Chief Delphi - My Thoughts on the FTC Platform Change

Version 2.0 Edited for clarity, grammar, and content.

Let me preface this post by stating some of my background: I was on an FRC team 303 from 2001-2004, all four years of high school. The two years after, I volunteered at my local FRC regional (New Jersey). Last year, I worked as a college mentor with rookie FRC team 2016 and was a referee and volunteer for FVC competitions, including head ref at the championships. This year, I am the a faculty of co-advisor of FRC team 2016, and have continued to work with the FTC program, not only as referee and event volunteer, but on my state planning committee to run an event hosted by college department (Technology Education.) I’ve been involved as a volunteer at events from Connecticut to Delaware, two years running, with the FVC/FTC program.

Last semester, I organized a budget, wrote the curriculum for, and instructed a course in robotics, using the Vex Robotics Design system as my platform. We ran through mechanical design, AI, problem solving, sensors, some basic programming, and most importantly, critical discussion on philosophical and contemporary issues in technology, mainly related to current and emergent technologies that were robotics related.

In less than three months I will likely have a position as a full time Technology Education teacher, or I will be attending school to earn my Masters degree in Technology Education.

I am telling you all this so you have some idea of my background, which in turn may give you some insight as to what might concern me about this platform change, and what kind of perspective I may have on it.

I was attracted to the teaching profession because I enjoy it, and I believe it is very important that young people are inspired and are taught to think independently and critically. The International Technology Education Association puts forth the goal of my specific profession as teaching students how to “Use, Manage, Assess, and Understand” technology. Sounds a bit like the FIRST mission statement right?

My personal mission statement: To give students an education that teaches them not only to be able to use, manage, assess, and understand technology, but also to think critically and independently about the potential effects of emergent technologies so they may fit new tools and resources into a teleological framework that drives humanity in an informed and conscious direction.

I also enjoy teaching because I am always learning. Often students ask questions that may adults may gloss over. Fresh perspectives on a subject lead to a better understanding of the subject for everyone. Sometimes the line between teacher and student can blur a little, and that is the mark of a good classroom – everyone should be learning, even the grownups.

What is particularly rewarding about my profession is that every so often you find a student who is both highly intelligent and isn’t incapable of feeling a sense of wonder at learning new things. Finding those students and giving them a lift up out of the sea of apathy that is constantly trying to drown them is one of the reasons I pursued a career in teaching. Many of the students I’ve worked with get excited about robotics because it gives them an outlet for energy into something they feel pride and achievement in.

To connect to these students you need something that is both exciting and intellectually engaging, and allows students creative ownership over their project. The project is the means of their education. By having students take control over their education, you reverse the effects of the institution: the students learn because they want to, not because they are being told to memorize out of a book. You need to teach students to actualize themselves, which is the only way to truly foster a lifetime of education.

That being said, I was attracted to Vex as an educational tool for three main reasons:

1. It has a gentle initial learning curve, but remains a powerful tool.

I have a friend who is also a Technology Education teacher. He had to choose between Vex and the Gears IDS system, and went with Vex because it best fit his students and facilities. He gave a Vex kit to two students who couldn’t speak English and not only did they build him a squarebot, but they were excited about it. I gave my students Vex kits and had them do some simple initial design challenges with it, and they were excited about it. I gave them more advanced challenges, and they were able to use the Vex kits to do more complex things, building on their previous experiences.

The basic concept of Vex as “an erector set with a microprocessor” is very appealing to me because everyone can use it, and yet, when it is used, it can be used for very simple designs, or fiendishly complex ones. Some of the robots that I’ve seen in competitions are proof of this. Vex is scalable. It is versatile. You can use it as a simple RC car type driving platform, or you can program it to do complicated things with sensors. That’s up to the end user. The entire format is scalable, for a weeklong project to a yearlong course, to a multiyear curriculum. Add-ons to the basic kit are easily purchased, integrate fully with existing parts, and allow a program to gradually and systematically expand its inventory to fit the needs of its students.

I’ve told other people in my profession that “Robotics is the medium, not the content” Vex is great because you can use it to explore all different things: Artificial Intelligence, automation in manufacturing, principles of mechanical systems, structures and mechanisms, programming, sensors, and technological studies.

It is a multipurpose launching point, not a specific landing zone.

2. It is cost effective.

I put together the budget for my class. My cooperating teacher (and co-advisor for the FRC team) had the foresight of applying for and receiving multiple grants, which gave me a $5000 dollar operating budget. With this I set up 6 very well equipped Vex kits, the vast majority of which are reusable. He can maintain and expand the program on less than $1000 a year, and even that is being generous. To put this in perspective: an FRC team costs a minimum of $6000 **per year**. This is enough money to give **17** new Vex teams a starter kit at full retail price, or fully equip 6 teams with $1000 dollars worth of parts, or maintain 12 teams with $500 worth of parts each year.

A Vex team does not need outside support to remain fiscally stable. A team can realistically fundraise the entirety of the money they need to buy parts and travel. For about $1500, you can have a top of the line, every part off the shelf pool of materials to build from. The format of single-day tournaments cut down travel costs as well. This is a program that a Girl Scout or Boy Scout troop, an after school club, a group of friends, a big brother/big sister group or a group of home schooled students can do. There is proof of this in the makeup of FVC teams.

The nature of the cost of Vex has two main effects:

1. It makes the program easy to start up.
2. It makes the program easy to maintain.

The overriding concept here is that the Vex system is affordable for a broad range of people, and thus, can expose more students to science and technology. This is a good thing, because it means that more schools and programs can use this tool to educate and inspire students. Sounds a lot like the mission of FIRST, right?

3. Students Can Own It

This is perhaps the most important reason, I feel, that I am attracted to the Vex platform.

A major tenet of the way I teach falls under the slogan of “Learning By Doing.” Formally, this is known as “Constructivism.” I teach by presenting students with a problem, having them research the problem, brainstorm solutions, collaborate in groups to choose their best plan of solving the problem, execute their solution, assess their solution, and offer suggestions of how they could improve their solution. This forms a recursive loop that can be followed to systematically solve problems. The entire process is documented and it is the process, not the solution, which is emphasized in their assessment.

I have been a part of two (with some time spent on a third) FRC teams. I have interacted with hundreds of people in FIRST. I have talked at length with dozens, both newcomers and old-timers. I remember what it was like from 2001, and I’ve seen the program grow and change in the years since.

What I’ve found is that the culture of FIRST has changed its emphasis from what I would consider to be an optimal set of values:: there is no longer an emphasis on low-budget solutions to problems. I am attracted to a low-budget culture due to compulsory innovation: you need to innovate because the resources are not available to brute force a solution through a checkbook. With FRC, a team with the ability to do so can “buy a bigger hammer.” Vex does not have that option – no team can have a bigger hammer because everyone’s hammers are the same size and found in the same place by the same vendor. There is an equality of materials, which levels that part of the playing field. The intellectual arena is where we see the most differentiation, which is what the program should be about: good design should be celebrated, and you can’t buy a good design with Vex, you need to make it from common, standardized parts.

With the rise of big team sponsors in FIRST, the potential exists for the sponsor to exercise a large degree of ownership over the product. The temptation to resist this is sometimes lost. Individual mentors sometimes lose this temptation on their own. I think sometimes mentors have too much input into how the robot is designed and how it works.

I like Vex because it takes away a large amount of that potential. Students do not need grown-ups to do things for them: from what I've seen, students want to work on their robots - the mentor's job is to order in or cook dinner for the students working on the kitchen table or the living room floor or in the classroom after school, maybe o. the pizza and maybe offer a pointer here and there, which is fine by me. My approach is extremely low budget and student-centric. I do not touch tools unless it is to show students how to use them. I want students to come up with ideas and then execute them, using mentors as guides for the process rather than as the drivers of the process. I would rather have my students build a robot that they had designed and built themselves lose every match than for them to have a robot that they had little input in, little time designing, and less time building win every match.

The robot is the medium, not the message. The process is what counts, and I think the process that students do firsthand is more valuable than the process students learn through osmosis. Both may be beneficial for students, but I see the latter a misuse of the program's potential to give students firsthand experience in applying science and engineering principles.

Many students love getting their hands dirty and owning the project. They feel pride and achievement in building something with their own hands – something that is lost in the world of intangible grades and academics and sports. In essence, they are feeling the pride of creation. It doesn’t matter how pretty the robot looks or how it runs – they love it because it belongs to them.

As an experiment: walk around an FRC pit, and an FTC pit this year and talk to teams. How do students refer to their robots? Is it "the robot" or "our robot?" Does "the robot" have six wheels, or does "our robot" have six wheels. When students own the design and the robot, they are proud of "their" design, not "the" design.

I know this is theoretical and perhaps controversial – I am not painting every FRC team with the same brush: where teams come from and how they operate is diverse and ranges from amazing to terrible, and it is impossible to make judgments on all teams. This is not my intention. My point is that there is a potential problem here, in that overenthusiastic adults can jeopardize student ownership of the project. This can stem from the money involved. People want a tangible return on investment, and adults that have the knowledge to machine parts, design components, and run calculations can easily get caught up in the fun and get on the field, rather than stay on the sidelines.

Adults are also intimidating to students, whether the adults realize it or not. It is easy to forget that when we talk about high school students, we are talking about 14-18 year olds. When students get intimidated or scared they will back off from the project, and adult mentors sometimes step in to fill that vacuum. The medium of FRC itself adds to the intimidation and reliance on the expertise of adults.

Vex has an advantage of avoiding the problem of ownership by not needing sponsors, or heavy mentoring. As outlined before, Vex teams do not need to rely on outside funding or outside engineering support. Because Vex is a system based on design and not fabrication, you do not need heavy support from mentors to fabricate parts or use machines, nor does a team require access to facilities beyond a classroom or living room, nor tools beyond a file and tin snips.

I see fabrication as a small part of the whole when it comes to learning about science and technology: designing, I feel, is more important than pure fabrication. It is more important to know why we are building a bridge than how to build one: the “how” must come after the “why.” Vex is a system that focuses on design rather than fabrication. The design comes from students, and the fabrication is not complex as explained in the preceding paragraph. Thus, mentors can be parents or teachers or adults without a formal technical background: students can try out ideas, and if it does not work, take the robot apart and try another solution. Vex is a platform students can use with mentors as people to form a loose scaffold from which students can operate.

When I used Vex in my classroom, I would let students to figure things out on their own: I would not simply give them the answers. I feel they learned a lot more by going through the process of creatively designing and using the mathematical and conceptual tools I have taught them than simply constructing a guided solution. I give them the tools, form the scaffold, and I will catch them if they fall. I challenge them to do great things with those tools, and I firmly believe that the right students will rise to that challenge.

I see Vex as being much more conducive to a student driven process. Vex allows the Constructivist principles to be utilized: students aren’t told that something won’t work by an expert: they can see it not work, understand why it doesn’t it work by watching it fail, and then use that understanding to try a better design. With standard metal parts and hex bolts, there is more to gain by trying new things than there is to lose. With FRC, such an experiment could cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, use up time from the packed six-week schedule, and potentially be dangerous with the types of equipment being used. The Vex platform by nature does not have those constraints.

**

All this being said about why I like the Vex platform, I am at a loss to understand why FIRST would move away from it. I think some of the reasoning behind the decision lies in the reasons I have given as to why I like Vex so much: it has the potential of taking teams away from FRC, and take some prestige away from the companies that fund FRC teams. For the cost of one FRC team, a company can start five or even six Vex teams, and maintain twice that number, all while not using employee hours or resources. Look at the growth of the FTC program, and compare it to FRC. FTC is poised to outstrip FRC in terms of numbers of schools and teams, and this is only its third year, and it has been under a cloud of this platform change since the championships of last year.

It is important to note that Vex and FRC are reasonable to compare with each other because they are drawing from the same pool of constituents. The two programs also compare and contrast well with my experiences and observations drawn from my involvement with both programs.

Yes, the FTC program as it was last year and this year has its limitations, but I see some of those limitations as strengths: confining materials to the kit takes money out of the equation, closing the gap between “have” teams and “have not” teams. Materials are no longer a constraint that is determined by financial resources. Schools or organizations outside of schools easily handle the Vex kit without outside help. Moreover, the platform has great tech support and fosters a central online community that is directly connected to the company that designs and sells Vex components.

I see no real problem with the Vex platform as an education tool that fulfills a role in inspiring young people to learn about technology and science. Also, by now people have invested thousands of dollars of materials in the platform. I personally own about $2000 dollars worth of materials. The school where I work owns about $6000 worth. I am going to continue to use Vex in my classroom, until the time comes when Vex is no longer serving the best interests of my students. That time is not now. I do not feel that this platform change is in the best interests of the FIRST participants. I would be highly interested to know what has been discussed in meetings behind closed doors that triggered this reasoning. I am willing to entertain the possibility that that politics and money may be involved, as they unfortunately often are.

Quite frankly, I see no compelling reason for FIRST to shift from Vex, particularly with the FTC program gaining so much momentum. However, I think this momentum is a part of the reason behind the transition: FRC’s “little toy brother” as one experienced (and arrogant) FRC mentor put it in Atlanta last year (before I strongly corrected him) has the potential to outshine it’s bigger sibling. Vex gives me as an educator the ability to instill the ideals I value and to teach the content I want to teach much better than any other platform that I know of: it is the perfect mix of FRC and FLL, distilled into a single supported product that can be used to make sophisticated designs out of the box.

The statement that was released to the public about the new product makes a few disparaging comments about the Vex product, and I think it does what that mentor did in Atlanta: It puts down students that I have seen get excited, interested and inspired by the program. Particularly the line inferring that Vex is a “toy.” Vex is not a toy – it is a robotics platform. It is a launching pad. It is a great teaching tool. I think that even if the language was not meant to come off as such, it gives a feeling of how some people view the Vex platform, which is unfortunate and misguided, a lot like the decision to abandon this platform as the program is gaining momentum exponentially.

Now, I know some people will like what I had to say, some people will not. Quite frankly, the cries of me not being “GP” will fall on my deaf ears. I do not care how many green lights I have next to my name. I never have and never will.

Slogans are not solutions, and I will work to do the best for my students, regardless of what people say about it. I have loyalties to ideas, not products or names. Saying something is or is not an example of Gracious Professionalism is no substitute for valuing creativity, individuality, and elegance in design. To get the behavior right, you need to start with the right values, what you call it is irrelevant.

Robotics is a tool, nothing more. I will choose the tool that I feel best does the job I have set forth to do: inspiring and teaching students about science and technology. When I walk through the FVC pits and see kids working intently on their robots and pointing out with pride what they did, and how other team members contributed to the robot, it tells me that kids are investing not just their time and money but hearts and souls into building something they are proud of, and through that building the skills they need to succeed in whatever profession they choose.

Ultimately that is what inspiration is all about.