FIRST: A sport?
 

My girlfriend and I are arguing whether or not FIRST is a sport. So I have a few questions for whoever reads this:

1. Do you feel FIRST should be a recognized as a sport?
2. Is FIRST a recognized sport at your school?
3. Do you think robotics is a sport?
4. If so, why? If not, why?
5. Does your yearbook give you a full spread (2 pages) for your FIRST team.
6. Your personal definition of what a sport is.

Thanks!

dictionary.com:

sport
n.

1.
1. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.
2. An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.
3. An active pastime; recreation.


-------

human player = physical activity/exertion.
skill = planning, engineering, building


I'd say its a sport.

if nascar is considered a sport....then this is definitely a sport.

1. yes
2. no
3. yes
4. see Brandon's post
5. i wish
6. see Brandon's post

1. Do you feel FIRST should be a recognized as a sport?
Considering the time and effort involved at the High School level it should be given more credit than an extra curricular. Like sprots it does lead to scholarships at colleges to continue FIRST. Some teams get cheerleaders. So if the team is involved enough it is a sport.

2. Is FIRST a recognized sport at your school?
No, at least not while I was in HS.

3. Do you think robotics is a sport?
Some people put in enough time so it is.

4. If so, why? If not, why?
Time, effort, scholarships to continue, cheerleaders.

5. Does your yearbook give you a full spread (2 pages) for your FIRST team.
Full page while I was there, but its always a year late.

6. Your personal definition of what a sport is.
Something competitive.

1. Do you feel FIRST should be a recognized as a sport?
2. Is FIRST a recognized sport at your school?
3. Do you think robotics is a sport?
4. If so, why? If not, why?
5. Does your yearbook give you a full spread (2 pages) for your FIRST team.
6. Your personal definition of what a sport is.

1. No
2. No
3. No
4. FIRST is about the mental, sports are about the physcial
5. No
6. A game that is played by humans that involves a great deal of physcial activity

Re: FIRST: A sport?
 

1. Do you feel FIRST should be a recognized as a sport?
Yes

2. Is FIRST a recognized sport at your school?
No

3. Do you think robotics is a sport?
Yes

4. If so, why? If not, why?
Brandon's post

5. Does your yearbook give you a full spread (2 pages) for your FIRST team.
Never before, this year I can't say it's 2 page spread, but I get the impression it's one page and an interview of major players thruout the yearbook. That's cuz of 3 things - my girls are friends with those on the yearbook staff (I always wondered how those in my yearbook got there 30 years ago), our 2001 championships, and constant publicity this year in newspaper, school bulletin, weekly open house...

6. Your personal definition of what a sport is.
never had one before, I like Brandon's post

1. Do you feel FIRST should be a recognized as a sport?
2. Is FIRST a recognized sport at your school?
3. Do you think robotics is a sport?
4. If so, why? If not, why?
5. Does your yearbook give you a full spread (2 pages) for your FIRST team.
6. Your personal definition of what a sport is.

1. Yes.
2. No.
3. A fairly general question. Most robotics "game shows" can be considered to be sports; industrialized robotics are not sport.
4. In reference to robotic sports, I'll use my experience with FIRST as an example. There is just as much year-round activity on our FIRST team compared to most of our school's athletic teams. This provides both physical and mental stresses/workouts.
5. No.
6. An activity in which some form of exertion (physical OR mental) is applied to achieve a goal.

1. ::considers NASCAR example...:: Yes. Consider the pit crew in a NASCAR team. I'm sure they consider themselves as participating in a sport, even though all they do is maintainance work on a car.

2. Kind of... Rather than being classified as a "club", we're classified as a "team". That's not a label as a sport, but it's rather analogous to "Basketball Team" or "Football Team".

3. Yup

4. Robotics in general? Like the MER team at JPL? That's not a sport. There's not really any competition.

5. Actually, yes. :) This year, we had a presence in the school sporting community. For example, we built a "Mascot Robot" for parades and football games, which we manned for several home games. Perhaps we should bring it to the regional... I wonder if it'd be allowed to operate on teather...

6. ::Likes Brandon's definition::

On any given sunday, a football team will lose.

On any given match, a team can lose.

No no no no no, the actual line is "If CHEERLEADING is considered a sport....then robotics is definitely a sport"

No offense to all you cheerleaders out there, we still love you!!

Funny you should say that..

My girlfriend (a cheerleader) said "If FIRST is a sport then so is cheerleading." Then got confused when I agreed :p

1. Yes

2. More like a club. However, our bot is not affiliated with my former high school since there are like a dozen high schools represented on the team.

3. Yes

4. Using Brandon's def the only debatable point is the physical activity. Barring the Human Player (that is obviously physical activity) I look at it with this quick, almost correctly formated (I dont quite know Modal Logic S5 rules) logical proof.

A. The robot physically exerts itself in the game. (motors pushing, lifting, etc)
B. The robot is created and controlled by my team. (autonomously and mentally)
C. Thus the robot is an extension of my team.
D. Therefore, My team physically exerts itself thru the bot

Also, FIRST is objectively scored, which is better than subjectively scored sports where a judge's opinion taints the competition. The competitors should be able to decide the outcome of a sport by themselves. When is the last time you played a pickup game and chose someone to be the judge to decide which team wins? Some subjective "sports" (I am not naming names) even award presentation points based on smiling, pretty uniforms, etc... I say "its not a sport if you have to smile while doing it, thats 'competitive art'" Anyway, if FIRST awarded presentation points, the Miracle Workerz would always win with our stylish green jerseys, hair and bots. :D What kind of competition would that be?

5. We got a page about our yearbook about the assembly we hold every year. We also got a homecoming float after we won nats.

6. Use Brandon's def. minus presentation points.

Disclaimer: For anyone who plays presentation point "sports", realize this is just my opinion. I would consider those "sports" to be real sports with a minor judging tweak.

1. Do you feel FIRST should be a recognized as a sport?
Like many of the FIRST founders say: we want to fill this stadium with cheering fans for ROBOTS not people. We WILL get that much support, we WILL become a bigger pastime than football or baseball, all we need is support.

2. Is FIRST a recognized sport at your school?
FIRST isnt recognized at all at our school. Our football team gets 76,000 a year for field and uniform and travel expenses. Our FIRST team doesnt get a $@#$@#$@#$@# penny.

3. Do you think robotics is a sport?
Robotics in general (designing robots to build cars and stuff) most of the time is not a sport. But when you build robots to compete (FIRST, Robocup, LegoLeague) it becomes a sport.

5. Does your yearbook give you a full spread (2 pages) for your FIRST team.
Our team gets a picture I think...

6. Your personal definition of what a sport is.
Competition in a certain area.


I love FIRST. Nuff said.

It's a team activity rather then just a sport. I'm not sure the label "sport" is needed. Band and debate get varsity letters at our school. We are meeting with administration next week to see if we can get them for FIRST members as well. I expect to succeed at that.
When ever we've had a FIRST team they have had a 2 page spread in the yearbook.

Re: FIRST: A sport?
 

1. Do you feel FIRST should be a recognized as a sport?

Yes, it should be. We put in as much work as any sports team does, and it's a competition, so yes, FIRST should be a sport.

2. Is FIRST a recognized sport at your school?

No, it isn't. We've been working on that here, and I know at least one of our fellow Rochester teams is, too.

3. Do you think robotics is a sport?

Absolutely. See #1.

4. If so, why? If not, why?

As I said, we put in tons of work, we should get recognized as much as any other team in the school.

5. Does your yearbook give you a full spread (2 pages) for your FIRST team.

No. Being considered a club, we only get a brief mention and two pictures. We did get a full page article in the school newspaper, though.

6. Your personal definition of what a sport is.

Anything involving competition should be considered a sport, even if it's not an athletic event.

Patrick's criterions of a sport:
1) One or more people or teams of people must compete directly and simultaneously against each other.
2) Scoring must be objective, not subjective.
3) Competition must be directly between humans, not between entities controlled by humans.

These rule out games like chess (not simultaneous), robotics (not people), figure skating (not simultaneous), etc, computer games (not people)...

Of course my definition is completely arbitrary, there is no truth in my definition nor anyone else's.

- Patrick

I agree, it's all purely subjective. I honestly don't think it matters all that much because its just a title. If you know deep down how much you have gained through FIRST and robotics then it shouldn't matter what category it's placed in.

And don't get me wrong, it's really great when you get recongition for all your hard work and everything and it's somewhat frustrating when you do a lot of work and get no credit. I know that robotics never got as much recognition in my high school as our football team did but heck, nothing else did either.

Having something be called a sport does not necessarily mean that it is more respected or more publicized. I know that there were SO many articles written about it in our school newspaper, it was probably the #2 most written thing (second to football of course) about and beat out the majority of sports, other clubs, and performing groups. The best thing that came out of recognition of our team personally for me was spreading what we do to attract students, not satisfy ourselves because I think what we did in FIRST was fulfilling enough.

Re: FIRST: A sport?
 

I don't think FIRST constitutes a sport. Besides, would you REALLY want to be considered a sport? Think of all the grants that would make you ineligble for...

FIRST is definitely a competition. But, to me, it's about as much of a sport as debate is. (Though it's infinitely cooler than debate, hands down.)

Our FIRST team hasn't gotten anything yet from our school, but we're getting two articles; one in the PTSA newsletter, and one in the school paper. Most of us weren't involved back when they took yearbook pictures, and we won't even be mentioned in this year's yearbook because we didn't pursue it right as we formed. (I.e., there was no time for the yearbook people to write it up by the time we asked them about it.)

1. Do you feel FIRST should be a recognized as a sport?
Nah, FIRST is as good as a sport, but I don't think it is really a sport. Besides, how can a sport be run by one organization. Robotics in general would have to be the sport, with FIRST constituting some type of league.

2. Is FIRST a recognized sport at your school?
I don't think so...

3. Do you think robotics is a sport?
No

4. If so, why? If not, why?
Sports are more physical, robotics has very little physical activity involved. Robotics can be a good competition, but if robotics is a sport, then so is just about every other competition.

i say it is a Sport from the Future

Re: FIRST: A sport?
 

1. Do you feel FIRST should be a recognized as a sport?
~Should it be recognized? I'd say that it doesn't need to be recognized.

2. Is FIRST a recognized sport at your school?
~No, we are recognized as an activity...if at all.

3. Do you think robotics is a sport?
~I do believe robotics is a sport.

4. If so, why? If not, why?
~Wait until number 6.

5. Does your yearbook give you a full spread (2 pages) for your FIRST team.
~Most of our school doesn't know we have a FIRST team.

6. Your personal definition of what a sport is.
~To me a sport is anything that involves a ball, stick, puck etc. Hence...robotics (due to the use of balls in 2001 and 2002 and the use of sticks like the flailer and 980's lightsaber) is a sport. However, things like swimming, track, wrestling are not sports. Those are necessities made competitive by human nature. Granted all are very difficult (i tried swimming and track...not my cup of tea) i believe that they are not "sports".


PS-David...if we go by the general trend here...you do do sports.:)

Yes, I think that to some extent robotics, or the process involved, could be considered a sport. The human players have some physical activity in it, but just walking around Baxter practically constitutes it being a branch of Track. (Just kidding, I don't mind walking down really long hallways). I don't think, though, that you will be able to get many schools to recognize it as a sport, because that really isn't the primary element of FIRST. FIRST does exercise the brain more than the body, after all, it is "Sports for the mind".

Robotics is a sport the second that you bring competitions into the picture. Thinking about it: First you start with a dream or goal, then you build up, then your train, lastly you compete against others for a high ranking place. SOUNDS LIKE A SPORT TO ME!

But what about the human players?:D