Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

That simply isn't true for many teams. There are plenty of teams who are well aware that they aren't going to bulid the best robot in the competition, and they may be better suited not focusing on the primary scoring objective. You hear it all the time in strategy and design presentations, that many teams should focus on doing one task well, especially a complimentary task (like inboudning or passing this year), than trying to do everything. Yet there are plenty of teams who eschew this advice, not because their own hubris, but because they enjoy the engineering challenge, enjoy lofty goals, and want to build a machine that can achive the difficult objectives, regardless of whether or not it will be one of the best on the field.

This year, my team did go simple. We opted for a complimentary design focused on inbounding, passing, defense, and maybe catching. We did that because we wanted to be competitive at all of our events, so we could reach MAR championship. But that hasn't always been our design goal, and that's certainly not the driving force behind all the students on my team or other teams. I've seen a multitude of students who'd rather build a "cool" robot than a winning one. They wanted mecanum wheels and turreted shooters, even if they rarely possess the strategic value on the field to be make them worth the investment in the build season. I've met plenty of mentors who'd rather design for a difficult challenge, knowing we may fail, than tackle a simpler challenge that we know we can accomplish. These aren't lesser motivations, they're just different motivations. Winning is not everyone's ultimate goal, and it's not the only way to foster a culture that appreciates science and technology.

Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

I agree with you completely, but I think your argument misses part of their statement (perhaps an subconscious/inadvertent part). Specifically, "when you tell your kids"...So if they tell you, the issue is moot. More power to them! But if you're trying to dictate to them, it can cone across as heavy-handed and contrived. We can want what we want, we can try to explain alternative approaches, but in then end the goal is theirs. Of course, this also means we can't afford to the reverse: force it to be about winning when that's not what students care about-we can't assume student motivations (making intra-student disagreements tricky).

Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

Concerning this subject, rookies already get a handicap with 10 extra points, and a multitude of grants available. Giving more help to these teams would increase their competitiveness even more.

We would gladly accept extra time, but in the spirit of FIRST, I feel that giving all teams equal time is best.

To preface this statement, many teams believe we have a veteran team mentoring us, we do not. The most FRC experience we have on our team is a student with 1 1/2 years of business team experience. Beyond that, I do think your idea would be beneficial to both the veteran and rookie team involved. However, as I stated earlier, it would be giving even more of a handicap to rookie teams.

Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

I agree, but I don't think Sean missed anything. There a middle ground between the students telling you what they want and you trying to force them to want what you want. If my students see me getting enraged by something that happened on the field, it will influence how they see it. If they hear me be upbeat after losing a match it will influence how they react. As mentors we need to be good role models for students. Because like it or not, we will be role models.

Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

Absolutely. I think I'm just trying to distinguish between modeling and lecturing. "It's not about winning" is indeed a very pat line that tends to get written off in places where the team culture isn't already aligned to it by/with student support (at which time the line is superfluous).

Just a note, rookies only get extra points in Districts. For thr majority outside of MAR/FiM/PNW/NE, rookies are teams that can get HRS, RAS and RI.

Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

Answering the question from the OP, do I have buyer's remorse?

The answer is no. My mind is always open to whatever game FRC has up it's sleeve going into kickoff. Yes, the game is a part of the product FIRST produces but we are ultimately producing our own product through the robot we build and the experience our students and mentors receive.

At this point in the season I can state that we have successfully took our students through an engineering design problem, that we are leaving the season knowing more than what we went in with, that many individuals have grown, and that we had fun doing it all. I've had plenty of personal conversations about this year's game and have opinions on it but it doesn't effect what we are trying to do on our team. Trust me, we design and prepare with hopes of winning and doing the best we can but there's only so much I can control. We've accomplished everything we can control, so no buyers remorse here.

Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

Well put Nate.

Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

Disclaimer: I don't know everything, I don't claim to know everything, and my social skills are horrid. I don't mean to change anyone's opinion. I am just expressing my own in hopes of contributing to the conversation.

I've read all the posts on this thread, most of them by mentors. A lot of you are talking about the outcome on the kids, the whole point of competing, whether or not the competing part is important, and all that. These are topics I've had conversations with others about.

I am a senior this year, meaning that since our team did not make it to World Championships, our last competition was my last competition with my team. This was disappointing - we had a solid design and solid execution, but didn't make the cut. I could go into every reason why, but I'm sure all these reasons have been pointed out by someone else several other places on CD. These issues aren't unique to 2014 - just made worse in 2014.

We never even made it to eliminations, but I do not have buyers' remorse. Yeah, my family paid the activity fee and the cost to travel and all that, and we didn't make it to Champs. Our robot's ranking didn't represent how it truly performed, and that's the risk we take when we attend big regionals with a limited amount of matches. That happens every year one way or another. I feel our 2014 robot was our best in history, yet the year our team went to Champs was 2012. This stuff happens.

Not only do I not have buyers' remorse, but it would be immature of me to have it. I have already admitted my disappointment, but that's no reason to regret the time, money, and hours put into the robot and into FIRST.

Reasons I don't have buyers' remorse:
1. Participation in FIRST inspired me to major in Electrical Engineering
2. Such inspiration has led me to work harder in school, and I'm going to college almost entirely on a scholarship as a result
3. My technical knowledge and social/leadership skills have improved beyond what I can even express
4. This program has inspired my mother - the most technically limited and un-STEM-oriented person in the world - to volunteer at competitions in 2015 (yes, she knows what volunteers have been put through this year). She's seen how the program has changed my life, and wants to help change the lives of other kids.

I am one of the most competitive people I know, and I wouldn't care if we had the best robot and were in last place at every stinking event for the past three years. The four reasons I've stated above (and the many other reasons I haven't listed) are more than enough to limit my concerns with winning.

**WARNING: Below is the most opinionated part of this post.**

As for competition, it is a huge part of FIRST. However, the importance of competition in the program isn't about the win-loss-tie record. It's about teaching students how to compete ethically and healthily - which means taking the losses, identifying where to improve, and moving forward. Winning is nice, but I don't think should always be the goal of competition. It's a nice bonus added to the skills we learn during the competition, and that's what I thought the "C" in FRC was.

However, I'm one of the youngest people posting on this thread, and I don't know everything. If I'm wrong, please correct me. I'm open to learning, so if anything I've said is offensive/off-colour/etc please let me know. I didn't mean for anything to be offensive, and I'm still learning. I just wanted to contribute by posting my opinion.

Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

Bravo, it certainly wasn't offensive to me and it highlights the reasons I am involved with FIRST and will continue to be as long as I am able.

Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

+1.

Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

Catherine:

Your post was excellent, and your opinion valued. Thank you for contributing! :)

I would like to believe few, if any, of the folks expressing concern, frustration, anger, and any other less than satisfied emotions over this game and the support structure designed to administer it at events believe that these negatives are totally ruining student experiences this season. In fact, I believe the kids on my team have had a very productive and enjoyable year learning and growing together, despite the many unwarranted setbacks we've experienced on the field. Personally, away from the field, this has been one of the most fun and satisfying seasons I've spent working alongside a group of Team 48 students in my 14 years on the team!

However, what those expressing dissent DO believe is that we are not getting the same effort out of the governing body of our community that THEY request from us. Teams are encouraged to learn how to become true problem solvers, to use our resources efficiently and wisely, to work harder to acquire and apply additional resources and competency to address areas of weakness, to ITERATE and to CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVE.

How can mentors fully drive home the message FIRST intends us to deliver to students when they themselves demonstrate through their inactions very glaring and overt examples of them not operating by the same credo?

The OP and others sharing similar sentiments in this thread wish to get people to understand that it is NOT SIMPLY OK TO SETTLE FOR LESS when we observe that our collective investment of time, energy, and yes, money, is being underappreciated and undermined by the governing body responsible for delivering a fair and PROFESSIONAL competitive experience on the field.

Is it not our obligation as citizens of a nation to question our government officials if we believe they are not efficiently using taxpayer dollars for maximum benefit of the people? As citizens of the FRC community, why should we treat FIRST any differently? Why should we not hold them to the same standard? Why should we allow them to hold themselves to a lesser standard than they encourage teams to achieve?

FIRST CAN do better - they can and should invest more resources into solving these problems that have popped up to varying degrees in years past, but nowhere near as frequently or as severely as the "perfect storm" of troubles observed during this Aerial Assist season. I don't think anyone should feel comfortable accepting anything less than FIRST's very best effort in this regard.

If FIRST does indeed publicly speak out to us and ensure that they are committed to solving these issues, if they develop and share a well thought out plan of improvement, I am fairly certain that frustrated mentors, students, and - perhaps most importantly - key volunteers we are at risk of losing next season will stand behind them, patiently waiting to see what kind of meaningful positive changes they can bring to the overall game experience for next season.

Re: Buyers' remorse / Pig in a poke
 

Back in 2012 during rebound rumble, team 716 went undefeated at the granite state regional all through qualifying, the only team to be undefeated when qualifying ended. but yet we were rank number three, due to the coop points. we decided prior to that competition that we are going to go for the win in qualifying, making us go for the colored bridge every match and RELY on our partners to get the coop points. I seriously believe that if we were rank one like we were suppose to be we would have walked away with a blue banner for that competition. I seriously hated how they did the coop bridge that year.
2013 for ultimate accent there was no way to gain and advantage for helping your teammate or the other team. and one robot could win the whole competition on there own(the full court shooter for example) If you weren't a full court shooter this was deffinelty frustrating to play against. But the game in general was decent,

On to this year, what a year and a game it defiantly has its up and downs but I kinda like it. 2014 is my senior year, and our team hasn't won a Blue banner since 08. so of course being the driver I deffinelty want to brink one home. when the game was first revealed im going to be honest I put my head in my hands and said "dang what a game to end the my career as a student on" but after we got the robot built and got to drive it around I realized that dang we got a robot that can do everything in the game fairly good, so going into WPI our first event it was deffinelty a start to a good season as we ended Quals 10-2 number one seed, the two loses we got one was with not the greatest partners and the second our joysticks got messed up which through our alliance off our game as we were the scoring robot. then in elims we were so close to taking the competition literally. made me excited for our second event.

when we got to Hartford it didn't quite go as planned we got stuck with partners that weren't that great, and 50 points fouls cost us two wins, and the shear brutality of the game had us breaking wheels every 3-4 matches (hopefully we fixed that for Boston) we ended ranked 7- pushed up to 5th.

Overall tis game really suites my driving style. fast and technical. We built a great robot and has been having a decent season.

Basically what im saying is the assisting in this game is good when it works great, and annoying when something goes wrong but life is just like that. Luck is a huge part of first and more so this year but that is also similar to life you need luck. The way I see it this game is better then the previous years because it really levels to playing field to almost out smart the large teams. no coop points to mess with the ranking, and im quite happy that my senior year is this year instead of last year :-)