Re: College level First!
 

Why?

College students don't need to be inspired to pursue STEM education/careers. We're already doing so.

I wish FIRST spent more time figuring out how to make life easier for existing teams, and how to get us more bang for our buck, than making play time for college students.

Re: College level First!
 

I'm not 100% positive since I wasn't on the design committee, but I would guess it's somewhere along the lines of convincing those college students who swap majors to get into engineering. Something like 80% (don't quote me on that) of all college students change majors at some point or another.

Re: College level First!
 

This is wild speculation, but with the lack of diverse robot impressiveness (if you took an average FRC robot to a demo, I don't believe it would be very inspiring; I don't like it but I believe it's true [this could be solved by less discouragement of mentor participation in robot creation {perhaps intentionally designed to be so; but let's not get into an argument and get onto the main point}]), the collegiate FIRST competition may be partially in order to create more inspiring robots for publc viewing from a FIRST competition. What is more inspiring to high school football players than the next level, NCAA football? Arguably the NFL, but that's symbolically the same thing.

If this is incoherent, sorry, it's almost 5 am.

Re: College level First!
 

I wasn't able to find anything about this on the web except in this thread - could this be a hoax?

Re: College level First!
 

If you look at the end of the document you can find a link to a page on FirstForge

http://firstforge.wpi.edu/sf/project...le_exploration

So I don't believe this is a hoax

Re: College level First!
 

Whoa, where are they going to fit three more FRC sized fields at Championships?

Re: College level First!
 

I don't see it that way.

I see it as a retention program for engineering students incollege. With high drop out rates for engineering students, and there are many reasons for that, maybe FIRST is just the ticket for helping students stay.

Also, it could be used, as it is in high school, to attract the non technical student. the business students, the marketing students etc...

Is there a college level program for robotics? Most of the time the undergrad becomes the "worker bee" for the grad student doing research.

I think it s viable. My only concern is the vols that run FIRST now, would be not available for the college level program, strictly because of time, job and family commitments.

Re: College level First!
 

The event schedule made it look like they were going to swap elements out on one field between rounds...until they mention eliminations. Not sure how they're pulling that one off.

Color me cautiously optimistic here. I see the draw in trying to hook college students into FIRST programs: if they participate in a FIRST program in college, particularly one where assisting (J)FLL/FTC/FRC teams is part of the judging criteria, they are more likely to support the lower-level teams both in college and after they move into the professional world. For as much as we bemoan efforts that thrust money on FRC teams without providing them the mentor support necessary to succeed, this effort could be a Good Thing. I guess we'll find out.

Re: College level First!
 

There needs to be an ongoing recruitment of new volunteers for all programs.

I volunteer for FIRST. I volunteer for VEX. I also volunteer for other programs; some STEM-focused and some not. I am heavily involved in recruitment of volunteers, including a lot of judges.

There is tremendous overlap here in Maryland with volunteers for all programs. I was Judge Advisor yesterday for a FLL qualifier. I had the event organizer recruit the judges. Of the 14 judges, 2 were longtime FRC mentors. Three had been on FRC teams in high school -one in the late 1990's, another in the early 2000, and another 2 years ago. The recent grad (now in college) is mentoring his high school team. I also learned 3 of the judges were recruited to help with a VEX qualifier next week. Six of the judges were brand new to FIRST and this is key.

What I am realizing more and more is that the weak link to many of this efforts will be the volunteers needed to both mentor, and to put on events, particularly in the area of skills-based volunteering.

Re: College level First!
 

Nothing about this appears legitimate.

Re: College level First!
 

As recently as 2007 and 2008, that was not the case. Witness 148, 1114, and 217 in 2008; 1114, 330, 190, 71 in 2007. (And yes, the 4 for 2007 were in a single "class" of robot, IIRC.)


Interesting, but I think I'll stick with designing airplanes in SAE Aero Design for a while. The local UAV team would probably figure it's too easy.

Re: College level First!
 

Anyone else notice that the Championship, being moved to the end of April in St. Louis, is within 1 week of exams at most colleges?

Re: College level First!
 

Yeah, I'm not saying it is fake, but I find it very odd that there has been nothing from FIRST even mentioning this. How are they going to get 6 more university teams if they make people aware of the video? What 6 universities have signed up?

Re: College level First!
 

And the start of AP tests.

Re: College level First!
 

Why wasn't this mentioned in Bill's Blog? They've been doing a pretty good job lately of giving the FRC community a heads up for all upcoming things through BB, and for something of this nature to slip through the cracks seems unlikely.