Collegiate FIRST competition
 

So there was the thread started just prior to the 2010 World Championships about a collegiate FIRST Blimp competition. Has there been any real discussion about such a possibility? I just received the September issue of Servo and though that a Hooverbot game might be a bit more interesting. Velocities could be higher than blimps, control and agility would be better as well.:]

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

I'm glad you posted this Andrew! I was going to make a thread in the next week or two, but now is as good of a time as any.

There certainly are discussions in the works. We have a planning committee that is working through all of the logistics to make a pilot competition a reality at the 2011 World Championship in St. Louis!

As a sneak preview, the game is likely to involve Quadcopters - 4 rotor aerial vehicles that have quite a bit of zip!

We would be happy to hear input from teams and we could even do so through this thread. What do you think would be important to see at the collegiate level? That goes for the game, the robots, the engineering challenges, the Gracious Professionalism and so on.

If you're interested in participating in the challenge, working with the committee or volunteering in some other way, please email me directly and we can go from there. You can reach me at FIRSTSeniorMentor 'at' gmail.com or through CD.

Thank you in advance!

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

I never really thought that FIRST could be done on a collegiate level, just because during college competitions are usually based around the robot itself versus FIRST competition's where the way you interact is a part.

However, with that said, I would be more than interested in participating in one. The game would probably have to be much harder or the kits would have to be more basic. I feel that now FIRST has gotten very tight about the KOP, and especially with last year's game, that you're starting to see very similar robots. So something where not just the robot design but the actual hardware/software/electrical components can be different.
Basically something in between DARPA and FRC.

Also, add a formal design report, and presentation instead of the Chairman's presentation I guess.

So instead of Chairman's being the highest award, it should like Engineering Design, the actual report of the team, how well the presentation is, and how well they applied the principles. Although, that might be a bit tough on the judges.

I would be super excited to start a collegiate level team out here in University of Illinois - Urbana, for this and still be involved in FRC.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

FIRST in college does nothing to advance the goals of FIRST. I honestly don't see how it has a purpose.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Well Chris, let me take a minute to enlighten you! Have a look at the vision and mission of FIRST found here: http://usfirst.org/aboutus/content.aspx?id=34.

Right off the bat, Dean has always been clear:
"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders." - Dean Kamen, Founder

The principle behind collegiate level first is to, in Dean's words, create the NCAA of FIRST.

The goal is to not only challenge college students at a greater level beyond what they see in typical curriculum, but to also provide inspiration to younger FIRST students in the other programs. Students play sports with dreams of becoming professional athletes. In FIRST there is much less visibility for our professionals, with the Collegiate Challenge we are building another venue through which to have a window into that world.

As it stands, a large majority of FIRST students do head off to college; this is terrific, but it takes more than just a college education to be a leader and innovator in today's world. That's where the values pervasive to FIRST provide the complimentary education necessary to excel.

I hope that helps provide a bit more insight! We will have an official release in the near future and it should paint a more broad picture of where we are headed.

I should also mention that the Collegiate level of FIRST will continue to embrace the values of community and Gracious Professionalism, and hopefully take things to an entirely new level!

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

This is great feedback! We definitely plan on emphasizing the engineering challenge. One of the possibilities is requiring teams to submit what would amount to a conference paper detailing the design decisions and engineering principles that underlie their robots.

We recognize the same dilemma in other robotics challenges. Not to point any fingers, but it's not just about the robot, it's about the experience of creating, engineering, innovating, problem solving, leading, being part of a team and so much more. I doubt we'll get it right on the first go around, but we're certainly going to give it our best shot.

From our discussion so far, I think we're close to your analogy of a middle ground between DARPA and FRC, although we are going to try and keep things somewhat contained and spectator friendly. That said, the KOP should be limited and the overall rule-set should be greatly reduced within the limits of safety. The idea being, allow students to be clever and innovative; let them come up with something so wild that it surprises everyone. We don't want it to be one of those trudge through the rules for loopholes, but more along the lines of insight and innovative engineering.

We can discuss your University's participation as well, please feel free to send me an email or PM. I imagine you must be involved with the JSDC during Engineering Open house, I have traveled to UIUC for the past 3 or so years with the ITR teams out of Chicago. The JSDC folks put on quite an event!

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

I love it,

My only comment is be sure to make it more NCAA than DARPA.
The best part about FRC is the head to head competition, having 'bots fly thought an obstacle course one at a time is neat but it isn't FIRST, FIRST is head to head, intense action.

I can't wait to play

Danny B

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Mr. Jones,

I won't pretend to know more about the goals of FIRST but, as a college senior I feel I must chime in on this topic.

Collegiate level FIRST would be competing with such things as FSAE and other engineering challenges. Based on my limited experience I have noticed that the passion for FRC diminishes greatly after high school for many students. (This is based on my observations at Kettering University and is i no way conclusive) In addition to competing for student time it would also compete for funding, I know for a fact that Formula Zero (building a fuel cell powered race car) is not cheap and has required substantial outside support and thousands of man hours to get to the point where we have an electrical system that can be used. I imagine FIRST Collegiate would be the same way. Given the state of the economy would it be proper to start a new program to take away from the existing programs that do a phenomenal job of furthering our knowledge?

From another perspective, as an organization FIRST has a finite amount of man power. I know that everyone involved in the FIRST program, from the college mentors up to to the President of FIRST has a finite amount of time they can give. Personally I would like to see that man power directed at a new generation of students rather than have more expended on me.

So, really I just question whether it is the best use of FIRST's resources or if the goals might be furthered by partnering with an existing group or admitting that by college most students have already decided what they are passionate about.

I also understand the desire to allow college students to inspire high schoolers, as a college mentor myself I personally feel great pleasure when I see students who otherwise would not have gone to college inspired to go to school. However, I am going to be completely blunt here, the vast majority of college students are not going to be good mentors yet. They are going to be, for want of a better description, college students. Now, there are exceptions, I've had the pleasure of meeting and working with some phenomenal college mentors and would like to think that I am at least a mediocre mentor (Picone, hush!) but by and large college students sometimes set some very bad examples.

Of course, I could be way off base here, the only real way to find out would be to try it and see how it works out I suppose.

-Andrew Schreiber

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

That's a pretty harsh statement there, Chris. Especially coming from a kid who talks about VEX robots all the time and wanting to have a team....

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Haha true! I think that college and FIRST can go hand in hand. My older brother takes stuff from grad school back to FRC and vice versa and then to work.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

So in regards to college and FIRST type competitions, consider programs such as community colleges which likely don't have mini-formula one racer programs are even a machine shop. FIRST or other robotics programs are not yet in 100% of high schools so there are still untouched students entering college. A FIRST type competition might fit a niche for 2 year colleges which have intro to engieering and technical certificate programs. These students could gain from the design/budget/time constraints of competition as well as possibly inspiring yournger students or working to motivate the most popular major (undeclared) in college to consider STEM majors.

I would suggest that more emphasis on autonomous and sensor input but not 100% autonomous. Would be great if there was machine to machine interaction as well. To fit the nich of community colleges, a standard kit with allowances for raw materials and custom electronic sensors.

<edit>
Let me add after posting that I would prefer the vehicle to not have wheels. Hoverbot, quadcopter, blimp...

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

I understand that this thread isn't a poll, but if it were, I would be quick to join the side that the college environment isn't suitable for the ideals of FIRST. FIRST as an organization has continued to define itself by far more than the practice of innovation and engineering and that is what makes it inspiring; at least from my perspective. In almost a cheesy way, FIRST has introduced the ideas time and time again that the most important foundations of this specific organization are the building of a community with a shared interest and passion in science and technology. Far more than the practice of these skills in FIRST is the introduction of a new sort of education policy, from a tributary: FIRST to secondary school curricula--this is to integrate this idea of mentorship or apprenticeship: informal, more accessible and more practical math and science education into this setting. Far more than the actual study and practice of engineering, FIRST aims to create that spark and that enthusiasm for these fields that is found in FIRST which is why many college students become disinterested. What I have come to understand as a FIRST student, volunteer and frequenter of CD on a regular basis is that FIRST is "first" and foremost an educational organization. The medium and nothing more is competition. By introducing FIRST into the collegiate plane, an example is created for those secondary school participants to further define the goal of FIRST- one that many find obscure to begin-as an organization whose aim is not for them to learn in a new way to find that enthusiasm but to compete, win and feel that FIRST is primarily a sport. The way I see it, FIRST builds the interest and creates an incomparable educational experience. Once the student graduates FIRST, his job more than to become an engineer and continue to compete is to educate, to mentor and to share both his experience and his enthusiasm.

Sravan's statement exemplifies the logic of my argument. If for what this new game strives is anything other than the concept of what the Chairman's award rewards, is it still a FIRST competition? There is nothing wrong with this direction, I don't mean to say that at all, but for discussion's sake, is that FIRST or something else entirely?

If the students are already formally and effectively studying to earn a degree in this discipline, what becomes the purpose of the FIRST competition?

When "the robot is only an instrument", when FIRST is so much more than a science and technology competition, how is Chris' point anything but valid? Before a game is designed, this idea should definitely continue to be evaluated.

I disagree that the main purpose of FIRST is to guide students to pursue careers in science and engineering. Is that invalid?

Sam Alexander
Columbia University Class of '13
Alumni Team 341- Miss Daisy

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

You pretty much just described the VEX Robotics College Competition, now in its third year, featuring the rules you ask for, multiple tournaments, and a world championship event. Ninety-three teams competed last year. http://content.vexrobotics.com/docs/...-Challenge.pdf

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

I do want to have a VRC College Challenge, but I've never even once thought my VRC College team would ever inspire anyone to pursue engineering as a career. It would just be a fun thing to do. Do you seriously think I'd be able to inspire anyone at RPI to change their major by being in VRC? To be perfectly honest I don't understand what you mean at all.

The reason I said what I did is because nearly any student that could be inspired by FIRST has already decided whether or not they are going into STEM by the time they enter college. No one goes to MIT or Caltech to major in English, and I've never heard of an incredibly successful engineer who went to Harvard. FIRST is about inspiring students to pursue science and engineering as a career. The way FIRST does this is by giving the students a challenge and a complex problem to solve, hopefully working with some awesome professional engineers on the way.

I understand the sports analogy, but I don't think a college program would inspire any more students to pursue engineering than something like Battlebots would. For a college program, the inspirees are all watching from a distance. They do not interact with the program at all. If you're aiming for a competition that's so incredible to watch that people go "man, I want to do that! How can I do that???", why have a program for college students with no funding base and no foundation when the existing Battlebots program has already been around for years? Battlebots is even televised.

The reason I react so strongly against this, though, is because I can't exactly see a way that this wouldn't take funding away from FRC teams. Colleges in FRC who want to do this would have to come up with thousands more dollars, so I bet more than a few would go "well we don't need to support that OTHER FIRST thing anymore". Any corporate money going to this would probably be better spent on new and sustainable FRC teams, which have a much higher "inspiration quotient" per team than any college team.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

If I wanted to see quadrotors (or hexarotors) built by college students flying through an obstacle course or something like that, I'd join my college's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle team. Their objective is to autonomously enter a building, navigate through it to a particular room, and replace a thumb drive with a dummy one--while avoiding security cameras and other devices. Oh, and they're starting their second year of this particular challenge. Nobody got it last year...

I'm with the others here. There are literally dozens of college-level engineering challenges in any number of majors. If you're going to add one more, you'll have to get it accepted by somebody at several different schools.

BTW, if you are going to use quadrotors or something like that, safety, safety, safety. Prop guards should not be an optional item if you're flying near crowds, and safety zones ("no-walk" zones) need to be established. I'd also get in touch with the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) if it's a flying competition--they'll a) want to know that it's happening, b) possibly support the event, c) provide safety tips, d) they know what they're doing when it comes to flying things.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Several observations that may be of interest:

The few robotics competitions that include high school and college teams that I have been involved with, often result in a high school team outscoring college teams. Thus the FRC game might be appropriate for college level play as well. No need to invent a new game, just a new league. It would be cheaper for FIRST and the $6000 (?) fee for the college would be relatively cheap.

A goal of a college team should be to include non engineering students. An inner disciplinary team that includes English, Art, Humanities and Business majors in an engineering project would have a very positive impact on them as well as the engineering students.

The college teams should be required to submit a Chairman's paper and presentation and both should be public. We would all learn a lot from them.

I have heard from a number of former students how disappointing freshman engineering can be. They don't really have an authentic project until their senior year. (Not everyone goes to Olin college) For the FIRSTers, it is kind of a letdown after the adrenalin rush of their high school years.

A few years ago we had a graduate young lady enter ASU's college of Construction. She was just about the only female in her classes and felt maybe she might switch majors. After class one day, one of her professors asked if she had a moment. It seems the college had to make a presentation for an important grant and the faculty felt it would help if a student was part of the team. She accepted and asked why she was chosen. The professor replied, "Since you were on a FIRST team, you know how to work on a project and make presentations." They were awarded that grant. She graduates next spring with a B.S. in general construction.

A collegiate FIRST experience would include many challenges, not just the technical skills needed to build a robot. Organization, fund raising, communications, publicity, conflict management, scheduling, community outreach, networking... All the "real world" skills future engineers need to learn and practice before graduation.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Wouldn't this exact statement be a reason for a college level FIRST competition?

It has been debated for years now about college students roles as mentors, particularly ones in their first couple of years removed from high school. If these students can focus on their own competition wouldn't it help both sides? The college students can continue to develop skills and learn (what college is technically supposed to be for) while the high school students are not subject to "bad mentoring".


Considering we don't know much besides the word quadcopters I would suggest we stop speculating as to what the actual challenge is. Lets try to be constructive and offer our thoughts and experiences as college students who may be interested in something like this.


-Brando

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

<a slight veer off-topic>

Chris. Perhaps a little research is in order.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

This is correct, the main goal of FIRST is to inspire students.

College students I believe fit that criteria. I think where your and my opinion is different is that once you hit college and choose a major your life isn't set in stone. I know tons of people who become engineers (aka earn a degree) who are not cut out to be one and shift gears way after their undergrad days. I also know quite a few people who became engineers long after they earned their first bachelor's degree. Who's to say you can't change your mind sometime down the road.


This is a legitimate concern, but cmon, this by no means is insurmountable. There would definitely be a correct way to do this versus just going out and gobbling up funding.

Keep in mind though, the amount of colleges that are involved with FRC versus the amount of colleges not involved with FRC are not even remotely comparable (meaning tons of colleges are not involved with FIRST). The only issues you would run into would be with colleges who already directly support FRC teams (meaning give money to a team), which is small potatoes compared to the entire college landscape.

Theres going to be challenges absolutely, but I don't see why a collegiate FRC program shouldn't exist. I think it very readily could be the answer to a lot of the concerns/issues involved with college mentors.

-Brando

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

I have a friend who's an MIT graduate in History. He does have to explain his degree whenever the topic comes up.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Perhaps I'm jumping the gun on Collegiate FIRST. Sorry about that.

I really should do some... I was going off personal experience and such. At RPI for example, engineering is a very difficult program to get into, and they have other disciplines they are kind of sort of working to build upon. I don't think they would be willing to finance a program that would make people stay at RPI longer after a late major shift, or one designed to overbloat their engineering program by making another 25 or so people jump ship every year..

While a lot of schools have large and broad programs in many disciplines, unlike high school many colleges specialize in liberal arts or the sciences. If you applied to MIT and got in, chances are you don't despise STEM and have already thought about this kind of thing.

I agree completely, but at the same time I guess I find it hard to believe that there would be an extracurricular that would successfully attract non-STEM students to work on an incredibly hard challenge in a discipline they didn't consider before college. It's hard enough getting "non robotics kids" on the team in high school, where every 10 seconds you're told you can do anything you want to with your life. How could this program appeal to different disciplines?

I actually know of someone who graduated from Caltech with an English degree. He did explain that he was one of 3 in his class year, and that the majority were double majors.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

It's hard when you make generalizations based on just personal experience.

Just a little FIRST story based on my personal experience.
I had the pleasure of being a judge at FRC events outside of my geographic area for 3 years. One of my judging partners worked for a very big, very famous company. This person was an engineer. This person gave money to the regional where we met as judges. And much to my surprise this person sent a check to help teams in my geographic area after I told a story about some teams.

This person graduated from Harvard.

I don't know what your definition of "incredibly successful engineer" is but I don't think it is the same as mine.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Some of the opposition I'm seeing to the idea of a FIRST competition for college students appears based on a misunderstanding of FIRST's goals. I won't dispute the claim that few students will change their direction and pursue engineering or technology based on the existence of such a competition. But I'll point out that the claim is not especially relevant to what FIRST is trying to do. Sure, we might not inspire more people to take up engineering as a profession, but in FIRST's name _I_nspiration is no more important than _R_ecognition.

We don't need to convince business or education or theatre majors to become engineers in order to promote the celebration of science and technology in society. We just need to make engineering an interesting everyday thing, as visible as art exhibits or concerts or football games. Some people become recognized as outstanding photographers or pianists or ball-throwers. If we find the right way to present things, some people will be similarly recognized as outstanding problem-solvers.

So don't dismiss a post-highschool engineering competition as undeserving of FIRST's attention. It's not the same focus as the programs aimed at younger students, but it can serve the same ultimate purpose.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Freshmen engineering classes are definitely disappointing to many if you expect to be a shop rat all day long and are instead stuck at a desk doing integral after integral. That said, not getting involved in some kind of technical club at an engineering school is rather silly. You definitely don't need to go to Olin to get hands on experience. I didn't visit a school with a solid engineering program that didn't have student run engineering clubs like Formula SAE, Formula Hybrid, Mini Baja, Design/Build/Fly, Concrete Canoe, Steel Bridge, etc. And if you end up at a school that doesn't have a team you're interested in, start one!

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

So as a post from a day or so ago suggested, can we bring this discussion back around to what would make a good FIRST Collegiate Competition? I wonder of the Federal Communication Commission would mind FIRST using FCC as the moniker:rolleyes: FRC, FTC, FLL

So I am on record as having something kit based, no wheels allowed (Hooverbot, quadcopter, blimp...) with expanded autonomous and more emphasis on sensors with a desire for machine to machine interaction.

Any other ideas out there?

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Who is the 'we'?

Jane

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

I'm beginning to wonder the same thing. Bill's Blog hasn't had anything, or email blast, Dean hasn't said anything either, and CD isn't the most official means for FIRST to begin discussion on a topic.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Thank you all for the very serious discussion! You bring up a plethora of important obstacles, decisions and talking points. It's clear why it has taken so long for FIRST to come this far, and I hope we can address many of these challenges and emphasize the good in the months ahead as we develop the pilot program.

There's more than one reason we use Collegiate instead of University!

The current "we" is comprised of college faculty and administration, students from college and FIRST programs around the country and mentors from various FIRST programs. The group is working with support from Manchester and actively recruiting additional members. If you or anyone else is interested, please talk to me; there are a number of roles to be filled. Clearly, there is a lot to be considered in designing a pilot!

Thank you again everyone for the feedback! All of your comments have been and will continue to be reviewed and taken seriously. I'm sure you'll hear more from us in the future!

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Today we have an update for everyone interested in this program.

The planning committee is happy to share with you our kickoff video for the 2011 pilot event to be hosted at the World Festival in St. Louis!

Here is the link to the 20-minute kickoff video: http://vimeo.com/17484250

We stress this in the video, but let me just repeat it here: everything is preliminary! There are many components of the pilot pending official marketing approval and, as this is a pilot, some aspects of the program are bound to change.

Please enjoy and we welcome your feedback!

College level First!
 

http://vimeo.com/17484250

A new tier of FIRST is now in it's pilot stage, and the video which gives an over view of the whole program was released only a few hours ago. Rules are as follows, enjoy!

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&p...thkey=CM2L9sIG

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.

Re: College level First!
 

I am not sure Bill knew too much about it. He is the director of FRC, as I see it, this is not FRC.

Re: College level First!
 

I was at the meeting in Atlanta last year on behalf of Purdue University and Purdue FIRST Programs. Dean was there as were some other big hitters in FIRST so I definitely feel this is legitimate.

What the video mentions with the games and ideas are pretty much exactly what was presented. I gave our contact information because we were interested in being a part of this but no one ever contacted us and I figured the project had died down.

I would have expected a press release on usfirst.org or some other more official announcement. However I get the feeling that the committee was acting outside of FIRST but with the approval to design something (similar to how FIRST in Michigan began).

The timing is a bit late and I wish they had announced the intent to hold this sooner. It is likely too late to form a Purdue team (at least one from Purdue FIRST Programs) given our structure and budget is essentially set in August.

Here is another vote for cautious optimism.

Re: College level First!
 

Do other people have an weird feeling about how this might be connected to the penn tennis ball and the number 4?

Re: College level First!
 

some of the who, why, and how discussion took place in the following thread.

Re: College level First!
 

The problem being you're naming leas than 10 robots, not half the FRC. You can't spotlight 10 robots across the country without regular national television. You can, however, spotlight 900 robots across the country.

The idea of collegiate FIRST being that without as much of a learning experience, the teams could focus on, or even wouldn't have to focus more on, the building of the robot. This would presumably lead to robots that are more impressive for public demonstration to draw students into STEM, if not FIRST programs themselves.

Re: College level First!
 

Seems like a good way to keep people involved so they don't 'drop out of FIRST' when they graduate high school. This way they'd be more inclined to come back as mentors and donors when they enter the real world.

Re: College level First!
 

I also agree that it does not seem legitimate. They consistently use FIRST without italics in the document.
However, the website seems real.
This is rather confusing.

Re: College level First!
 

I'll be pretty blunt here. This sounds pretty stupid at first glance?

Why should college students not mentor FRC teams? Because they have far too much of a workload for that, right? So... they should have another competition instead? Wouldn't that just be the same giant time sink?

How could this competition inspire anyone in college? Trying to get people to change their major is just silly. When you consider how hard it is to get into most school engineering programs, and when you consider you basically have to change major by the end of freshman year to stay on the engineering track, there's no way this of all things is going to inspire someone, who happened to enroll in an engineering intensive school but opted out of an engineering major (meaning they probably already thought about it) to suddenly jump ship. The odds are overwhelming that they're already in a different STEM-related major.

Will this help retain engineering majors? I don't see how it would help more than the several dozen other robotics, aerospace, and engineering competitions out there. And really, the main reason I see people fail engineering is because of the work load, which this would certainly not help with.

When FTC teams still pay twice as much as VRC teams for a similar experience and FRC teams are as unsustainable as ever, still struggling to survive unless they happen to be a rookie team, it seems just stupid that this is what FIRST chooses to spend money on.

Re: College level First!
 

This is FIRST folks and why it's not in Bill's Blog, or Ken's Blog or the equivilant FLL blog is that it is not FRC, FTC or FLL. Now why it is not on the FIRST homepage and some official announcement I don't know other than this is coming out on a weekend.

However, this is FIRST folks who are creating this with full knowledge of HQ. Here is a quote from the main organizer who is a FIRST Senior Mentor and has presented several key bits of information already.

Re: College level First!
 

This still seems not entirely well thought out. I don't know why FIRST would waste money drawing their own volunteers away from FRC, FTC, and FLL teams.

Additionally, programs like the SAE collegiate design series and various university level robotics design programs do more or less the same thing. This seems like wasted effort. If the problem is people dropping out due to lack of interest, this is probably the wrong way to attack it, since other similar competitions already exist.

Re: College level First!
 

Are you suggesting that these college teams will have trouble being financially stable? If so your university/college (especially if it's a public university) has a lot more funding options than most people realize and these funding options typically don't have a limit to them.

Re: College level First!
 

Grouse, grouse, grouse, grumble, grumble, grumble.

I'm in the wait and see mode.

There is a lot of opportunity contained within this pilot program. I'd like to see where it takes us.

Jane

Re: College level First!
 

I'm suggesting FRC could use all of the money and resources it will pour into this venture to make their other programs better. This program seems to exist to the detriment of FRC teams.

Re: College level First!
 

It would be interesting to see how much money they are throwing towards this, if that video is any indication I would assume they aren't going broke over it.

Re: College level First!
 

Could it possibly be a WPI-run program that has the blessing from FIRST to use it's logo and terms?
In that way FIRST is not directly responsible for funding and running the program.

Re: College level First!
 

i like the idea of having a college level program but also would probably never be part of it if it is during the same time as the FRC build. i started mentoring a first team almost right out of high school and cant just go away and play my own games.

Re: College level First!
 

I'd guess the reason they aren't leaving this to FSAE and other colleiate engineering programs is because:
1. Those focus on college student skill sets, not inspiration of younger students. A collegiate FIRST competition would be widely publicised through the programs of FIRST.
2. They think they can do a collegiate engneering program better.

Those are really the only reasons to do something like this, though I hope #2 doesn't factor in. The first one is quite legitimate.

Re: College level First!
 

Where is the word, scholarships, in your #1 and #2 reasons?

Where is the phrase, better access, in your #1 and #2 reasons?

Where is the word, potential, in your #1 and #2 reasons?

Jane

Re: College level First!
 

It's great to see everyone's early thoughts and discussion about the program. Let me take a minute to re-emphasize some of the disclaimers and address some of your concerns.

First, this program is entirely generated and produced by a volunteer group of students, faculty and engineers from institutions around the country. We are collaborating with FIRST operations, the Championship Planning Committee, and other divisions as appropriate.

As for legitimacy, remember, this is not a full-blown FIRST program yet. This is a pilot to explore all of the intricacies and challenges with hosting an event at this level. The reason there is no official release from FIRST is that this program is pending marketing approval from FIRST. The program doesn't even have a name yet! Once we hash out these issues, I'm sure you'll hear more from HQ.

As for overlap with FRC, the only reason the kickoff is now or the season happens to coincide with FRC is the timing of the World Festival at the end of FRC Season. We've considered many possible season formats including having no set season at all. This goes the same for the timing of the World Festival with regard to finals, but as rtfgnow pointed out, HS students manage with AP tests. Our hope is to learn from the pilot and make the best decisions we can.

For program sponsorship, the pilot will be entirely self-funded and volunteers will be separate from those currently working at the World Festival. You can think of it like building a start-up company that FIRST proper may choose to "purchase".

In the end, we all overcome adversity to participate in FIRST. As they say, it's the hardest fun you'll ever have.

Also, this program has been spearheaded out of Illinois Institute of Technology with contributors from WPI, Oakland University, University of Wisconsin Platville, PACE University, Northeastern University and Stanford.

I'm sure there are many other things to think about, and we will continue to hear all of your feedback! We definitely appreciate the optimism, however cautious.

Re: College level First!
 

I am naming representative samples. 148=lapbot, 1114=launcher, 217 was a different type of launcher. In the other year, all 4 robots, IIRC were "hybrid" class--but had 4 different types of ramps and multiple types of arms. There were also pure ramps, pure arms, and the odd box-on-wheels. You can't "spotlight" 900 teams, simply because that's an area light, not a spotlight. Also, 3 of the 4 in 2007 are in the Behind the Design book for that year.

For CJ, I think you've hit a pretty good difficulty level with the challenge, but having 3 different challenges is pretty tricky. I'd also suggest clarifying what "Triathalon" is in the rules; it's mentioned as the finals format but not clearly defined/described. (Also, if I brought this up to SDSM&T's UAV team, they'd look at me like I was crazy--they have to go through a 1-m square opening, find a room, find a thumb drive in the room and replace it with an identical one, and exit, in 5 minutes if they fly "dirty" and 10 minutes if they avoid all the security systems in the place...autonomously. And they're looking into landing on a ground vehicle or something like that.)

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

To say that this will turn into the NCAA of robot associations is stretching it a bit far. Also, I am not sure there will be much of a market for collegiate FIRST for various reasons. Anyone that is a college student that has tried to do anything with robotics in college knows that getting funding for anything from a college takes awhile. The recent economic struggles and colleges priorities of where to put money into do not go hand in hand with a program like FIRST. Vex and IEEE are much more suitable college competitions. Finally most college students, especially engineering students do not have time to devote 100% effort into a FIRST team. I like the enthusiasm about the program though and have loved the idea since its inception but I'm just calling it like I see it here.

-Drew D.

Re: College level First!
 

I'm curious what effect this program will have on FRC, if any. My gut instinct is to say that it might cause a division of resources (volunteer time, mentor time, money, tools) between the different programs.

Re: College level First!
 

To my best knowledge, those are already offered in collegiate engneering programs (correct me if I'm wrong). So if anything that'd be covered in #2, FIRST believes they can give better access, more scholarships, and deliever more potential than other programs, which is certainly covered #2. That said, what FIRST believes is not good enough in other programs is important, and I appreciate you having brought that up.

@Eric: True, but with 900 impressive robots, you can you can show them toe everyone. The only way to show a few robots everywhere is national TV, which is for the most part out of reach, at least for now.

By creating many impressive robots, and focusing on doing that, then inspiring following a season, collegiate FIRST would be a strong way to inspire without any sort of major revamp of FRC.

Re: College level First!
 

Or we could reinvigorate FRC by helping FRC teams around the country become more sustainable. Instead of funding the ridiculous growth of rookie teams with no money or resources, what if we focused on making FRC teams make better, good looking robots with sustainable support from sponsors and engineers? That would not only get the "many impressive robots" people are looking for, it would further inspire thousands more high school kids who actually get to be on these teams.

I guess we'll see how this pilot works out in St. Louis...

Re: College level First!
 

I think Andrew's quote that he posted here is important. This idea has grown through folks who are FIRSTers. If the idea developed from HQ, that is one thing but, it appears that the idea was pitched to HQ, developed from a group of FIRSTers who are interested in and implementing this idea. If I am correct in my assumptions (:)), pitching ideas to HQ is nothing new; I seem to recall some FIRSTers from Michigan having a few good ideas a while back. Developing the idea and implementing it is the challenge. That has been made clear consistently in the requests for suggestions, feedback, and folks that are interested in helping.

Jane

P.S. Those involved in FRC don't need to feel threatened at this point. Regarding the sustainability challenges in FRC, this idea may be able to help with that. We don't know at this point, now do we?

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

If you go to a university that collects student service fees there is an immense source of funding at your finger tips that most people don't even know about.

Re: College level First!
 

It could attract more overall support for FIRST through the college medium. Or it could drag resources away from current programs. Either way, we won't know until we know.

Re: College level First!
 

One thing that I'd be interested in knowing, as an outside observer, is: What are the goals/objectives of the pilot itself? That's one thing that the MI pilot season didn't make public at all, and it would be nice to know what the collegiate FIRST group is looking to do. It's not really covered in the mission statement, either.

Re: College level First!
 

Maybe they ought to focus on doing FRC better, which is currently the only legitimate vessel for STEM culture change amongst high school students on a large scale.

FSAE, Mini Baja, SAE Aero, Concrete Canoe, Solar Car Challenge, Human Powered Vehicle, bridge building challenge, etc are all much better established and much more like an actual bridge from being an engineering student to being an engineer, as opposed to "all these kids who were in FIRST in high school are really sad they can't drive the robots anymore...let's make a new competition so they can play with robots still and have fun".

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

What do student service fees typically fund, Alex?

Jane

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

They usually fund student groups and "admin units" admin units are typically things like the student union, the recreation center and if there's a campus health service plus some other things. Depending on the university you can get a decent amount of funding from student fees if it can be justified. send me a PM if you want more info.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

One of my management professors taught me this: At all times you are holding a bucket in each hand, one full of water, and one full of gasoline. Management is knowing when to throw which bucket.

Excellent times to throw the bucket of water: When angers flare up
Excellent times to throw the bucket of gasoline: When one has an idea that has even the smallest chance of great success, especially when the risk is small.

It sounds like there are many people that are behind this that have a spark of an idea that perhaps can someday take-off. If the idea flops, I see no loss of value to the rest of FIRST.

My bucket of water includes statements like "when I was in college, I felt just as much of a part of an FRC team as I did in high school." and "I consider it more important to become a mentor to high school students on an FRC team."

My bucket of gasoline says "Heck yes! Your ideas are solid, and the game looks awesome. This potentially could gain the support of many FIRST alum that have no interest in mentoring, and can potentially pull more sponsorship and support from areas not already reached by FLL/FTC/FRC."


Here is my Huge bucket of gasoline, turn your spark into raging wildfire, Go Collegiate FIRST go!

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

I'm somewhat familiar with student service fees. There are also student activities fees. It would likely vary school to school and also in how the program is developed in connection with the individual universities/educational institutions.

Jane

Re: College level First!
 

Collegiate FIRST competition

Mods, can we have this thread merged with the identical discussion in the link above?

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Hi everyone!

I truly believe that a college level FIRST program will work. From the funding aspect, Alex Miller made a good point by bringing up a universities student activity fee. Most schools collect a fee from all students to fund student programs, and the amount of money these funds hold is usually quite immense. I now attend the Illinois Institute of Technology and am a member of the Illinois Tech Robotics group. We receive most of our funds from IIT's student activity fund. That being said, we also get a lot of money from local businesses and companies. I believe that a group of students would be able to take part in this college level FIRST competition because we at Illinois Tech Robotics do so many different things with the money we receive (we enter 3 robots in the JSDC competition, run educational workshops open to the community, host the IL FRC and FTC kickoffs, host the IL FTC championship, open our workshop up to local teams, are building a robotic exoskeleton, building a swarm of Roombas that communicate with each other, helping design the college FIRST pilot, and working on prototype robots for the pilot), I think it would be possible to take part in the college pilot with little money from your school, or money solely from sponsors. Also, look at FRC. There are multiple teams (the team I was in was one of them) that run without a dime from their school and get all their money from sponsors. If an FRC team could do it, I think a team at the college level could do so as well.

As for someone being able to have the time to commit to this, I can't really comment. I don't know everyone's schedule, course load, etc. But I can say that at IIT, we have a robotics club with 30+ members who do feel they have the time for something like this. And I think that you will see the same at any college you look at.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Generally speaking student activity fees are the same thing. If it is a public university then there are rules they must follow that have been decided by the court system (even the supreme court). Private schools do not have follow the same rules necessarily.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Why? What is the purpose in this program?

Chris was right, the goal of FIRST is to change the culture so that engineers and scientists are idolized the way that athletes are. So is FIRST's target audience college students who are ALREADY in engineering or science?

If Kettering University students who are interested in FIRST were to participate in collegiate FIRST we would be crippling a few FRC teams in Flint. There's only so much man power we can provide. This program will hurt FRC if it gains interest.

I'm also curious how this program gained support, I attended the session on it in Atlanta and spoke with a large number of people and I was under the impression there was not much interest. As a college student, I wanted to say that I will not be participating in this program.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

In all honesty, I thought college students were supposed to do very experimental, at the cutting edge of technology research, not playing games with robots. Well I make it sound silly, but honestly it sounds really childish compared to the research papers that college students publish with their complex engineering vocabulary and stuff.

I am eager to go to college to do the very serious research and experimental stuff. FIRST really made be get over the "video game programmer" stage, I really want to work at JPL and do really hardcore research when I am in college. I also want to pursue the doctorate degree in comp sci too.

May be its just me, but the research part of science really appeals to me.


Yea, but what do i know? Im just a Junior in highschool with big dreams.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

This would be an area to be looked into/researched vewwy vewwy carefully. :) Not one to make assumptions with when planning to implement a new program at an educational institution.

If at all possible, for those who are trying to pigeonhole the potential of this pilot program into FRC as we know it - try using some big picture thinking with lots of possibilities. Try thinking beyond the engineering majors and into the liberal arts side of things. Try thinking beyond limitation and into potential. It doesn't cost a thing to think - especially the kind of thinking that makes your brain hurt. This is a pilot program being presented (informally) right now in a manner that allows for some flexible brainstorming. I thought narrow-minded thinking was for inside the box, not outside of it.

Jeepers.

Jane

P.S. So as not to create another post in the thread (so soon) - let me ask a question or two :): there are many more majors in undergrad and in grad school besides engineering. Lots of business majors/programs, for example. What would happen if the concept of Gracious Professionalism was introduced into the minds of college and graduate students who have never heard of it? What about professors and administrators? Why are you thinking that college is so black and white, cut and dry and badabing - you get a job - and never have to use or think about the goals or mission of FIRST again. GP never has to be a part of your life? That's what you sound like now.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

The discovery of new ideas and the application of those new ideas into new products are two very, very important things. While they aren't wholly mutually exclusive, I believe FIRST, as well as many other programs named above, are more about the latter.

This is not to discount the importance of the former. Many new products are the result of old products plus a newly discovered principle or piece of knowledge. While talented comp sci students are welcome anywhere, perhaps a program other than Collegiate FIRST would serve you best*.

You do bring up the point that while in high school getting students into any sort of STEM is beneficial, many students doing FRC or FTC in high school would prefer to do research and fall out of the Collegiate FIRST Competition (CFC) "market." That and the existence of many other programs may be a barrier to the CFC's success.

*Okay, that sounded really harsh/mean. I didn't mean it to be. I'm not sure there's a nice way to say that you want to be there more than here, but that's essentially what you're saying anyhow.

A fair point. I think I'll just sit around and see what happens, not being involved myself.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

This more or less sums up my opinion. It seems to me that high school is about basic education and getting you ready for college. College is about getting you ready for a career. FRC competitions in high schools give students a chance to see what being an engineer is like, and ask themselves if that's what they want to work towards; college is the actual work that will get them there.

I'm a junior in high school too, so I can't speak for college students, but I personally don't see the value in this endeavour.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

You have a great attitude - keep it up. Dream big and work towards it.

Re: College level First!
 

Done. Threads merged.

Re: College level First!
 

I can see a few niches for this. (I'll focus on the aerial robotics challenge, because it's the most interesting....)

Not every university student wants the same things out of the experience, and, buried in the depths of their schoolwork, more than a few engineering students need a little reminder of why engineering can be fun. I, for one enjoyed the big challenges (I led Waterloo's team in the 2008 International Aerial Robotics Competition), but many of my counterparts didn't have the time or inclination to do things on that scale, and instead undertook smaller extracurricular engineering projects as an outlet for their creative energies. That's one niche. (Granted, a lot of engineering students looking for a part-time challenge just find an FRC team to mentor, and get the same thing out of it; to each their own, I guess.)

In the proposed form, I can foresee a lot of entrants taking the off-the-shelf route, and building something that is both cheap and fun. However, if some of the more expert IARC teams show up with their 5th- or 6th-mission robots, the dilettantes are going to be savagely beaten (in FIRST flight for sure). That's one of the problems with aerial robotics at this level: it's easy to get a team started, but really quite hard to do it well. (For reference, the IARC robots are capable of autonomous flight within confined spaces, and do it with a 1.5 kg mass limit, and off-board processing...which is well within the proposed FIRST rules, given that there's no significant limit on what the control system is composed of.) So that's the other niche: an opportunity for experts to show off their skills.

Incidentally, have any committed competitors been identified for this pilot challenge?

The games look like they could be a lot of fun, and represent a fresh interpretation on the FIRST format. If FIRST is indeed willing to sanction this tournament, I think you've got a worthwhile game (or series of games).

Now, as for the competition as proposed here, I have many reservations about the rules. (This isn't just idle criticism: I think it's fair to say that I've got a lot of experience in stuff like this, and I've seen the good and bad aspects of FIRST's various programs, as well as VRC and IARC.)

Foremost is the question of safety. I hate to put this foremost, because I don't mean to suck the fun out of this by neutering the robots, but there does need to be some more concrete consideration of the implications of the relatively open-ended design constraints.

There are no limits on the amount of energy stored onboard, no limits on robot or mechanism mass and no limits on the amount of kinetic energy in a mechanism. Is the proposed netting really an adequate defence against a damaged Ø20 in carbon fibre propeller failing at 6 000 rev/min, especially if it's driven by a 1 250 W electric motor on a 40 V, 16 A·h lithium polymer battery pack?* Hell no!

This isn't FRC which is predicated on the concept that power is strictly limited by the available batteries, circuit breakers and motors. And while the configuration I described would consume most of the budget, that's not to say it's implausible that a team would build some sort of ducted fan flying machine using those sorts of parts.

Even an off-the shelf indoor aerobatic R/C aircraft could conceivably be flown by hand through the obstacles in the FIRST Flight playing field. I certainly wouldn't want to be standing too close to an electric F3A aircraft doing its thing, especially if there's a risk of collision, or if the pilot isn't very good.

Sure, you could fall back on the FRC-style safety clause, but that means nothing to someone who wasn't in FRC, and there's not even any reason to believe that precedents from FRC mean anything here. The friendly request to be safe is reasonable, but ultimately, it makes the requirements unclear because teams won't know where to draw the line—should they introduce slightly more risk to be more competitive? And even assuming that the safety precautions will protect everyone (i.e. assume the inspectors will be able to identify what is and is not appropriately safe), how are teams to know what the inspectors will rule at the event? This is an important design constraint that needs to be made clear.

As for other issues with the rules, let me summarize by saying that they include a number of the ambiguities of the FRC rules. That's not a good thing. Regarding robot design, although the IARC rules are far from perfect, there are some worthwhile lessons to be learned from them. If you'd like, I can certainly give you an FRC inspector's perspective on what works and what doesn't, with respect to the simplifications you've made.

Also, from a gameplay point of view, the proposed rules overlook a number of scenarios that could easily come up during a match, some involving behaviour that might be considered shady, but which is not prohibited (FRC has had issues with this in the past—flipping of robots in the late 1990s, for example). Additionally, I think the scoring conditions for FIRST Flight need to be rephrased for precision, and the requirement for human interpretation of the robots' actions is a bit troublesome.

Finally, do you have the game design and engineering staff in place to ensure that the pilot teams will have well-defined objectives and a well-tested game, well in advance of the competition? The teams certainly will need to know what's expected of them prior to the competition, so that they can do justice to their own logistics, design, construction and testing processes.

*I only bring that particular configuration up as an example because of my direct familiarity with it: we used two of those on the Waterloo IARC entry, which was a 100 lb fixed-wing aircraft. The only way we dared operate that indoors was with the aircraft tied down in the fluid mechanics laboratory, and nothing of value in the propeller arcs.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

I'm wondering the same thing right now. I'm a junior in Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and FIRST is a large part of what inspired me to study engineering and pursue a career in engineering. While there was a lot of value to my experiences in FRC in high school, there was also a lot of value in me applying those skills that I learned from FIRST to new experiences in college that challenged me in new and unique ways. My experiences outside of FIRST over my past three years at MIT have been just as important to my personal and professional development as my experiences within FIRST were during high school. If a collegiate FIRST competition had existed when I entered college, I might not have challenged myself to go outside of my comfort zone and may have missed out on many of the opportunities I've participated in by devoting all of my free time to FIRST. At this point, I'm too busy with other activities at MIT to make FIRST into a full-time part of my life again like it was in high school, so I can't see myself participating in this competition now.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Took no offense, and I totally agree with you. In college other programs WILL appeal to me. I know this because I signed up for the Robotics team after watching the Nova documentary on the DARPA Grand Challenge. I was partially disappointed with the FRC experience, not saying that it was not fun or anything, but I guess I did not push my self last year. I came in expecting either fully autonomous robots or something like battle bots. Never expected a seemingly random game with lots of different elements put together. At the end, it just seemed like an advanced RC machine. I'm not complaining, but it is forcing me to get out of my comfort zone. FRC just felt like tee ball than baseball. It was so restricted.

Seriously though, I would LOVE to participate in the Grand Challenges. Just the thought of it excites me.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

I'm sorry you feel that way about FIRST. I've played multible sports and have found FRC the most enjoyable extra curricular I've ever done. (probably a good thing sense I'm not about to go pro in any sports.)

Back on topic however, as a Junior and possible competitor of this college level FIRST I would have to say that I would probably would not perticipate. Too much of one thing isn't good, even FIRST. After 4 years of FIRST in high school, I think 4 more in college (persumably) would be a tad bit much. I would much prefer to go through college getting a degree (and hopefully a job.) Only after that I would then go back and consider being a mentor.

In the end though, I have a feeling it'll be successful. It's sort of like back in the day when people weren't sure about having robots on alliances with each other. In the end everything will work it's way out.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Oh no, you misunderstood. I Love FRC. but once I have tasted it, I yearn for more. I find FRC not satisfying my crave. It doesn't mean I don't like it, it means its not enough:yikes: If you know what I mean

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

It's very helpful to master tee ball before playing baseball.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

And a career is getting you ready for...?

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Off-topic rant: I get tired of the somewhat constant FIRST bashing of new ideas and programs on C.D. Appearantly the only good thing FIRST ever did was start FRC and then they are supposed to do nothing but support the veteran teams with infusions of cash and not change any of the control systems or elements of the game as change is bad. Can we just ask for folks who want to repeately fan the flames of lack of $$$ for veteran FRC teams, and how VEX is better then FTC to look for appropriate times and places to make those posts other than everything new about FIRST?


On topic rant: Valid points have been made by FIRST alumni in colleges that support FRC teams or are involved in other and possibly higher degree of difficulty engineering challenges. I've not done the research but my guess is something very far from 100% of colleges and universities in America have engineering students, or other science/mathematics, business, workforce program traininig certifications, junior colleges/technical schools actually have students compete in such programs as several of you have posted. This is not to say that FIRST is 100% perfect and in a competition with outher programs.

Please re-read a quote from an undisputed authority of FIRST and STEM type competitions Dave Lavery,
Dave on VEX verses Tetrix
Dave on Coopertition Patent


Final point in my rant:
How is it that the VEX college challenge is not controversial or such a threat to FRC and VEX high school teams that it has existed as a pilot and now in it's second year of competition? Is there a double standard or just ignorance?

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

Ignoring sponsorship money as a sticking point on this, I admit I do not think this is a great idea for FIRST. I think this will drain resources from FIRST and its supporters (volunteers not sponsors).

My biggest objection to this, however, is that I feel college students should get out of the nest eventually. Let's face it, for many of us FIRST is a comfortable. We have our old friends, the mentors we grew up with, and we even have our old role models. I don't think I am alone when I say that I am very comfortable in the FIRST community because it is familiar. I think that college is a time to see new things and find new communities. That doesn't mean you should stop being involved in FIRST but that you should be willing to branch out. Sometimes I think that is hard for people and I see this program possibly making it harder.

I won't pass judgement on this program until I have seen it and it has had a few years to get on its feet. I will however urge all college age students to think before they mentor or before they do this. Evaluate your options, there are a lot of really cool programs out there, do your research.

(Also, I guess I'm in the minority when I think that FLL is the best thing FIRST ever did, FRC is a distant second)

Andrew, on your final point I want you to take my opinion with a grain of salt, I am not terribly familiar with the VEX program or competition structure. I have looked into the Vex Collegiate competition though. I guess I could raise the same objections to that as I do to this. Maybe it is just less high profile.

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

As far as being in college to learn about engineering, To my personal experience, my friends at Illinois Tech Robotics(ITR) (Illinois Institute of Technology) state that they learn more from the projects we do, hands on, at ITR than they do in their classes. As a significant portion of the Committee bringing forward this proposal for a pilot is students, and alumni of IIT, all related to the Illinois Tech Robotics group, it is with this experience that we push towards creating a game for college students, to continue hands-on education, that is unparalleled in any classroom (that we are aware of). We seek to continue to create excitement for engineering, and also to help promote the other levels through the awards structure (With our events point system, we place a considerably higher value on the non-robot awards)

A little about ITR:
We have a heavy focus on mentoring and working with FIRST programs. We were in fact founded with this purpose(in 2005), building our own robots came a couple years after founding.
Our recently retired (a week ago) president and head of the College Level FIRST pilot group, Chris Jones is also the Illinois FIRST Senior Mentor(with Karina Powell), and has mentored a few teams during his time at IIT/ITR (he is presently a Grad Student). We have multiple members (including myself) on the Midwest Regional Planning Committee. Our faculty adviser is the FTC Affiliate Partner for Illinois, so we help run the Chicago FTC Kickoff, scrimmages, and the Illinois Championship.
One of the roles of our outgoing V.P. Philanthropy is to run the Chicago/Illinois FRC Kickoff (presently me).
Among our members are a few team mentors, and we run workshops for local area teams often.

Last year the club accumulated just under 5000 community service hours (nearly all with FIRST)

In addition to that we have 4 major robot projects ongoing. With 1 complete for the year.
Jerry Saunders Creative Design Competition (which we won last year with one of our three robots, Roslund)
A Quadcopter for the College-Pilot
A swarm of roombas that will be networked and autonomously search for something as a collective group.
An exoskeletal leg project to increase agility
The complete project is IIT's Pumpkin launch, which ITR placed first in.

The organization also performs it's own fund-raising, with many in-kind donations, in addition to supplemental funds from the university managed student activities fund.

I throw all this out there just to give perspective on what we (the College-FIRST planning committee) know is possible with an organized and motivated group of students.

Re: College level First!
 

Some great points in there Tristan. Thank you for taking the time to work through it.

To address some of your concerns about the lack of limitations and regulations, our thinking here is that this pilot is collaborative. Teams will be discussing their designs as the pilot proceeds and we will work together to spot trouble spots early. We want this to be an opportunity for teams to balance as many design constraints as possible and innovate on levels not possible in the other programs, but you're right, safety is hugely important.

As for the range of robot capabilities and the focus of the program, that's the beauty of the way we've structured this program. To start, there is a tremendously low barrier to entry for this sort of robot (closer to FTC than FRC). But more importantly, the winner in this event is not whoever builds the most agile robot... it's the team who executes, who reaches out to the FIRST community who is awarded our Event Champion. Sure, we'll select a game and play tournament style matches on Saturday, but there will be just as much focus on all the other things that go into the teams. If you have ideas on how to make that even more so, we would love to hear them!

I recommend you (and anyone else with well thought-out suggestions) head to the FIRSTForge website, join the project and share your thoughts with the community. We're keeping this as open as possible for those interested in taking the initiative as you have!

Re: Collegiate FIRST competition
 

I'm actually curious to see how the pilot goes this year since we are looking to start a FIRST alumni organization at NC State next year.