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Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
Ignoring the debate about the term of nerd, would you please explain why? I'm actually interested to know if people agree/disagree and more importantly why.
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Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
1. The "true" message of FIRST is great, but it does not need to be repeated 200000 times.
I, too, feel that this message is thrown around a bit more than it needs to be. It also leads to an identity crisis for FIRST. Is it a robotics competition, as is stated in the title of FRC, or is it a coopertition, which the C could also stand for. Another issue is the true meaning of GP. Is finding a way around the rules un GP? Is tipping over another robot un GP? Is yelling "ROBOT" un GP. Noone knows. The term is getting thrown around too much, which is beginning to dilute it. Same with FIRST's message. Yes you want to inspire teens. The best way to do that is make something fun, and has to do with robotics. 2. Go back to more competition, you're beginning to lack in the competitive part of coopertition. Adding to what I said above, the best way to make people interested in something is to make it fun. Competition is fun, if you do it in a GP (what it means to me) manner. No catcalls, and being a general douche, but you are allowed to be competitive on the field. It is not against any FIRST principle to win. 3. Enough of the shameless advertising. FIRST is not about the robots, great, but it's not about the politics either, nor is it about FIRST, it's about the future and inspiring our generation, and the next one. If FIRST is the best way to inspire the next generation, then they are entitled to some advertising. As long as it is not replacing good old fashion FRC competition. And the way they chose to advertise this year rubbed me the wrong way. Triangle-Circle-Square logos are fun, and this game is actually quite well balanced. However, when both parts of the game are FIRST adverts, with the minibots being FTC only, that gets a bit obnoxious. And unsurprisingly, none of the best minibots use FTC parts. [sarcastic] Who could have guessed that? [/sarcastic] Simply the fact that they wanted to force you to use those parts is just a bit annoying, and though it is a legitimate engineering challenge, it seems against FIRST ideals. 4. Robotics is nerdy. The sooner that is accepted, and embraced, the sooner FIRST can confidently attract others to the program. Nothing says "nerds, beware" like a sign saying "hehehe, it's not nerdy" Could not agree more. The whole debacle with Will.I.Am was ridiculous. If you're going to get a high profile speaker, get someone who is genuinely interested in FIRST, not some singer guy. It is also important that FIRST embraces who are on teams: Mainly self described nerds. Our team has managed to reach out more to the middle social groups, but even when those people are at build sessions, they turn to their more nerdy sides. FIRST doesnt have to be a mainstream sport to inspire people. <3 nerds Just because you want to appeal to non-nerds doesnt mean that you have to alienate your fanbase of nerds. 5. You were on a good track with the "spectator friendly" game breakaway, continue on that track. Not much more to be said. As long as the games offer a fun engineering challenge, as well as being simple, then that is the key. Just like the best robots, the games should follow the KISS principle. |
Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
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Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
GP is being used now as if people are expecting to receive gold points.
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Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
I'm not. To be honest, FIRST was probably the greatest experience of high school. It was a moment, which luckily passed when they took down the splash page. If you didn't see the video, then consider yourself lucky.
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Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
You, my good friend, are a hero. I've been contemplating writing a thread very similar to this one myself, but you nailed it. Absolutely nailed it.
I'll just add some of my thoughts. Number one. Competitions should be viewed as a celebration. I agree with FIRST here. However, teams need to learn how to celebrate for one another. That means congratulating the best and most competitive teams - who by-the-way worked their butts off for their outstanding robot. I'm pretty sure JVN had a great thread about this "culture change" within FIRST, and I'd love to see FIRST really put a lot of effort next year into jump starting it. However, they'll also need to change their attitude towards competition and teach people how to win/celebrate. With regards to your second point, I couldn't agree more. Robotics is nerdy and we need to embrace that. Our society needs to become more nerdy, but intelligent people don't need to become like society. Ex: will.i.am should become more like your average FRC student, not the other way around. I also think that this desire to make science and technology fun is a symptom of a much bigger problem. First, problem solving IS fun. At least for people who are going to become the future problem solvers. We do this because we love to innovate and create. It's a blast already, and we don't need FIRST to do anything (other than make it more challenging) to make it more fun. So we have to ask, who are they pandering to? And why is there such a big concern with getting [insert minority here] human beings to become engineers? We don't need [insert minority here] engineers - we need good engineers whether they be [insert minority here] or not. It shouldn't matter as long as they can effectively solve problems with others. I've come to the conclusion that FIRST is confusing making problems solving experiences accessible with making it fun. There's a big difference between the two. I would love to see a FRC team in every community, but not because I want every high schooler in those communities to participate. Rather, I want every higher schooler to have the opportunity to participate. Because the reality is that there are some people who just aren't cut out for the FRC. They either lack initiative, creativity, or people skills and are unwilling to obtain them. On to your third point. I too thought it was odd to see this kind of promotion from FIRST. Using the logo as a game piece was fine especially because of the inherent challenge of designing a manipulator that could pick up all three types of pieces, but where I thought they went overboard was with the FTC kits. (Yes, I'm still complaining about them. Don't like it? Stop reading this. Now.) There were too many silly constraints that hampered innovation and stifled creativity. Also, I thought it was FIRST shamelessly squeezing a few extra dollars out of already cash strapped teams who needed, or couldn't get, the parts need required. |
Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
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Truth is, it's been around for a while, and it's here to stay. And it's not a bad thing. This year I see robots filling up both racks with all sorts of manipulators, from sophisticated roller claws, to tennis balls stuck on the end of two pieces of 80/20. I see multiple sub 2 second minibots with all sorts of deployment mechanisms. I see excitement in high scoring matches. Forgive me if I find that more competitive than drivetrains shoving each other around. Maybe I get that from living through Stack Attack. Maybe I'm just getting old. |
Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
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Or maybe YOU come up with that game? Just sayin' |
Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
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I'm fine with them mentioning the message of FIRST, and as I said, is a great message to mention during kickoff (presumably newbies are watching kickoff). In fact, they could mention it a couple times at competition. My problem is they mention it too much, to the point of almost trivializing the meaning. It becomes about FIRST and the fact FIRST has this message rather than the principles they're trying to teach with "the message of FIRST". |
Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
This years minibot sharing made the Coopertition award a good thing. Last year's Coopertition required you to score points for the other team in many cases, I know that is what we did to win it last year. So making it so that you can't score points for the other team and the other team has to score with your minibot was a great idea. It also lets you really prove it when you loan it to a high caliber team knowing full well it is highly likely you may face your own machine in the finals. Pretty much defines the concept of Coopertition and GP.
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Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
Hmmmmm
I don't think that FIRST is over stating their message. Why? Because it is THEIR message and if you take a step back it is going against the flow of traffic in our society. Look at sports team and other competitions, it is all about beating the pulp out of your opponent which in the end doesn't accomplish much in the real world. I have found this whole Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition really helpful in the work environment. I would recommend taking a step back and thinking about what and why FIRST is what FIRST is. I also hope that we don't go as far as rash statements or actions against FIRST like boycotts because we are FIRST's customer not manager. We aren't forced to participate in FIRST. They make the game, they make the rules, they make the speeches. I LOVE competition (who doesn't), but if you honestly feel that FIRST is infringing on your ability to be competitive then why not venture into another program? I have thought about it before. FIRST isn't the only robotics/engineering program in existence. As for the game, if the game changes each year there will be good games and bad games. I commend the GDC for coming up with 20 different FRC games with different twists and turns each year. In all honesty we can wish for a "better" game but delivering such is hard. Think in terms of your own team. We all have great ideas that we run with for 6 weeks and a lot of us wind up thinking at our regionals, "what on earth were we thinking why can't we make better robots". It isn't easy. I am so glad that FIRST is what FIRST is. Mentoring a rookie team really opened me up to why I love FIRST. The amount of teams who helped us this year really helped us get where we are and what we accomplished. Would local teams really desire to help us if this was a high school sport? Most likely not. How many teams would lend us their mentors to stop in and see what we are doing and explain what they are doing, lend us their practice robot from the previous season to give our kids an up close look at the technology they will be using, proof read our Chairmans essay to offer suggestions and comments, old robots/parts to build our own robot, electronics the week before our regional we needed to be operational, CAD and programming tutorials for those who are venturing into new areas, and above all support at our regionals. What was even more encouraging was seeing our students turn around at our regional and scrimmage helping other teams unload, program, debug, and fix their robots. Even after writing this post I love FIRST even more despite the ups and down but that is life. Quick thanks to the following teams who helped us this season: 241 Pinkerton Astros, 1519 Mechanical MAYHEM, 1058 PVC Pirates, 3323 Potential Energy, 501 The PowerKnights, and ChiefDelphi/the programming sub-forum. ;) |
Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
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The constraints are what did spur innovation and creativity IHMO since the only things you had to use were the motors and battery. Sure there was some limitations on materials but that is what meant you had to get creative with how you used those items. |
Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
I have two points I would like to bring up.
First is the idea that the driving principles of FIRST are brought up too many times during competitions. Yes competition is a part of FIRST but it is just a part. If you attend three regionals, it’s only nine days. If you include the six week build season really the competition is only 48 days long, start to finish. Now I understand that every team is run differently, but the teams that I am associated with work during the so called off-season to promote STEM education and participate in community service events. Compare 48 days to 317 and tell me that other things FIRST teams do are not as worthy of public airtime as the robots are. I have heard many times over my years as a student and now a mentor that FIRST uses the competition to achieve its goals. The competition is not the point, it is merely a tool. The ideas and goals of FIRST are brought up during competitions because it is the organization’s most public event and they want the public to know that FIRST is about more than a robotics competition. That’s why the two highest awards given have nothing to do with the robots performance but instead with a team’s ability to achieve the goals of FIRST. If you are unsure of what these goals are visit the FIRST website and read their mission statement. Also I happen to work with some wonderful, very talented students who do not consider themselves "nerds". Some of these students do not work on the robot and are inspired and excited by the education and outreach side of our teams. Others of these students do work on the robot but do not differ from other students their age in way besides the fact that they are on a FIRST team. I too do not consider myself a "nerd". Sure, I have what you may call "nerdy" moments and be an engineer by trade but this does not automatically make me a nerd. I believe that FIRST students can be very creative, bright students but to call us all "nerds" is unfair. That is a title that must be accept and carried by each individual person. If you want to be a nerd, good for you, there is nothing wrong with that, but some of us have other titles in mind for ourselves. |
Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
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Re: A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?
I didnt like ranking points used as a tie breaker between teams with the same amount of wins. I was one of the few who enjoyed using it last year for the ranking system, but this year it did not seem to work. At one of our competitions, 5 out of our 9 matches our opponents were not able to score a single point. Last year we could score for our opponents, but this year there is no way to score for them. It really bothered me that we couldnt do anything to overcome the other teams that shared our W/L record.
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