Quote:
Originally Posted by magnets
It builds on my opinion that the culture of FIRST has changed drastically over the past 5-10 years. It's less about robots/engineering/competitions, and more about education, spreading the word, and getting more teams involved. While this may get FIRST out to the public, it's making sacrifices to competitive teams.
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I haven't seen this part addressed yet.
FIRST is NOT about robots, engineering, or competitions. Never has been, never will be. FIRST has always been about Inspiration... and about Recognition of Science and Technology. (Sound familiar? It should...)
The competition is just a vehicle. Robotics is just the type of vehicle. FIRST could have chosen R/C aircraft, popsicle stick towers, or any other sort of competition as their competition choice. And the reason for choosing a competition is to lure in the general public and get them interested--it's a lot easier to get folks to a sporting event than a science fair, no?
The culture of FIRST has not gone away from competition. In fact, to some folks, it has gone a little too far TOWARDS competition and away from the inspiration and outreach.
Which, I think, is why the point system is the way it is. Not to lure rookies to DCMPs to get their tails stomped, but to lure them there to be inspired by the robots that are doing the stomping, possibly including their own. Not to elevate winning (some would say that winning the event is valued too high--if you win out of the last pick, you get 2* record + 1 for picking position + 30 points for match wins in series, compared to 10 points and an autobid for DCA) but to give recognition to both the teams that win the event and the teams that started a journey to win the most prestigious award FRC has.
The committee had probably the #1 hardest job in FRC, because they had to balance the competition aspect with the outreach aspect, and still keep as many people as possible happy. IMO, there are a couple of items that may need tweaking (exact point values for DCA, rookie bonuses, and/or awards come to mind), but I think overall they did a pretty decent job.