Re: FIRST Robotics as a sport
 

There has been a lot of discussion on monetary imbalances and overall space to run a robotics team, which are both problems our team faces, but I also wanted to discuss the recognition amongst teachers of robotics teams and consequently, their leniency towards due dates and the like.
I'm not saying that robotics should be used as an excuse to not do homework, but when a teacher assigns a paper due next class over the last week of build season, the teacher should at least give an extension of some sort.
The reason why this ties in with the club versus sports discussion is because the sports teams at our school have always been followed and recognized by our teachers. Us, being a club, have not garnered the same sort of following. Consequently, when the sports team members need to leave class an hour early every day for practice, teachers accommodate. When we have to miss two days of school to go to a regional we just spent at least the last six weeks preparing for, practically living at the school, the teachers hardly understand why and are much less willing to give extensions. Not all teachers in our school do this, but a lot do not truly appreciate the hard work we put into this "club". Literally, one of my teachers this year asked me if I thought it was a smart decision to go to the championship event knowing I missed 4 days of school already, even when we came in second and first place in those regionals. I honestly felt like asking them if they would have said the same thing to a football team member going to states.
I feel as though if we were merely given the label of a "sports team" we would gain significantly more recognition within our small school. As far as I'm aware, the school is the only entity that refers to us as a "club" as opposed to a "team".
Of course, FRC and FIRST are beyond labels, this is only to increase recognition within our school and make teachers more sympathetic towards are overcrowded schedules amongst other things.

Re: FIRST Robotics as a sport
 

I think this comes from lack of understanding. I am a teacher. I understand how hard build season is. I have a hard time getting colleagues who aren't involved to understand. I teach at the jr. high and my close collegues understand from seeing the time I put into it. But, most of the high school teachers do not understand how much time the team members put into a build season.

One thing my team is doing this year to try to improve this is to do our business presentation (that we use with potential sponsors) to the teachers. We have set up 2 days after school in May that we will try to educate our teachers on what FIRST is and the level of commitment involved by the students on the team. We hope this will help them understand missed days better and possibly draw some of them into helping us. I'm not sure what the result will be, but it is our first step toward helping them understand. Rome was not built in a day, right? :) It does get frustrating, but we just have to keep educating the public on what it is we do! :)

Re: FIRST Robotics as a sport
 

Yeah. People don't take the time to understand FIRST. Sometimes people also think there's some grand prize or something.

Re: FIRST Robotics as a sport
 

There isn't? Dang, why have I been competing then? /humor