Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink
In Michigan, FTC is being set up for 7th and 8th grade. It is supposed to be a middle step between FLL and FRC. As such, I would prefer to see FTC keep more restrictions on fabricated parts and mentor involvement (like FLL).
For a middle school program, the FTC kit limitations are not all negative. It makes it a lot easier for young students without a lot of design and fabrication experience & resources to be competitive. They are free to experiment and change their technical approach without scrapping a lot of fabricated parts.
For FTC programs at the high school level in schools where FRC is not available, I think the new changes are great.
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I respectfully disagree, I love that they are letting teams do so much fabracating! If you want it to be limited to just the kit of parts, switch to VEX. I believe the FTC kit of parts should be used as a frame and for the motors, controllers ect, and the rest is manufactured and engineered by the students. I think it teaches real engineering, not just making a robot out of a bunch of parts. Let the team members be creative and give them the resources so it can become a reality. In the last four years I've been in FTC, we build a robust drive train with the kit, then almost everything else the team members design and manufacture, it makes for some really cool robots.
As for it being a mid point between FLL and FRC, I don't see it that way. FTC allowes more time to design, test, build, rebuild the robot. Since you can only have 10 members, it allowes everyone to work on the robot, learn programming ect. From my experience with FRC, it's the mentors and 12th graders that build the robot or they have someone else manufacture all the custom parts because of the time they have. FRC is just bigger, but for most FRC teams I've seen, most of the kids only fundraise or scout.
As for your middle school team, I can see why it would be nice to have it limited to just the kit of parts. This is a high school competition but it's great that middle schoolers do it. For all you FRC people, I've never been on an FRC team and I hope I didn't offend anyone, this is just from my point of view. I don't think FTC needs to be more like FLL or FRC, it needs to stay FTC.