Re: Team 1717 retires
 

I'm not so sure. I don't know if FIRST's mission and DPEA's statement about educational objectives necessarily align.

http://www.noozhawk.com/article/stud..._robotics_team

http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/vision

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

As a current resident of Santa Barbara I can offer my support to any group of students who want to start an after school program in the area.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

I'm fairly certain sanddrag's reply was to the immediately preceding post, which was not about DPEA. The point here is that making FIRST a part of the curriculum at the school board (rather than an individual teacher) level will provide better continuity. Unless there's some awful baggage, it is usually easier to operate an existing team than to spin up a new one. The teams under our school board are working towards these same goals.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

I think this says a lot about the state of the FIRST program and not positive things.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

That one team that was run in a very atypical way with slightly different goals than the program/most teams left the competition says bad things for the program as a whole? I'd like to hear your rationale for that one.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

There doesn't seem to be a split between Amir, based on the four articles I have read on this topic, the other teachers and the Dos Pueblos administration. In my opinion the back story is Amir wants his life back. Amir then came up with a replacement project that he considered equal to or better then FRC, he convinced the principal and the letter was written.

Creating an extra curricular team may not have even occurred to Amir. Hopefully the students and mentors who are upset, according to the articles, will step up and either resurrect the 1717 team or start a rookie team. Then they will see why lead mentors get burned out. When teams stop competing the number one reason, in my experience, is the lead mentor can't go on any longer.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

I'm usually one of the loud mouths bashing FIRST for the most trivial things... but I don't see how we can draw any conclusions about FIRST from this specific school's decision.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

Pretty sure Amir didn't coach the team this year, so he already had his "life back".
There are plenty of teams across the country every year that get declawed or axed by school boards for a variety of reasons, and these decisions come with various levels of pushback. The only difference here is that this is the most high profile FRC team shuttering in a while.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

Well, even though we are 2nd semester seniors by the time robotics rolls around, we still have other teachers and other classes, who have various levels of vitriol toward the program. I mean, I don't blame them. Some of us would be sleeping through class, not attending for competitions, falling behind on homework, and they knew it was because we were working on the robot til 2 am (we might be idiots taking AP classes AND robotics at the same time but that's another issue). As far as I know though, the administration was very proud of the team. It's probably more complex than just that.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

Disclaimer: The following opinion is purely my own and does not represent Team 1717 or the DPEA.

I am one of these years seniors and its sad for me to see this program that has inspired me so to be leaving this awesome community. I was an academic mentor this year for two of the different classes of the program(the sophomore and freshmen class). From the moment I joined the program my eyes had always been on senior year robotics competition. Being able to hear the freshmen of this year saying that they didn't really want to join the team kinda disappointed me. Being part of the "trail blazer" class obviously gave me a way different experience than the far more polished version of the program that they now have, but its still sad that the majority didn't join for the same purpose as this years robotics team did when we were freshmen. Also sad that we never got to use team 3434. Hehe :P ;). Team 1717 will definitely be missed by the surrounding community.

By the way the trail blazer class was the first class of 100 students that the program had.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

Was the creation of the Mechatronics program in response to the increase of size, and does it scale well? Because as I recall, a class of 100 is a sizeable increase from the 30 the school had when it started, and a step up from the 60 it had a few years ago (I didn't know that it had grown to 100 until I saw this). If it scales better, switching over to Mechatronics makes a lot more sense, since competitive robotics organizations don't scale that easily once you get close to 100 students, even if they did multiple programs like VEX and FRC.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

ArtK we never had a class of 60 it went from 30 one year to 100 the year after that. So the program as it stands right now has about 400 students overall. So this year was the first 100 student senior class. About 60 did mechatronics and about 40 did robotics.The mechatronics project, which was introduced late last school year, was just another alternative project that we had available as this years seniors.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

Did you guys start having juniors attending competitions some point? Because that could explain why I thought class size stepped up to 60. If not, my mistake about the numbers.

My original point about the size of an FRC team still stands, since there is only so much work that can be done on a robot or at an event, and still have everyone feel like they are contributing.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

First of all, I BLAME KOKO ED FOR GETTING ME INTO THIS. *shakes fist*

Also, thank you jankBS (oh the irony of that name) and dgilbueno for your insight with the team.

I was a life long member of 384 during high school and the experience has formed who I am today. FIRST isn't just an engineering program or a competition, it's a full business simulation. Engineers, programmers, engineering minded students, and programming minded students build the robot, but a full business system builds around it. One robotics friend this past summer got married and he graduated college going into video production for TV stations.

I will be honest, my small exposure to Mechatronics sounds like a good engineering program, and that's the problem. I see no engagement or captivation beyond "engineering kids". FIRST built a program around a business, governed by mentors, that attracts kids of all interests.

During my involvement late in 384 I was asked to assist with moving part of the program to a new high school opening up in the county. I had two paths going at that point: one with a variance due to other issues and staying at 384, or going to the new high school. Working with the new principle was a major problem; any conversion surrounding transition plans with 384 would result in complaints of a lack of new 'school spirit'. Honest, open communication about success were stifled by what I perceived at 16 as being confusion. Later, I would find he was working on his own plan with other teams in the area, eschewing relationships build over the years. After significant push back and a clear sign he did not care I pulled the variance cord and stayed at 384 until I graduated. This taught me an important lesson in education: politics never should interfere with education, but do.

1717's plight reminds me of my issues dealing with education system politics. I cannot comment on what they've done raising awareness, but I feel for these students to the point I come back years after swearing myself out of FIRST to post here. What their board of education has done is short sighted. That board wants is to teach kids engineering; not how to interact in a business, work with others of various ages, or inspire all with the importance on engineering.

Re: Team 1717 retires
 

ArtK nope its always been just seniors.