Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders."

And Kamen's underlying insight to this was that our culture currently celebrates sports success and young people dream of being professional athletes, so let's use that same approach to celebrate something more useful.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

I agree with everything about history and how FIRST is about inspiration and recognition.

And I can see both sides to the argument, but I have had a personal impact with the effectiveness of the single championship.

Our team has been lucky enough to make worlds 3 out of 4 years, and as a rising senior I have attended two champs myself. And what champs did for me was that it gave me an entire new level of inspiration, whether watching Einstein or creeping on 254s pit. But competing and seeing the high level of robots and competition furthered my inspiration for the powers of science and tech. Likewise, at worlds this year I saw the same looks of inspiration from a few freshman, and seeing the concentrated best of FRC made them recognize the same thing I did.

On the other hand FIRST knows what they are doing and bringing in more teams would allow this to impact more teams. But having a split of the teams won't have the same impact it may have a net overall higher impact.

We will just have to wait and see. Thanks for all the opinions. I will share these with the team. I think it's a good topic to mull over.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

But do we have to do it exactly like them? We have a competition and I think playing with the structure is a valid way to try to achieve our goals. Also our goals don't usually align with most other sports so I can see us not using the exact same system.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

Maybe we could. Why fix it if it is already working fantastically well??? Or are you saying FIRST is currently doing a subpar job?




For all those "It's not about the robot" points, an interesting analogy that I have been thinking about is as follows:

FIRST isn't about the robot, it's about the destination.

Traveling isn't about the plane/car/train you take, it's where you end up that matters.

Robots are like your car, they get you to where you want to be. While ultimately the way you get to your destination matters little, you would be silly to say that the way that it does it is irrelevant.

You would rather drive a Lamborghini than a Dodge Caravan.

You would rather have a competition that recognizes those that deserve recognition.

Doesn't matter how I look at it, but owning a Lamborghini will always be more inspiring than owning 100 dodge caravans.

Doesn't matter how I look at it, but going to an event where the entire world comes to compete, will always be more inspiring than going to 100 events where only some of the teams compete under the same roof.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

Doubt we will get to 100 different champs or even 10...

Dodge caravans have gotten our robots to several events in a pinch. But when we go to a big and or out of state competition and one of our sponsors loans us a Mercedes Sprinter it's much better. The dodge does the job but upgrading to the Sprinter is more optimal. Engineers optimize and prioritize all the time and so should FIRST. Deal with the trade offs and leverage the benefits.

I don't think FIRST has done a bad job in the past but this system was designed with future challenges in mind, a good feature for any system.

Other sports teams and organizations don't serve the same purpose and subsequently neither do their competition structures. It can and has worked but we can still make it our own.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

I would rather move my apartment in a Dodge Caravan than a Lamborghini. I wouldn't take a plane to get across town for work each day (though it might be preferable to Houston traffic). Owning a Lambo isn't inspiring if you end up over your head in debt.

You're right when you say that how you get there matters, but your goal informs your choice of vehicle. Think about that carefully, and ask yourself: What IS the destination, and what is the best way to get there? Not how would you LIKE to get there; What is the BEST way?

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

I don't think many people in this discussion have yet realized that the two sides are so far apart (and viewing things from such extremely different directions) that they aren't even having the same argument.

Unrelated to the above point... By putting less focus on competition (which is a direction of thinking this decision indicates) you alienate a portion of the community. This portion is the one doing most of the high level inspiration and training of the community, and losing even a percentage of them will have trickle down affects that lower the quality of all teams.

Sure, moving to a two champs format (more of a convention/festival) you make all the teams that are nerd clubs happier... but nerd clubs don't really change the culture (yes, you all have anecdotal examples). Most of the population has no desire to join a nerd club. It's easy to get high and mighty and look down on them for not seeing things "our way", but the organization needs to realize that we need to bring in more outsides, and to do so we need to get away from being nerd clubs.

The general public wants competition and excitement. There is no reason an increase in competition has to lead to a decrease in sportsmanship (aka GP). By hinting that GP can only be maintained with competition being sub-servant sends the message to students that they can't be competitive AND have GP.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

Do you value that more or less than having one champion?

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

It goes hand in hand.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

In Michigan we have a similar format to two championships for FLL. Both teams address themselves as state Champs. And the only problem is the fact that only one team goes to the FIRST Championship. It doesn't make the competition any less competitive.

Also Imagine years down the road when there is a North North American Championship, a South South American Championship, a European Championship, a South American Championship, an East Asian Championship, a Pacific Championship, And a North African Championship. Then we will have a need for a "World Championship" but having more competitions doesn't take away from a competitive nature it only allows more people to be exposed to FIRST and encourage growth in STEM fields.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

The intent was that for me personally, I could attend 100 events that don't have the entire world there, or one world event, and I would chose the world event every time. Even if it was competing at 100, and going to watch the 1.

You are missing the forest, because you are too busy thinking about how bad that one dead tree looks.

Of course there are a hundred thousand variables that in real life determine if it makes sense for you to buy a "Lamborghini". You would be in some serious debt if you bought 100 Dodge Caravans as well. :rolleyes:

Correct, but we already know which one is more inspiring. It's a no brainer. It's the Lambo. We are talking about inspiration and recognition. To me, a lambo is blatantly obvious that it fits those two criteria better even if you have 10, 100, 1000, or 10,000 dodge caravans (or any average car of your choosing) the lambo is more inspiring. This seems blatantly true for one world event as well. You can add as many "sorta" world events as you want. None of them will touch the inspiration that happens with a true world event.

Unfortunately this has been the case for a long time now.

Exactly. There are many real life examples of this.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

To steal the conclusion from the Mentor-Driven vs Student-Driven Team debate:

It depends on what works best for your team. YMMV.
It is my opinion that HQ is trying to find a solution that works the best for the most teams.
Some may feel alienated; some may disagree with aspects of the proposed solution; some may have 'better' ideas. But HQ is trying to work toward (what it believes is) the greater good, and I can respect that.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

Those are two different tasks. How is the competition structure related to community enrichment other than the fact of their being a competition is why you may have started doing that work? Are you saying that splitting championships thus prevents that sort of work?

It comes across like anything not directly related to the competition being valuable to you is solely dependent on winning and how important the victory is. I wouldn't think that would be the case.


And why can't the two, not 100, and not ten world events both be valuable on their own? Your answer is lack of one champion and that's not enough to devalue the events significantly for most people.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

"Nerd club"?

Yes, I agree. It certainly is easy to get high and mighty, and to look down on others for not seeing things your way.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

My emphasis added:
Which is more inspiring, owning any lamborghini, or:

Owning your own fleet (100 caravans) of new app based taxis which move make about 1,000,00 person to place trips per year (1.5 passengers per average trip x 100 vehicles x 20 fairs per day x 330 days per year of vehicle usage (assuming 35 days of downtime for general maintenance). http://www.boston-cabs.com/2009/01/t...n-service.html

Owning a grocery/meals deliver company that assist 5,000 people get fresh meals/groceries each year (assuming 1 vehicle could service about 50 unique customers per week per vehicle) making 250,000 deliveries and facilitating 100 new jobs... http://www.peapod.com/

Or having a fleet of 100 Minivans testing protype battery management system: http://www.allpar.com/corporate/electric-cars.html

Or a fleet of minivans that are retrofitted to include side ramps so they are wheelchair accessible: http://www.braunability.com/commerci...e-minivan.html

I am picking on you a bit, but I was inspired by the Lamborghini when I was in elementary school. I specifically remember coveting a poster of this image: http://kleberly.com/284146-lamborghini-countach.html up until I was about 10 years old. I never did get one.

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

The above examples are not just pulled from thin air...
I was personally was inspired by the Dodge minivan as it was a neat vehicle taking me to and from school, games, and 4-H events through out my life. Cubby holes, flip down seats, interesting over-center cam link for the rear windows... I must have played with that over center linkage 1,000 times as a kid.
Around 13 years old, we were in a high speed rear-ending on a freeway, and it not only saved our lives, but we were able to fix that van and I used it in College.
During college, my first internship was working at Braun Corporation which retrofitted minivans with a new floor and fold down ramp for wheel-chairs. They owner had MS and even had his converted so he could drive with a joystick similar to his wheelchair. It was a small engineering department, but they did very inspirational work.

My second internship was with Chrysler, a friend also interning at chrysler was part of the TEV program where Chrysler was experimenting with Electric Minivans durin the 90s and did do some Zero-emission fleetwork. I was inspired by this experience to take an electric vehicles course during my master's program.

While working at Chrysler, I worked in advanced vehicle engineering on some fold flat seat concepts, and got a patent for a multifunction liftgate (again inspired by minivans).

I later went on to work on Challenger and Viper. (Just stating this so you know that I too like performance cars).

Also in the early 2000s, my grandmother lost her personal mobility. She was able to get in and out of my mom's minivan, and really appreciated the support from the "meals on wheels" people that helped her live comfortably in her own home without having to "get out" too much.

Around 2007 or 2008, I was at a really neat vintage car show where I got the chance to finally see a Lamborghini Coontach (LP-400s) in person. It looked short, wide, and had 14" wheels. Its 0-60 was 5.9 seconds and it was $100,000 1985 dollars. By 2005, I could by an SRT4 that had a faster 0-60 for $19,900 2005 dollars...

As just one other point. I would be willing to bet that Chrysler sponsors more FRC teams than Lamborghini, and the money for that sponsorship is largely due to the profits of one of the companies best money makers (mini-van).

It was a neat car, but to be very clear, had nowhere near the impact or inspiration that any one of the above dodge Caravans had on me, not too mention the collective impact that those less than 100 had on me or the other people I have mentioned.

I clearly look at things a little different than you, but I am pretty partial to minivans. Even now, I work on the tracked military minivan... though I would never call it that in front of the soldiers... Its infotainment and gaming system is a little too dangerous to play around with.

I am not saying that the Lamborghini should not be inspiring (I prefer Viper), just maybe you might want to look a little harder about what inspiration 100 minivans could provide. ...Your Mileage May Vary...