think anyone was saying FIRST or Dean was to blame.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

To go along with the themes of 'this is no reward or carrot for teams', Rockwell is offering $10,000 in grants for a 60 second video. Even with this a big potential reward and only a 60 second video, the deadline was extended due to a lack of entries.

I think the biggest issue is teams not knowing about these opportunities and most teams just don't meet during the summer/fall.

There is still a week to submit: http://www.rockwellautomation.com/ro...ur-future.page

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

1923 did not get to finish ours by the deadline. We barely have students meeting consistently before Nov 1, let alone the time to dedicate to video production for it. (We're not going to submit something hastily thrown together; if it represents FIRST, it's got to be good.)

I think if this deadline was extended to later in the year (December), or even 'By the next Championship' - since that's when the next homework is given out, we could have made a pretty great submission.

Why?

Anything you capture for your team's media over the year could be usable here. However, where are most of your video/media resources going? Chairman's. If you film the stuff you put into Chairman's, then you can repurpose it for the homework video. Similar content, different end result.

This also could have been promoted better within the community, as well as by FIRST. One email against the hundreds that people can get per day, is going to be ignored -- they announced it on the social media pages for FIRST, but not everyone in the community follows those. Our own little CD community could have talked about it more.

But you know what we could do, since we're all so disappointed? Make a video anyway. Perhaps FIRST could extend the deadline. Maybe the submission folder will stay open.

Who cares if it's 'for the homework assignment' or not?! Use it as practice for your media students, before the kickoff. If you don't have any media students/mentors, see if teams around you do and can help you. You'll need it for Chairman's anyway later.

I think the best thing FIRST could do to drive submissions would be to extend the deadline, at least until Kickoff -- and the best thing the community could do is to keep reminding each other of the homework challenge, until all the teams we're friends with have submitted. It's not hard to make a two minute video; it's slightly harder to make a well-produced two minute video, but in very few cases is it actually going to be impossible for a team.

1923 will be putting ours out when it's done, regardless of whether the deadline is extended. It's about promoting FIRST to our community & beyond, not about getting a gold-star on Dean's Homework.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

My honest response to seeing this thread:

"Wait there was homework?"

I pay attention to FIRST every day, and I don't remember hearing about this project at all. Maybe it's just me, but a bunch of people I've just asked didn't know about it either, and it would have been a fun and amazing opportunity to help spread FIRST. If it was only majorly discussed at championships, then the majority of teams aren't hearing about it, and the occasional chief delphi post about it doesn't really help get the information out there.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

You're a veteran. There's always homework. I think the assumption made by FIRST here is that teams will go and seek out Dean's Homework, and that's just plain not the case.

That gets me thinking...

My memory isn't perfect after 20 years of events, but wasn't Dean's Homework previously assigned during Kickoff and not the Championship? (Many years ago). If a team doesn't watch kickoff, then there's really something wrong.

Why not have the yearly homework put out in Dean's speech there, rather than at the CMP? That way everyone sees it.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

It was previously assigned during Dean's kickoff speech, and IIRC during his Championship speech he would generally provide an update of some sorts during his CMP speech. I did notice that it was missing during this year's kickoff speech (and now that I think about it, I'm not too sure if I remember Dean even having a long speech during kickoff). Could it have been overlooked in the recent efforts to make kickoff shorter/more fast-paced?

2012 during kickoff he emphasized three things:Incorporate FIRST into everyday life, tracking Alumni, and nominating juniors for Dean's List (Source)

2011 was announced at Kickoff as being incorporating the word "FIRST" into everyday life (Source)

2010, was to reach out to inviting people outside of teams to FIRST events (Source, this page doesn't describe it much, but I personally remember an emphasis being put on inviting "outsiders" to FIRST events)

2009 and 2008 were pretty typical of Alumni network creation and spreading the word of FIRST via media.

2007 was trying to get legislative initiatives/writing to local politicians.

Special thanks goes out to Team 365 for being one of the top google results for "Deans homework 2011" and keeping consistent URL formats to allow a change of number to give me results :D

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I don't know. It seems that way: there was no reward for doing it, it wasn't mandatory, it wasn't advertised. The time frame was all wrong, etc.

Maybe, this whole thread just rubs me the wrong way. I teach and hear excuses about not getting homework done. Some of the posts here reminded me of my students.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I think somebody already mentioned that many teams don't meet regularly through the summer or even the fall. I think it's rather self-evident why it is impractical or unrealistic to expect those teams to make a video, so I'll focus on why my team (a team going into our eighth competitive season, having won a couple of Engineering Inspiration Awards and a RCA along the way) didn't do the homework.

We didn't do the homework.

That's the summary of "why we didn't"-- heck, we even have a student that loves to do videos that, had he heard about this, would have leapt at the opportunity. Sometimes there is no excuse-- and sometimes there isn't any real consequence either.

That being said, I would hazard a guess that many of the teams that fall into our "boat" of having the resources but not making a video certainly have made good usage of their time during the fall-- we've been busy mentoring the seven new FTC teams that we started this year, thank-you-very-much, in addition to doing our own recruitment and fundraising.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Like other teams, the Dean's List Homework was just something that kind of fell to the side and was (wrongly) forgotten among a list of offseason projects, which was admittedly long this year for us (5 offseason events, complete renovation of our build space, major fundraising and planning for increased travel expenses, summer and fall weekly teaching sessions, 3 new FLL teams, planning for NJ State FLL and our district event, etc.)

That being said, we have a lot of footage from over the past year that was used for our weekly Build blogs and chairman's effort (both of which have already begun for the next year) and we have started to put together the video, regardless of the due date, as many others are starting to do.

But I don't agree with those who say "It's just a two minute video, teams could have easily pulled something together quickly." It's not the most challenging project, but I still think that if a team wasn't really going to/wasn't able based on time and available students to put in enough effort to make a well thought out, meaningful video, there would be no point to it, at least in my opinion.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I'm not making excuses but since the OP asked a question.....

The reason we didn't is simply because we are out of bandwidth. We meet about 4 days a week from CMP through Kickoff and our current projects are burying us. We have another 3 minute video project that is going to take 3 months to do, minimum, and we are 6 weeks behind. This project has a higher project status than the homework so that's how that happened.

For the general question about all teams, there are already lot of comments, but I'll add the Parato principal, or the 80/20 rule. It is unfortunate but probably 80 % of the teams in the world don't meet that often right now if at all and are probably not motivated enough or capable enough to do the video. Maybe they excel in some area. Maybe they are in the top 10 % of robot building, or top 10 % of something else.

This whole Parato thing frustrates everyone everywhere in what are know as socially unconstrainted situations, like any volunteer organization.. Trying to get the 80% of the crowd to do as well as the upper 20 % is tough. It's just like 20 % of the team members build 80 % of the robot, etc.

I can rant forever but I'll stop here....

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Yes, I remember this and I honestly didn't know it was assigned at champs until this thread. Other then receiving email blasts about it I saw it nowhere else.

Nobody is blaming FIRST - teams just have other priorities. As a student, your homework should be a priority because it reflects on your grade (wow, if only I went by that in highschool...). In this case, teams like my own are busy trying to stay afloat. Dean's homework doesn't secure us funds for the next season. Its not a good way to look at it, I myself don't agree with it, but it is what it is. Don't get me wrong, I'm more then happy to use 'FIRST' in my every day life, spread the word, and inspire. We just don't have the students for a media team, or the support, the time, ect. Therefore it just doesn't happen because we're focused on other things.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

For us, it was due six weeks after our team started meeting again, and we really only got more organized in the last 4 weeks or so. Training a new crew of students in the ways of cinematography and editing, filming, actually doing the editing, etc. was just not in the cards. We intend to do some kind of video in the fall as kind of a Chairman's training thing, but it obviously won't be done for Dean's Homework.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Our team thought about doing the homework, but, in the end, there was just not enough time for us.

In the midst of training rookies, revamping the robot for CTTD, and trying to get new sponsors, we did not have time for the 10 of us to make a video. We honestly would have liked to do it, and thought about it, but never had enough free time to put together some filming, let alone editing (which can take just as long, if not longer, than the filming.)

We might make one anyway, who knows? We will have to see what our schedule form now until build looks like. Sure, we could not submit it, but it would be fun to make.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I emphasized that part because I want to ask, when you teach you don't assign the homework clearly to less than 1/4 of the class at a major event and obscurely to the remainder who happen to be absent do you? We've never had the opportunity to go to St. Louis, but if we had we would have heard about this directly from the source. I looked back at email blasts and the homework assignment was mentioned three times (5/23, 10/4 as a side bar, and 10/17) and I can honestly tell you that at the times I got those emails, I never noticed them because it was the last thing on my mind. The only other place to find out about it was the FIRST website and there have been multiple threads about how easy it is to find things there...

I don't think anyone is making excuses, they are just giving their honest reasons for not getting it done. And never knowing about an assignment is a pretty great reason, not an excuse, for not doing it. We would like to give this a shot and see what we can come up with, but I'm not about to let my students do something with less than 100% effort just so they can get it done. So as was said earlier, we might still put something together, but it will be on our schedule and worked on until it is right.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

The difference between these posts and "the dog ate my homework" is that the latter is trying to avoid consequences. For ourselves at least, and I think most others, we're more than willing to own our decision. I can wish our priorities were different (like we didn't have to move for the 13th time), but I think the decision that led to us not finishing was correct for us in this case. We're trying to increase our bandwidth overall, which will hopefully change the outcome next time, but I don't regret it this time.

I'm happy to "blame" myself for it if you wish--I don't feel there's any fault in the rational decision to enrich and inspire in other ways more befitting of our circumstances. I saw this thread as the community endeavoring change the circumstances that led up to many teams' similar decisions.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Maybe most of us would rather build robots than make videos. While making videos is a lot easier than it used to be, it still requires a specific skill set to do well, and you can only be good at a limited number of things.

So if your team has a group of students that passionately wants to TELL the FIRST story, go for it. But don't get disappointed with teams that are busy BEING the FIRST story for not being storytellers too.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Then I think you are missing a large part of what it means to be on a FIRST team. IMHO.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

We all have different ways of inspiring and recognizing science and technology. A video is one tool, but by no means the only tool. Nothing is one-size fits all.

A business must make priority calls due to limited resources, time, money, knowledge base, etc. I think that teams who display this active decision are demonstrating a clear understanding of a tenet of business practice.

Do not presume that your definition of what it means to be on a FIRST team is universal, and do not presume that you have the right answers for every team.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Haha right... the Beach Bots are missing what it means to be on a FIRST team. :rolleyes:

But seriously, a lot of teams use the off-season to scrape together funding so they can simply exist next year, and you're upset that they didn't make a documentary video in their off-season instead?

Our team is busy designing a practice drive and teaching students how to CAD, improving our relationships with sponsors, using our previous season's robot to demonstrate & inspire at football games every week, and more. It's my job to ensure our students are ready for build season and I'm sorry to say that making a documentary video doesn't help us out in that aspect.

Every team has their priorities and I don't think you have the right to make a judgement call on a team's character because they didn't do a video for FIRST.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Let me rephrase:

Why can't we BE the FIRST story and TELL it at the same time?


And with that I will take off me teacher hat and step down from my soapbox.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Because we don't have ENOUGH FIRST stories available to do the telling!

Let me explain this one: Each student (and in some cases, the mentors) is a FIRST story, and has one. The problem is that many of them are distinctly unavailable during the summer, or during meetings of another activity, or at some other time that is convenient for telling the story, for a variety of reasons not necessarily relating to lack of interest. A larger team has more members that might be available, but large/huge teams tend to be the exception rather than the rule, particularly if all their students are fully active!

In other words, there is a severe lack of available manpower to do the telling and do what is needed to build a robot* at the same time. Time to get some more inspiration going!

*This "what is needed" includes fundraising, outreach demonstrations, keeping up with schoolwork, robot building/maintenance, moving shops if needed, planning logistics, and all the other stuff that goes into showing up at competition with a robot.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

1. Things we need to do
2. Things we should do
3. Things we could do

Middle of list 2 is a good year. Deans homework is not in list 2.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I don't get it: did the fact that it was called "homework" imply to you that it was the same as homework from school, and should thus have been given equal regard? I don't think that's a well-founded presumption.

The rationale for doing any kind of homework should be a clear connection to greater understanding, future accomplishments and perhaps even societal benefit in general—not merely the fact that some authority figure said to do it. In that frame of mind, there are plenty of good reasons not to do homework—if it can be expected that greater benefits accrue from those alternative activities.

If the homework wasn't sufficiently related to the mutual objectives of FIRST and the teams, or untimely, or uninteresting, then we should by all means blame the parties actually responsible, whether they be FIRST's leaders, our teammates or ourselves.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I think that judging someone based on what their ideals appear to be from one post is also missing what it means to be in FIRST.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Don't you think this is a little extreme? Around 40 teams were able to send in a robot unveil video for the top 25 premier 3 days after ship day, and over 100 were made at some point last season.

That said, I really hope FIRST utilizes some of the awesome unveil videos that are already being produced. Who wouldn't be interested after seeing one of 118's videos? Maybe the next homework assignment should be to make a robot unveil video.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Robot reveals are
a) not always FIRST quality submissions (truthfully, I'd say fewer than 5% are)
b) "made themselves" because everyone builds a robot and puts it on some kind of field at some point in time
c) not outreach events. This video required a worthwhile non-robot activity, and outreach footage requires an outreach activity worth documenting, properly documenting the event, and having enough footage from the event to create a submission FIRST-quality
d)made during a time where students are not taking AP exams, state exams, and finals, prepping for graduation, and teams are not changing the guard in leadership and starting to fund for their next cycle.

I don't know about your team, but whenever I've been on a team making a submission for something, you put the award submission/robot/chairman's video/judges handout/etc. through a battery of criticism and scrutiny. Keep in mind that these are things that we should be doing and try to do properly every year. This is different than an ideal target but not one without any pitfalls associated with not doing it. Sure it's something that, if I was on a team, I would want them to do it, but teams easily can find other priorities that range from recruiting to funding their next season, or those priorities become problems that find them.

To document whatever cool thing you're doing, you would need not only the people actually heading up the activity/event/thing to follow through on the plan, you need to have people there almost specifically to properly document it. Then if you have these standards in place for all other FIRST submissions, you put through the ringer, all over the summer.

Say I'm making excuses (I don't know who for, I am not actively associated with a team), say I'm totally off base, but, well...

Just like the ancient trifecta of worn-out debates on Chief Delphi ("mentor-built" robots, adults as coaches, and building a second robot for practice) these are all totally optional things that teams have the luxury of choosing to forgo if they wish, or are backed into a corner by a dearth of the resources necessary to even consider any of these decisions (low mentor availability, low revenue), and I'm pretty sure we've all resolved to reach a loose consensus of "Whatever you do in your team is your business."

Yet here, we have seen even more extreme debate over an even smaller issue. I guess you could call that the status quo here, I guess you could say ignorance is a two-way street, and I guess everyone could talk in circles for weeks on end about how their position is superior empirically, morally, and Dean Kamen himself came down from Mt. Sinai to preach the exact words you speak... but at the end of the day, whatever you do on your team is your business. I'm confident FIRST will still be here tomorrow even though few teams did their Dean's List homework. Teams will still be out in their community and in their build spaces.

------

Also, just because it's been bothering me, all I have to say about this
is this:

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I don't like mandatory requirements. I would rather support a positive reinforcement system. Say that the teams that complete Dean's homework receive a small rebate (say $200) from the next year's entrance fee.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I don't know if a monetary incentive is the right way to go. Something I think would provide an incentive to the robot focused teams would be to allow teams who submit the homework to go in an hour early at their regionals.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Teams should do the homework because they want to do the homework not because there are financial or other incentives.

FIRST should stop calling it "homework" just the term enough doesn't makes you want to do it.

I also agree that there should be better mediums used to get the word out and its time frame should be adjusted. Honestly, the best time for our team to get it done is during the build season. Yes it is our busiest time of the year but it is when we meet the most and have the most student manpower on hand. Our fall meetings are the only other time of the year where we have a large group of students in the shop every week, but during this time our focus is to expose new students to FIRST and expand on member skills/capabilities. Even now we don't have enough time to accomplish what we want so adding on a video production would add a lot to our plate.

Just my $0.02.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Since I finally have the link... a video my team put together for the sake of trying to win $500 in a competition that just ended yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbL65upUVTM

It may not have all the aspects FIRST was looking for in its video (after all, the target audience and requirements were different), but it was still something put together in under 2 weeks since we found out about the contest (and honestly, it's better and more polished than almost all of the other videos submitted... the others are generally just two minutes of someone walking around taking video on their phone, no post-processing at all). So it really doesn't take all that much to throw something together from material many teams already have in abundance from past years. Better and more polished videos will take longer, but even something thrown together last minute can get the point across.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I was busy working with 842 who is involved with the making of a real (as in to be released in theaters next year) movie about their team. Not their FIRST team, their underwater robot team, although there is overlap....the main character, portrayed by George Lopez, is a composite of WFA winner Fredi Lajvardi and Dr Allan Cameron, both mentors on 842.

We might even see a NERDS (1726) robot in the movie. And a Bit Buckets (4183) robot.

But yeah....better notification of and motivation to complete the homework would help.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Because we have a finite amount of time available to us. Our team prioritized forming new connections with local industry over Dean's homework. Our return on investment was higher so we did something that gave us value instead of a nebulous good feeling.

But, go on living in your fantasy world, the rest of us will just tolerate your insufferable preaching.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I can tell you that it was on our radar but it never happened. I brought it up to students but none of them really ran with the idea. Video production has never been a strength of ours. I even went as far as to start learning video editing software over the summer. By the time the new year rolled around and we had 20 fresh faces to train up for the FRC season and numerous events to attend and help run during the fall. This got pushed to the bottom of the list. Is that right, no. Did it happen, yes.

I definitely think HQ could have done more to incentivise teams, even just a video or a note from Dean or Woodie sometime in August would have bumped this higher on the todo list for a lot of teams. If HQ wants teams to think something is important they need to make it important.

I also think releasing sample videos would have helped a ton. A few times our team talked about what the video would look like and with so many options we never really settled because we had no real sample ideas to draw from.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

It bugs you that elementary schoolers aren't making YouTube videos? 6-9 year olds aren't old enough to agree to YouTube's Terms of Service.

---

I think wilsonmw04 has a point. We're supposed to be changing culture, no? You can't change culture by quietly building a robot in the corner. Everyone has some aspect of their team that they can promote / "make loud", even if all the team does is build a robot.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I can't believe that 6-9 year olds not making a video is actually considered a problem worth mentioning, in part for what you mentioned.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

While I don't appreciate the subtle hostility that I have sensed towards a few posts in this thread, I want to thank everyone for their honesty in their responses. I'm glad to see that many teams used the time for more rewarding 'big-picture' projects, yet also wish that FIRST advertised the homework more so that teams who would have been interested would have been aware of it.

However, if your team did make a video but were too late on submitting it, it seems like the 'deadline' wasn't final. One team's new video entry appeared in the Box.com submission folder last night, and another one only a few hours ago today.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

That's what parents and mentors are for. The team makes the video, somebody old enough who's affiliated (a mentor preferably) uploads it, as the team's work. Just saying.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I'm don't think he meant that Jr. FLL teams couldn't make the video literally because the students are to young sign the TOS. The point is: how exactly do you expect a group of 6-9 year olds to make a video? Their parents signed them up to build robots with Legos, not get interviewed on film.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Last I checked Jr. FLL wasn't "Lego Robots Club". If anything, the Lego part is, while a requirement, secondary. It's about Researching and finding a solution to a problem and then presenting the solution; the Lego part helps illistrate the solution as part of the presentation. I don't see how presenting on camera is that far off of what Jr. FLL already does.

I wouldn't expect the videos to be the next blockbuster, but to say that making a video isn't in the scope of Jr. FLL is IMHO shortsighted.

---

That said, having spent 4 years as an FRC student, I know all about time management and the like... I also know it's possible and doable to make time management work. To those that did get videos done: Well done, keep it up. To those that didn't, hopefully your team got something else productive done, and if not, try again and try harder. Any progress is progress, the more the merrier.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I'm going to do my best to avoid this thread like the plague after this post, but if people are seriously going to try to start a debate over whether or not children between the ages of six and nine should be doing this video project when they're developing motor skills, reading and writing abilities, spelling, and all of that on top of JrFLL, I just can't put into words how empty-headed that sounds. The priority of JrFLL is to start teaching kids about what FIRST is all about, not record their every interaction in formative years to tie it into FIRST.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

This thread isn't about whether JFLL kids should be making homework videos. Ryan was just breaking down the submissions by program. Keep in mind that the Homework was issued during the FRC closing ceremonies, so it's not like the other programs had any exposure to it until the release of the guidlelines later in the year. However, my main point is, everybody chill out.

I think at the beginning of this thread, before its clear and not-at-all-subtle* downward spiral, had some useful discussion on how the Homework could be better distributed/handled in the FIRST Community. Maybe we can bring it back to that? Hm?

*I do commend your efforts on trying to be neutral/nice/PC, Ryan. Sometimes it's hard to, amidst the catfighting that happens in threads.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Good thoughts.

Why we didn't create a video submission:

1. It was not on our list of things we needed to get done this summer/fall due to higher priorities such as:

• Outreach opportunities
• Sponsorship incentive
• Training and workshops to prepare for the 2014 season
• Organizing our own off-season event (Nov. 9)

2. Our current video making skills are very poor. Creating videos is NOT simply turn on the camera on your iPhone and hit the record icon. There's a TON more that goes into the process in order to do it well.

3. Our Summer/Fall meetings are sporadically attended by students, due to other extracurricular activities, school emphasis, and working jobs while they can before Build Season begins.

Could we have used making a video for homework as a way to train and prepare for our upcoming CA Video project?
Absolutely, but then I direct you back up to points 1 and 3. Plus, the students decided to create a Safety Animation submission this year instead: honing their visual media skills that way, instead of video.

Ways to improve this specific Dean's Homework project:
Instead of videos, have teams submit written stories, then have a group at HQ choose which stories they felt would make good videos and pair those teams with a video-team equipped to help teams make professional videos.
Loosen the criteria. The exact 2 minute video criteria is daunting.
Post a nice big "Dean's Homework" on the main page of the website, explaining what it is and how teams can easily submit one.

Dean's Homework has always been something that I hear and think, "That's a great idea! Let's add it to our priority list."

But this is the reality:
April-May: Students busy with end of the year activities
May-July: Students busy with summer activities like jobs, sports and being with their families. When we do team activities it's usually outreach one-day activities, or rebuilding our robot for off-season events.
August-November: Students busy with workshops, training, soliciting funding, balancing school, jobs, other extracurricular activities, and planning our own off-season event.

I love FIRST. This is my 11th year in the program. I'm the P.R. mentor for my team, and I love things like Chairman's Award and making videos. I think FIRST is the most important thing that these high school kids will do during their educational experience.

But there is a limit to what we can do on our team. Limited time, limited resources, limited students, limited mentors. And creating a video like this honestly would not have helped improve our team enough for the time and resources that it would take.

For those teams that did create a video: AWESOME JOB! I am in awe of your efforts. Next year, my team will hear Dean's Homework and say, "Let's do this!" Hopefully we succeed. Hopefully it fits in with what we need to do. Hopefully it can be placed higher on our priority list.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Libby,
Thanks for bringing the conversation back to the original question.

We dedicated a few resources to complete the assignment because we felt it had a net benefit. Specifically, the video gave us a jump start on our Chairman’s Award process going into our sophomore season. It became the “first draft” of our message.

Getting awards organized early may also give us a better shot at winning a few. Winning our way to Championship is definitely a strong incentive. Documenting our history and having additional promotional materials to recruit sponsors are other benefits.

The November 1st target was a little early in my opinion. A mid December deadline would still have forced us to finish before kick-off, which I felt was the true goal. The early completion date could have discouraged boarder participation of other FIRST teams.

I know my rational above was focused on the benefits to my team. However, the actual goal of Dean’s Homework was to provide “Make It Loud” content for the benefit of FIRST as an organization. Maybe Dean should provide examples as to how other homework assignments have used to benefit FIRST. I am assuming these videos will be used to convince future sponsors or agencies to join our mission. But it is just an assumption…

David

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I can't speak 100% for why the video wasn't accomplished on 1071. I know we had discussions about it back in the spring, and we said we we're going to do it. However I know myself (PR leader at the time) and my PR mentor, along with many others in the PR sub-team got wrapped up in planning for our off-season event, and it got pushed to the way side. Summer is always hard for the team to accomplish things so that didn't happen. As for this fall, with over 50% of our 2013 membership now at college, the team was busy training new membership and it couldn't be accomplished.

With that said, most of the reasons 1071 didn't get it done was reasons specfic to our situation. However there are some things I recomend FIRST could change to hopefully increase participation.

• Increase the maxium length of the video to 5 minutes.
• Extend the Deadline to at least kick-off of the next year.
• Provide an example video or two.
• As it has been already said, a little more promotion on FIRST's part would help as well.

With that said, even with these and other changes suggested, sometimes teams just won't be able to make it happen. Thats okay, every team needs to focus on what it considers a priority based on it's own needs and situation in the moment.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

We were one of the teams that did do it, and I think I know why. We were able to cut it down to a 2 person team to make the video -- one of our guys has a great story, so he told it, and our video person made the video. However, we have a relatively big team, so we were able to spare the manpower to get this done (while also running three offseason events).

As for ways to make more teams do it, I like the idea that someone suggested earlier of having it be a prerequisite for a Chairman's submission. It'll get far more teams to submit, while also making the quality better (Chairman's teams often have awesome stories to tell).

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

An interesting idea, but I don't think a carrot or stick approach is the answer to this homework problem.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I think extending the deadline until a week before Christmas could be beneficial. Teams likely to do this are in high gear right now, they can use some footage to tie into their RCA video, and a lot of events teams do happened around this original deadline or after it.

Tying in a video requirement to the RCA submission on top of the RCA video (which isn't even judged) isn't the solution, but I think if FIRST came out, asked for more submissions, and gave teams some more time, they could double or nearly triple the submissions.

I hope FIRST/Dean will offer up the homework at kickoff this year. It's important to realize the circumstances surrounding the homework/make it loud call to action took place under very unique and personal circumstances in the first place, so the unique timing of the announcement may be just that.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

How is getting the homework at the start of the build season going to help? All the teams are going to be busy at that time. He gave the homework out that the end of the season and gave 6 months (give or take) to do it when teams are supposed to be less busy and look at the results. imagine what would happen if he gave it out at the beginning of the season.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

At least everyone would know about it. Maybe teams with dedicated media students will make amazing videos that will impress people. Teams that struggle to get by during build season are most likely in the group that didn't make a video already anyway. This was, in my short tenure, the first time that homework wasn't a part of kickoff. This is also the first time we haven't done it to some degree.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Because almost everyone in FRC watches Kickoff?

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

In this instance, you can make this an easy opportunity to develop b-roll for build and competitions, or use the time for just about anything else under the sun. Maybe a team holds a kickoff event for rookies or has a special night with the community to show off their robot and program. Maybe a team has a really cool outreach event in between events. Teams can do anything on any given day of the year, why impose limits over a deliverable that can be independent of the submit construction?

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

This is what I meant in my post earlier in the thread -- if the deadline was extended to next CMP, they could be using the entire year & build season to compile the media they're going to use, and make a quality product by the time the next homework is given out.

Something that's this big of a project needs more time than just April-November (and in the cases of teams who didn't see Dean's speech, August-November -- or whenever it was that the guidelines were released.)

FIRST has heard about the discussion going on here -- well, the relevant and useful parts of it. (Not so much the arguing about JrFLL.) Hopefully something will come of that. I'd love to see the submission box left open so that people can continue to produce content.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

As Akash pointed out, nearly everybody watches kickoff. This is compared to the less than 20% of teams at or watching Championships, or the even smaller amount of teams that may stumble upon an assignment given at any other time of the year. Quite basically, Kickoff is the only time that FIRST can reasonably expect to reach the majority of participants in a way that is more meaningful and exciting than an email during the off-season.

Clearly the method they used last year didn't work, at least in terms of getting a ton of submissions, so something has to change-- probably from both sides of the equation. Yes, maybe teams should be more willing to jump into "non-essential" activities like Dean's Homework, but there are several things (which have been previously expressed more eloquently than I am able to previously in this thread) that FIRST can do to creating that sort of internal culture change.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Here's the thing - in the past, the homework has been much easier in comparison.

"Write your representative, invite them to your regionals."
"You're not just a robotics team, you're a FIRST team!" (help make FIRST a household name)

This video project requires a lot more time and effort. The barriers to being able to do this are pretty high given the time constraint that was placed on teams. Without the Nov 1 due-date, I think more teams would be able to work on it, either as practice with their media-passionate students pre-kickoff, or as a sidebar to their Chairman's video production as they're collecting media on their team over the course of the season.

I don't think the issue is that people don't want to do Dean's Homework - it's that this homework was a lot harder than the timeline given can accomodate.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Not only that, these weren't objectives with a set due date, they were more of a new way Dean wanted teams to promote themselves on a rolling basis, but not a one time deliverable to FIRST. This was a very different assignment for teams for a lot of reasons, and that's probably the result of a much different (lower) turnout.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Sorry, I didn't mean to limit the "method" to only how they assigned it-- I meant to encompass the entire assignment-- from how it was assigned to what the assignment was. I should have been more clear about that.

I'm not entirely in agreement that the timeline was unrealistic-- I think that it's possible for significantly more that the amount of teams submitted to have completed the project.

I think in particular though, the main problem was that "zero-to-sixty" feeling from this assignment-- as was mentioned, previous assignments have been significantly easier. Going from "track your alumni and nominate students for Dean's List" (2012), stuff that most teams should be doing anyways, to "find a story, learn to edit video, find mentors to help to edit video, make a presentable video (to say nothing of making an awesome video)" is a rather massive leap. Perhaps if FIRST wants to scale up to "larger" homework assignments (such as a video), it would be a good idea to gradually scale up the difficulty of assignments-- teachers (at least for high school students) typically don't expect you to complete a final project before you've done any homework-- likewise, some sort of build up of the willingness of teams to take on increasingly challenging homework assignments would probably go a long way towards more teams fulfilling the requirements.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I have to chuckle at some of the expectations that a few people posting in this thread have for FRC teams, their leaders and their members.

It is important, I think, to remember that being part of an FRC team is just one part of the life of an engaged, enthusiastic human being. FRC team members, mentors and teachers do more than just FRC.

We hike, bike, sing, dance, play sports, travel, read... and should be proud of that. Our lives don't have to revolve around FIRST. (Well, not for the entire year at least. :) )

I would tell my students that I expected a small part of their extra-curricular attention for part of the year, and a very large part of their efforts for a few months of the year. Outside of the December-March "Robot Season" I expected them to bring the same professionalism, committment and dedication to their other activities that I expected from them for FRC activities, and that meant giving them the time to do those activities properly..... and I used the time to enjoy my other, non-FRC activities, too.

So I think it is perfectly acceptable to respond to the question of "Why didn't more team's do Dean's homework?" with the simple response that they had something better to do. Diversity is good. There is no need to apologize for it.

Life > FRC

Jason

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

It was an easy answer for us: Other things came first

We are in the process of changing everything and how we do everything on the team. Training has increased, sub teams created, and our fundraising goal multiplied by 10. To be completely honest this video was not at all on our list of things to do.

An incentive might help alot more (ex. sponsorship/money to best video)

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

Amen to that, Jason.

Also: Dean still gives homework? I...I had no idea. (Like, literally.)

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

The timing of the announcement/deadline doesn't bother me. They probably have their reasons for making the homework due on a seemingly random autumn date. Perhaps they're processing the submissions to have a polished video for kickoff? Or the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade?

FIRST HQ is full of pretty smart people. I'm not going to question their methods. Given, sometimes they get excited and push ideas out before they're fully developed or with poor timing (first year of Dean's List, for example). But I'll forgive them that because the ideas they push out are good ones.

When Dean gave the homework, it was at a collection of (most of) the best and brightest and most motivated teams FIRST has, across the spectrum. Dean is surrounded with folks constantly asking him, "How high would you like us to jump today, Sir?" To expect a more-than-paltry result from his homework request is not out of line. Especially since a good chunk of the teams at CMP have experience making videos for Chairman's - along with strong footage and b-roll from their Chairman's video that could feasibly be tweaked for the homework

I do wish they had hyped it more on twitter and facebook and other social media to reach and charge the students and keep the task top-of-mind.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

For all the platitudes about being the best examples of a FIRST team or not needing external motivation, here are a few carrots and sticks that FIRST employs to drive behavior:

Carrot: How many teams would do STEM outreach and help other teams if Chairman's Award wasn't touted as the most prestigious award and come with an auto-bid to the Championship (i.e. if it didn't exist)?

Stick: How many teams would make a Chairman's Video if it wasn't required for a Chairman's submission?

Carrot: How many teams would make a business plan if there wasn't a judged award for it?

Stick: Do you honestly think every student and mentor would wear safety glasses and closed toed shoes in the pit if there wasn't a rule about it?


I'm not saying a team wouldn't do these things without the carrots and sticks, but incentives provide motivation. If FIRST wants to drive behavior, that's what they need to do.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

People in aggregate respond predictably to incentives and disincentives. This is perhaps the foundational truth of economics, law, and human behavior in general. People might expect FIRST to be fundamentally different than the whole of mankind throughout history, but there's no compelling reason they should.

Re: Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout
 

I have to admit that I did not read the entire thread. I started reading after Libby chimed in. Sounds like it got a bit out of hand before that. So now for my two cents. FIRST is many things to different people. It is about changing the culture. It is about inspiring young people. It is about promoting STEM related careers, just to name a few. I feel that FIRST is growing at a pace that it currently can not keep up with. Yet we are still trying to grow it faster and trying to get more students involved. This is great, but at some point we are going to have to figure out a way to catch up with the growth that is continually being promoted. The more teams we have and the more people there are on the teams, the bigger CMP needs to be. The question is how big can it get. We already are playing too few matches to suit many of us, and some are even talking about allowing fewer teams to go to CMP. Wait, how can we expect fewer teams to attend the best event in the program and continue adding teams to the program... Then there is the I have a life outside of FIRST statement. FIRST is a volunteer organization and most of us do have a life outside of FIRST. Yet many of us are giving more and more time to the program to make it better. In some cases we are spreading ourselves too thin and having to choose doing one very important part of FIRST to do what we consider another very important part. Example, our team mentors have helped with a Mock Kickoff hosted by another great area team for the last 4 years. A great event that helps new and veteran teams as well as new and veteran students and mentors. This year we are not able to help with this event, because we chose to start a middle school FTC team last year. Another great program, that is taking students that are bored or tired of playing with Lego's and introducing them to a higher lever, that in turn is bring a higher level of student into our FRC program. However the organized, scrimmage for the FTC program is on the same day as the Mock Kickoff. Hard choices to make for mentors that are busy with their personal lives, including that JOB thing that so many have getting in the way. Not sure where we would find the time to further promote the growth of FIRST.