Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

1. The phrase "Build a robot in 6 weeks" will finally be meaningless, which is one of the great phrases in FIRST that is always overlooked. Granted the 6-week building period isn't really true to form as many teams can use off season projects to build and implement a chassis or system. However still teams are only given 6 weeks to build within a specific set of parameters is something that really knocks the socks off anyone who takes their first look at FIRST. "These high school kids built that robot in only 6 weeks?!" Having the same game repeated is like having a three year build season - much less impressive.

2. It's been said before but I'll say it again - Copycats. FIRST is about innovation, and rewarding innovation. However there is still a core group of FIRST teams that want to win a Championship more than they ever want to win Chairman's or Engineering Inspiration. And here is the kicker - look at this year's robots and you see we have copycating. However it's much different. Most all of them have parts and pieces that imitate 2007 robots, but with a different style of gameplay the arms and chassis will have differences in them. We already have robots that copy style, but with a 4-year difference I am more inclined to encourage archiving of designs and long-team Frankensteining than short-term.

3. Games with abusable loopholes (71 playing Zone Zeal, not really 469 playing Breakaway), dull action (Stack Attack), or constant penalties (pick a year, any year) can become a hassle to witness over and over again. Granted it will help the general public know the game better, but for the most part, the "general public" that come to see the competition are the player's parents and family members. And to be honest, if one reason why to implement this is for the general public to become more involved and understand the game, it's sorta insulting to the general public that they need an extra year or two to get a handle on the game rules. The key to fix this is in the design of the game itself (and I would be one person who would stand up and give 8 months of constant design for this effort, as will others, so don't say there just isn't enough people.)

4. It's a surrender to the fact that FIRST is more about the competition than what FIRST says it stands for. This change would say "We are going to make the competition more accessible to everyone". Isn't one of the things Dave Lavery always surprises everyone with is how unfair the competition actually is and that it's a good thing? Rookies ARE at less of an advantage but it's their need to overcome it. The game does change and teams must overcome it. The real test of FIRST is in overcoming the challenge. This change would eliminate half of that challenge and say the FIRST competition is easier to provide for than FIRST's goals: Real-world working mentors for every team, real-world experiences for every student, real-world opportunities to change the world.

This 3-year cycle would alter FIRST completely and I don't like it.

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

To me, a key principal of this program has been sharing, and learning from others. However, nowadays, plenty of teams are capable of replicating results of others who have invested in original engineering efforts. An extended competition season would only lead to increased design secrecy.

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

My first thought - BORING!

Then - when does build season end?

And - I'd sure hate to be a rookie (either a rookie team or a rookie member joining an established team) in Year3 of the cycle.

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

It a fantasy that FIRST will ever become a spectator sport. It just not going to happen folks and changing to a three year game to make it better for the fans and general public is just a bad idea.

The GDC did a great job in designing a game this year that is easy for the general population to understand. Hang tubes, make logos, race minibots.

They just need to build on that same kind of simplicity.

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

I feel like every time we have one of these discussions I turn into an angry old man ranting about "the better days," but seriously, this is just asking for it.

1. Copycats: It's obvious that this idea would only generate clones of the best robots - even moreso than we see now. Even if the GDC were to tweak the game each year, the fundamentals would remain the same. Thus the game would come down to "who can drive/strategize better" rather than "who can design/build better."

2. Rookies: If you thought they had a disadvantage now, coming in during year 2 or 3 would be a nightmare.

3. Build period: FRC as I envision it, is about learning to build a robot given time constraints. It teaches students how to work with a finite time, prioritize what needs to be done and what realistically can be done during build season. This I think is one of the most important lessons, and something I'd hate to see thrown away.

4. Such a change would do nothing to help inspire students to pursue STEM careers. Most of my students come in in their Soph/Junior years. Why would they want to spend years maintaining a robot? I fail to see how this would teach innovation.

5. I could go on, but this really just seems like a budget move. I've been disappointed in FIRST before (leaving Vex was one big one), but this would make me seriously reconsider supporting this program. Mind you this is all speculation without any details, but as it stands, this would make me point prospective schools in other directions.

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

As mentioned before, all robots would look the same. To keep things interesting, FIRST would have to add secondary objectives each year and/or make minor rule changes.

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

If this happened, I believe that it would almost completely destroy gracious professionalism. :( Robots would be protected at competitions, hidden from view in the pits. Everyone would resist sharing how their robot works. Teams with a good robot would do their best to keep other teams from copying, and others would spend all of year one trying to get pictures of another robot's mechanism, to more easily duplicate it. This would ruin FIRST, especially for rookies.

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

Honestly, I have a feeling there would be at least one game where the top few teams just keep winning over-and-over again. Imagine seeing 217, 33, 111, etc, etc win over and over again for three years in a row. It would be completely fair, but it also might discourage people and really create a boring competition for participants.

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

A 3 year cycle would be hard on mentors and team organizers. We love our FIRST teams, but need to take a break to get back to our families and jobs. I prefer the rush of a unique challenge in a short duration that we currently have.

Focus on creativity and solving unique problems in short timeframes. Engineering students will have their whole careers to work on refinement, benchmarking and continuous improvement.

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

One of the reasons I love FIRST is because of how involved I can get in building the robot each year. By switching to a 3 year cycle, you are taking away student involvement in an effort to increase spectator involvement and thus taking away many of the lessons you learn each year as a student (new problems, deadlines, and coming up with your own idea)

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

this would be terrible, you take a 6 week build season and add two more years continuously, what's the point of stopping if it's the same game? it would probably level the playing field in about year three because all the robot's are the same. teams would become more secretive again if they have the best robot or close to because teams would have a ton of time to reverse engineer it. if first does this, you could see a massive migration to the vex competition. especially since vex is being brought into classrooms everywhere...

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

Could this create a market for old robots? Say a winning team decided to build a new robot. Their old robot may have value to another team that wants an easy path to a competitive robot.

EDIT: An even better market may be for CAD models. A winning team may be able to sell 50-100 copies of their CAD model for say $500 each. That would fund their next season. Today, CAD models are shared freely because they have little direct value to the next game.

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

If this gets implemented, I think Vex and Nurc are really going to take off.

Re: 3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's
 

The great part about FIRST is going through the design process every year with no prior solutions to go off of. This would destroy the reason why many of us do FIRST. I love that fact that you have to be creative and make an answer to a difficult question without having anything to work from. All this would do is make majority of the robots look like the 111s, 1114s and 2056s robots. This would be a big disservice to the students.