Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

I agree with others who have said that, while you can still gain experience and know-how from engineers and mentors from only attending off-season events, a team would be missing out on the official FIRST program. They would also miss out on the diversity of teams that attend the various events--a variety which may not be found in all off-season competitions.


Another concern that I would have with a team only attending off-season events is the fact that these teams would be facing other teams who have been to one or more official FIRST competitions. They would be facing teams who already have a feel for the game in a competition setting. I could be wrong, but I feel as if this would be a major disadvantage to the off-season event team(s). Granted, they could make this up by attending multiple off-season events and gaining experience, but I still feel like they would have a lot of work ahead of them.

Very thought-provoking question.

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

If you are looking at IRI as the Çhampionship event, you have to think about the big picture and the overall impact on the team and how it conducts itself in FIRST. The robot competition is important but so is the character of the team as well. To hurry and compete in a few off-seasons won't showcase the quality and character of the team fairly when applying for a spot.

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

One thing that no one has brought up, yes you could build a killer robot but you would no practice in driving it. In my opinion 1114 wasnt a stellar robot completely because of their design. (Not to say the design wasnt awesome) They were stellar because their drivers were good. Even better example, 148. Their robot was by no means the fastest in a straight speed test. Their drivers were just wicked awesome. Point is, those teams had a LOT of practice. Try putting rookie drivers in during the eliminations of a national division and you should see what your drivers would be facing. The off season competitions like IRI are so awesome because everyone knows what they are doing.

Just my .02

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

We sort of have a related situation in a very limited sense now when the pre-rookies play with loaner robots in our off-season competitions.

Granted, they typically only do this a few months before joining the full program, however, on Long Island we've had perennial pre-rookies who never were able to get it together enough to register. One school in particular has done it for three years running. Even when we have them shadow our teams through a FIRST season, unless they fully commit the potential just doesn't get realized.

The goal is to get them into the full FIRST program, of course, because they miss out on so much. They haven't sweated through the build season or even the concept and design process and so don't experience most of the FIRST benefits. They do get the camraderie of working together to repair the robots, and the experienced students work closely with them on all aspects.

I think it's viable for teams that have to drop out for a season due to a lack of finances, but only to maintain the team as they try to pull their finances together to compete officially again.

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

I think this would be a pretty big issue. If your "6 week build period" is after the official FRC season is over, your team will have already have seen which designs work well, and which ones don't. That kind of takes out the fun of brainstorming from scratch, and coming up an idea for something for which there isn't any good documented answers yet. And when you go to sign up for an off season event, what will they say when you tell them you designed your robot after watching all of this year's regionals? Seems like it would give you an unfair advantage at these events.

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

I really want to thank Corey for bringing up this discussion and playing "Devil's Advocate" with this topic. I also want to thank the responders for the respectful way in which they are replying. Its great to stop and think about the benefits of each part of the year.

As the organizer of an off-season event going into its 9th year (Ramp Riot), I can tell you that our goal is to "simulate" the regular season as best we can. I think our event comes very close, but it is not quite the regular season. When people come to Ramp Riot as thier first ever robotics event, they are often amazed. But what I will tell them is that if you think this is amazing, come to the Philly Regional in March and you'll be knocked off your feet.

But I think the two seasons need each other for FIRST to thrive. They both hold importance in different ways. The off-season is an opportunity to experiment, train, have relaxed fun, and inspire new schools and sponsors The off-season provides an environment for very long term learning for new members.

The regular season experience goes beyond words and has been covered well by others in this thread. Enough said by me. :-)

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

1618 is in a bit of a similar boat here. We've always been a one-regional team (historically Palmetto, but we did Chesapeake this year for better timing at incrementally-higher cost). From Columbia, South Carolina, any other competition (in-season or not) involves overnight travel. In our judgment, we can gain more for thousands of dollars less from a regional and a fall off-season event than two regionals. Competing in the fall allows us to get the hooks in with our new kids; while it might not be to the same degree as a regional or the Championship, it may just be enough to make sure they're not drawn away in build season.

Of course, as always, I'd direct a team to figure out how they can best achieve their goals; if they're doing them, I can't complain.

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

I wholeheartedly disagree!!! Fun is the number one reason kids get interested in robotics through FIRST. Take fun away and you might as well kill the whole thing.

Corey is right about how the off season events offer an alternative to expensive FIRST regionals. I wouldn' t go so far as to say abandon the season altogether but I will say that our team has a lot more fun at off season events these days than at many official regionals. Frankly what has made the official season so unenjoyable is more the human, "official" beaurocratic factors than the game itself.
The off season, at least around here, offers a fun time at a cheap price where playing is often more valuable than winning. And there aren't picayune inspectors and over zealous refs to ruin the good time.

FIRST is about changing the culture of how people think about engineering. Making it fun makes it desirable to the kids and shows them that they can actually get interested in something academic that can also be entertaining.
Most of our teams here learn about FIRST by having FUN at an off season and then going through the agony of their first build season.
Of course we could show them that engineering is tedious, boring and nothing but hard work. I am sure that would really bring in the new teams.

WC

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

We've actually joked that we are an "off-season" team, as we are hoping to make it a habit to go to at least four different off-season events, possibly more in the future. However this is in addition to the normal season, not as a replacement.

I think a team would miss out a lot on not going to a regional event, and especially on not going to Atlanta, but they are going to miss out even more if there is no team at all because they can't afford it. If a team were to hit a rough patch and couldn't afford a regional, I think attending off-season events would be a cheap way to keep the team going during a time of troubles, or a cheap way to get a team started. I'd rather a team attend only off season events than no events at all.

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

I for one would not want to miss the build season, even with all of its' stresses and challenges.
Not all teams are able to do field trips after a certain point of the year. Many schools in WI set this date in the beginning of May.
I wonder if it would be hard to recruit/maintain sponsors and students without the competition season. It seems like it is more work to get things done during the offseason but maybe that is because some of us like pretend there actually is an "offseason" even though we all know that never really happens.

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

Something Billfred said just occured to me. If you participate in fall off season events, that is a great way to show newcomers what they'll be doing in January. I would've benefitted in a positive way from that in my rookie year. It'd give them drive during the build seson, and goals to reach, even if the game is different. I would've become more involved if I knew what was coming, as far as going to BMR is concerned.

Here's a question which is in part connected to this thread, but if it isn't feel free to let me know. I've heard people say "If you thought BMR was fun, just wait until IRI", but I've also heard ot the opposite "If you think this such and such off saeson event is fun, just wait 'til you get to an actual regional". In your opinion, which is better FOR YOU, a regional or an off season event(mind you, they're both awesome.)?

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

The answer to that would obviously be an unequivocal no. There are dozens of established teams that applied but didn't make the IRI invitation list this year.

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

I don't deny that participating in FIRST is fun. Dean Kamen's "It's the hardest fun you'll ever have" would make a great tagline for a recruitment commercial. Removing the fun would indeed kill the program. But I maintain my position: it's not about the fun.

If fun were the goal, we could meet it much more easily by building the program around huge parties instead of around robot competitions. Come to think of it, we do tend to build huge parties around the competitions, because we want everyone to have fun. But we still have the engineering and mentorship and science and technology as the foundation.

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

IRI is fun but BMR is much more important to our team.

IRI may be the toughest competition of the year but it's still just an off-season event.

Re: Offseasons as your Regular Season?
 

Folks,

Once FIRST changes "the culture" and hundreds of local leagues (resembling local baseball, soccer, etc. leagues) are thriving; and once "seasons" include more than a very small handful of very expensive tournaments (again, think of local sports leagues); won't the inspiring program "received" by those teams much more closely resemble the challenging and fun experience of prepping for and attending several current off-season events, than the challenging and fun experience of prepping for and attending 1-N current regionals?

Look down the road toward the big-picture goal we assert that we are striving for. What do you see at the end of that road?

Blake