[Steven Smith]

Since I got involved in April 2013 as a mentor, I’ve been drinking from a fire hose, and I acutely feel the overwhelming nature of “trying to catch up”. Fortunately, our team has a few existing mentors with a longer history in FRC, and I’ve found troves of information in various team websites, Chief Delphi threads, etc. I’d like to say THANK YOU to all of you that contribute this content. Know that it is being read and appreciated by us newbies. I thought I’d comment on this thread, as I have worked with other programs that “got it wrong” and I wanted to encourage you all by pointing out that my fresh set of eyes still sees FRC as “getting it right.”

Maturing Programs
Assuming people enter FRC at a constant level, and the level of robot sophistication grows each year, the gap between a rookie and an “average competitive robot” will continue to grow. I see a few ways to address this.
• Design the rules or game to handicap the top end
• Find ways to accelerate the learning curve of the bottom end
• De-emphasize the competitive side of it (everyone gets a trophy mentality)

If you implement option #1 poorly, top tier teams will feel stifled, get bored, and eventually leave. These established teams are the bedrock that the FRC community is built on, and they not only build great robots, they are active in their communities, support rookie teams, etc.

As an aside, I was a part of Formula Hybrid racing competition in college. In 2009, the program organizers attempted to level the playing field without prior notification to anyone before championship. Imagine showing up to FRC regionals after build season, and finding the inspectors were allowing robots up to 200lbs, just to allow more teams to compete. The organizers even tried to rewrite the scoring metrics mid-competition to provide more points for fuel economy, because they didn’t like that our fuel-inefficient vehicle was poised to win. Ultimately, we did win easily after protesting the rule re-write, but it was a pretty bitter experience for a team of 30 students who essentially did a cost-benefit analysis, and emphasized “race car” over “hybrid”. I’d rather be a part of a program that constantly brings rookies up, than artificially holds the level of competition down. For any that are curious, this was Texas A&M in 2009.

FRC addresses these issues in a much better way. The nature of the 6 week competition and new challenge each year already limits the innovation (via time constraints) that can be applied specifically to that challenge, but it does so in a fair and fun way. It still allows year-long innovation, but at a gamble that it might not directly apply next year, and with the stipulation that it must be freely shared. The resources in the community, the increasing availability of COTS solutions, and the emphasis within the community of helping rookies address point #2. And finally, I think the myriad of non-robot, rookie, and regional awards are great and address #3, as they are highly valued and are many are less affected by the increasing robot sophistication. They give young teams an easier way to “win”, without devaluing the importance and goal of winning world championships in robot competition.

I believe that Ri3D and BuildBlitz will fix #2 for young teams that want to watch them, and potentially make it worse for teams that don’t. I think this is the primary source of discord. Some rookie teams see it as a way for them to be competitive faster. Other established teams that have remained marginally competitive, while allowing the design/build/strategy to be formulated entirely by the students with few outside resources, might see this as accelerating the maturity of the “average robot”. This may threaten their ability to continue on in the manner they like (and the manner that might be working for them and their students), while still remaining competitive.

Impact on Students
I feel the arguments both for and against allowing the FRC competition to mature come from differing opinions on what is most inspirational/educational for the students. Some argue that a higher profile competition, featuring well-built and visually impressive robots will inspire students and the public more readily... as student teams think "wow, I was a part of building something this impressive, regardless of how much external help I got". Others argue that regardless of the final product, student teams will be more inspired by thinking "I designed and built this robot all by myself... even though it did not seem to be competitive, I'm proud I accomplished it alone." This is complicated by the fact that it might vary for different groups, and there really isn’t a “right answer”.

I think it is important to recognize the maturing competition for what it is, and accept it as a natural progression instead of fighting it. Some of the initial design and creativity might come externally, and your ability to create parts better than COTS solutions in 2002 may no longer provide the edge it once did. However, there are still ways for your team to innovate and differentiate themselves from the other 3000 teams that watched the same video. If the competition starts to get stale, the game designers can always just “break the mold”, by altering the game enough that it makes previous strategies or COTS parts less applicable, and forces a bit of a knowledge reset for both new and experienced teams. Or perhaps, more awards are created that emphasize engineering creativity, with points docked for designs that are copied with little iteration. Ri3D and BuildBlitz might change FRC in the short-term, but I don’t see them as damaging it in the long term.

Finally, everyone is making great points, and I agree it is important to constantly think about how changes in the nature of FRC impact what we are trying to achieve with our students. However, I think framing the discussion in the terms of “how do I continue to emphasize the importance of original design with my students, despite the abundance of resources available at kickoff” vs. “how do I stop the proliferation of these resources”, would help a lot.

I too am conflicted, as I see these resources as being very helpful to get me up to speed more quickly, and potentially give our newer team a taste of early success. However, we also have to walk a line to make sure enough is being contributed by the students that they feel proud that it is “their robot” and “their design”, and not simply a copy of someone else’s design. For this year, I think that regardless of the source, our students will be thrilled to field a competitive robot that their hands were touching for 6 weeks, and that is driven by two of them. Maybe I’m wrong, and next year we’ll have to better manage the incoming information so the students are more bought in, but for this year, I’m pretty psyched to have so much information available in the first three days.

Thanks!
Steven