I'm surprised it took FIRST so long to issue this clarification, it had seemed to me like FTC or raw materials was the intent all along.
That said, I think FIRST really missed their own "culture change" boat with the FTC limitation.
As Dave wisely said,
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by dlavery
A little less time spent on turf wars, and a little more time spent on reaching the 95% of students who are oblivious to your existence, might be wise.
|
Making FRC teams buy FTC kits sells maybe 1000 FTC kits, and ultimately doesn't change the status quo. Chances are most teams that want to help with other robotics competitions are already involved with things like FLL, FTC, Vex, Botball, BEST, etc. I would be willing to bet that most FTC teams are associated with FRC teams. On the other hand, most Vex, Botball, BEST, etc teams probably aren't. Wouldn't it have been neat if part of the challenge had been to reach out to one of those other competitions, and get them involved in the FRC challenge? If you've ever done an FRC robot demo at an FLL/Vex event, there are so many kids who are fascinated by the "big robots." It would've been awesome to reach out to those teams. I understand there might be difficulties implementing this... there are always are! Who knows... FIRST might've even got a couple new FRC teams!
2 cents. As always, you've gotta keep rolling with the punches.
