Quote:
Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday
. We need to remember what FIRST is really about. It sure isn't about winning.
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This quote was sprinkled around throughout my high school robotics team. I thought I heard the last of it when I graduated, but I guess not. I really hate this statement. FIRST's mission might be to inspire, but we're all participating in the FIRST Robotics
Competition. Competitions have winners and losers, and to say it's not about winning when FIRST gave us a competition is cheapening the experience and can also be derogatory for those that aim to win.
I get it, FIRST's goal is to inspire, but the competition is one of those vehicles to inspire. Building a winning robot is inspirational; watching a winning robot is inspirational; watching the teams on einstein is inspirational. Sure, we can say that teams that don't make elims at their regionals or district events can still have inspired students, I was one of those students, but I'd argue that students who work towards winning and are on winning teams are more inspired than those who sit out saturday afternoon at their regional or district competitions. Saying that there's only 3 winners at a regional doesn't mean anything. There's 30 teams in Baseball, but only one wins the world series. If it's not about winning, why don't we give every team a blue banner, and an automatic bid to Championships? Because that's not inspiring, and we all know it. No one would want to pay $5000 a year, plus additional event registration, to go to a "fair" where everyone wins everything and your performance on the field doesn't matter.
Everyone has played this game now. GDC has designed games where watching the robots perform was inspirational. GDC has also designed games that made no logical sense (I'm looking at you, Lunacy) and were dull, boring, and hardly inspiring. If FIRST's goal is inspiration, they need to make games that encourage inspiration. Calling out FIRST and the GDC for coming up with a game this hard to officiate and with so many gray areas in the manual isn't un-GP. I think throwing honest criticism and recommendations for improving team's experience is actually very gracious and very professional. As "Robotics Memes" said, we can't sugarcoat the problems of this game and call any criticisms un-GP. Granted, teams and students have had outbursts, but we all try our best to post rationally, and berate those who post while emotionally charged. Yes, there are valid criticisms with this game. Yes, sometimes it gets so bad we start beating a dead horse, but I think everyone just wants to see FIRST acknowledge our opinions and issues with the game and use that as constructive criticism to improve future games.
I never thought I'd have flashbacks to my memories of high school at this age, but reading this thread instantly reminded me of my senior year, when I was arguing to build a kitbot on steroids so we could have a competitive drivetrain, but I was told by the other leaders "FIRST isn't a sport, it's not about winning. It's about being inspired". We don't pay $5000 and put some nuts and bolts together haphazardly just to say "we're inspired". If that was the case, we could save money and enter a Science Olympiad tournament (no offense to SO) or BEST robotics. We pay this money because we want to compete with other robots in the region, we want to foster a culture idolizing STEM, and we want to buy into a system that will guide us towards that goal, and to do that, FIRST gave us a competition, a sport, to play in to win.