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.
