Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

Meg, I hope I am not coming across as mean or argumentative since we were also just talking in a previous thread.


I did not see that thread thank you for bringing that to my attention. And I also did not hear about the murder not far from the dome. I knew there was one on the metrolink I believe several months ago. St. Louis is not a safe city, Detroit is not a safe city. Big cities will naturally have higher crime rates. I am very protective of all of my students whenever I go to nationals, and I also used to live near Detroit so I know how it is.


About the extra time the First champ winners will receive I think that this is an excellent point. I could think of a couple of solutions (but doesn't matter since FIRST did not ask on input). One could be to hold them alternating every year (St. Louis, then Houston, and then the next year Houston, Detroit). Another is that the teams could ship their bot right after the championship to the other event, and sign a form stating that they will not use their practice bots in the meantime. I think that this would be acceptable, and also play best of 5 instead of best of three.

I don't think the top 4 alliances should get to go. FIRST is a competition and the reason people don't like the 2 champ idea is because it (to an extent) is taking this aspect out of FIRST. By taking the top 4 you are essentially taking the competition out as well by making 4 alliances winners. Also FIRST would/should pay for all the travel, shipping, and hotel costs for the teams that win the first event. I feel like this is within reason to do for the 4 winning teams on the winning alliance.

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

I attended the meeting. My frustration with the panel was they set out at the beginning a set of questions, and didn't fully answer all of them.

I would actually prefer if they gave a medium where people can submit questions and they would give a thought out and lengthy response, rather than immediate, hand-wavy answers to avoid answering the difficult questions.

I think the moderator was right to ask whether the other questioners were fine with Mike asking a second question; there was limited time and some people didn't get the chance to ask their question in the end, so it was the polite thing to do.

The panel was defensive, but on the flipside I thought the questions were unnecessarily aggressive. While it clearly shows their passion, aggressive questions are not as effective as clear concise ones.

I had two questions that I didn't get to ask (and will email soon):

1. How is this scalable? If FRC had > 4000 teams, we will have 3 championships?

2. Considering they will have to negotiate 2020+ contracts soon (as they said), have they learned anything from this announcement? Are they going to approach it differently?

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

I certainly hope you didn't misconstrued my comment in the town hall as "being a winner is the goal of the program" because that was NOT my intent and also not what I said.

I said that high school age kids "want a champion". Having someone to look up to and aspire to be is a motivator for improvement. Having been abruptly cut off by the moderator, it unfortunately scrambled my thoughts along with my ability to articulate my points of view effectively. For that I will apologize as i should have been better at keeping my concentration despite this interruption.

The point I was trying to make was this: Years ago, I was inspired and motivated by Team MOE (365). They WON Chairman's. That means they were the best in the world and the champions of spreading the FIRST mission. Seeing their success was my motivator to do all I could to inspire my team through their example.

My students have learned more because of a change in mindset on our team. This mindset change came from being motivated by MOE and other champions both on and off the field. We went from "finish the robot and it's good enough" frame of mind...to a mindset of "Our job is never done till FIRST's mission is fulfilled". That means, continuous improvement on the robot- to LEARN, continuous outreach to our community to drive the first mission and continuous learning, growth and improvement. That was the point I was trying to make and had I not been cut off, maybe I could have articulated it better.

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

Thanks 1640 for the video. Here are some thoughts:

Looks like the first needs to implement something like what most schools have like a PTA. There should be an organization that represents the students and FRC programs. They "talk" about cooperating with the community, but sounds more like lip-service.

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

No more groups please. One person, approved by WFA winners, whose sole responsibility is to represent us at every major decision point. Give that person the ability to send out surveys and gather unbiased FIRST wide data. Frank Merrick is the voice of FIRST. Now we need a conscience.

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

I do appreciate FIRST's attempt at explaining things. Have to give them credit for trying. I understand that their really is no ideal solution, and FIRST is an organization run by people.

As an attendee I was a little annoyed that FIRST had hired a moderator as if there was some sort of debate to be had rather than having someone we know and respect talk to us openly and honestly. It seemed a very defensive move so that they wouldn't have to be the one to tell us "stop ranting and ask your question". The whole thing felt very political.

Speaking of people we know and respect - I couldn't help but notice how particularly quiet Frank was during this whole thing. It really gave me the vibe that this was not a well received and unified decision within FIRST (this is just my opinion from what I saw).

As others have said those asking questions could have been more polite, but this sort of thing happens when a decision is made which they disagree and they were not consulted.

I wanted to ask a logistical question but chose to let others ask theirs instead:

How is FIRST planning to do the competition at Cobo and the opening / closing ceremonies at Ford Field.

This is ~1 mile walk. While there is safety in numbers and it is probably no big deal for most students, this could be very difficult for some older or handicapped attendees. We also have to think about the sheer number of people that need to move across Detroit and how long it will take everyone to exit, re-enter and get seated. As if a 9 pm ending wasn't late enough this year. Many people chose to opt out from opening / closing ceremonies myself included due to a desire for dinner. If you add a 1 mile walk - who is going to even want to go?

Also how is FIRST planning to have any parking available?

This overlaps with both playoff Hockey, early Tigers games, and prime construction season. I tried to park near JLA and take the people mover to the Wing's game on Tuesday before the championship...it was not a quick process.

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

This is right. I helped fill out the GA WIT grant app for our team and not one part wanted to know how many trophies you won. A lot of people actually do care about the hard work more than the trophy.

One takeaway I got from the video was that in order to do super regional you need a more geographically consistent district structure but team growth is outpacing that.

I had wondered for a while early in my FRC career how California hadn't had a district structure with so many teams. It was shocking recently when GA FIRST asked if we wanted districts next year or not because I never thought we would get here before California. So I would say you can't assume that FIRST will grow how it seems it will now. I mean who in 2011 expected that GA would have districts by 2016-17?

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

I'm really glad you said most of what I was thinking here so I didn't become unhinged trying to get the point across. My experience in FIRST this year can attract a variety of adjectives, but the three I'll use a lot in the coming days as I gather my thoughts are bizarre, baffling, and absurd. I find the extreme contrast between the words of the FIRST founder on alumni and FIRST's actions with alumni bizarre. I find the shunning of alumni who actively participate in FIRST to be baffling. I find the behavior of some FIRST personnel at the town hall towards alumni actively participating in FIRST absurd.

I work with this program because of how much it meant to me as a student. I've made sacrifices that on the surface seem pretty idiotic, but it's all for a program that I like to think has had my back and cares about the contributions I make to it. Well, I liked to think that.

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

Has there been any discussion about what happens after 2020/contracts run out? Will we return to a single CMP?

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

4 championships. One in Houston, Detroit, Atlanta, and Orlando. (Just trolling the West Coast teams)

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

I dunno about you but I sure hope they move up build season to after Thanksgiving.

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

In case anyone is curious as to who is on the Board of Directors, all members of FIRST leadership are listed on their website. The executive advisory board has several former mentors.

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

Nah. What FIRST needs is a competent competitor. Right now, they might as well be Standard Oil.

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

Nicely put. Unfortunantly some peple ive spoken with took my distaste for this decision as "why do you not want to reach more kids? It is not about winning. You need more GP"........smmhh

Re: Town Hall Meeting Video
 

Thanks for the link. Very interesting reading to be found in the FIRST Strategic Plan at the bottom. I was particularly amused by the second bullet point on page 4 of the strategic plan..."Create a more efficient, responsive organization...implement more robust systems and processes that are more responsive to the FIRST community..."