View Single Post
  #29   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 21-04-2014, 16:16
Citrus Dad's Avatar
Citrus Dad Citrus Dad is offline
Business and Scouting Mentor
AKA: Richard McCann
FRC #1678 (Citrus Circuits)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: May 2012
Rookie Year: 2012
Location: Davis
Posts: 992
Citrus Dad has a reputation beyond reputeCitrus Dad has a reputation beyond reputeCitrus Dad has a reputation beyond reputeCitrus Dad has a reputation beyond reputeCitrus Dad has a reputation beyond reputeCitrus Dad has a reputation beyond reputeCitrus Dad has a reputation beyond reputeCitrus Dad has a reputation beyond reputeCitrus Dad has a reputation beyond reputeCitrus Dad has a reputation beyond reputeCitrus Dad has a reputation beyond repute
Re: Suggestion for a new overall approach

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Stratis View Post
There's just no way that FIRST can adequately pair up teams for mentorship. There's no way for someone sitting at HQ to understand the behaviors and desires of a team 1000 miles away in order to know if they would be a good team to select to mentor another team. It takes more than winning a regional or a few awards to be a good mentor.

Here in MN, the status quo is just fine. In the past 9 years (since FIRST got started in the state with 1816), we've had less than 10 teams drop out of FRC (most of them this past year) - out of almost 190. One of those I know merged with another team, and most of the rest switched over to FTC - they were victims of being pushed into FRC when the school simply wasn't ready for that level of commitment, and FTC is a much better fit for those teams. That's adding 20 teams per year, on average, and losing maybe 1.

If we can make it work here, why does FIRST have to step in and be heavy-handed about controlling it? Instead of looking for FIRST to step in and solve the problem for you, why not get things set up in your area to solve the issues you see directly? Let other areas come up with solutions that best work for them.

The people at HQ are already stretched with everything they do, and the last thing we need is to increase costs for everyone by hiring more people to organize something that can be done perfectly well by some volunteers and teams themselves.
It may be working in MN, but it's not working well elsewhere. And this is a national and worldwide program, not just MN. And the GDC appears to agree with that point by so radically changing the game this year to create these incentives. So I suggest being so parochial and looking at the needs of the broader community. (And I'll make the point that MN is much different than the rest of the U.S. in community involvement and support, in a good way. But don't expect the rest of us to be like you.) The problem is bigger than what can be fixed at the grassroots with the hope that it will spread. Instead it requires a top down approach that creates stronger incentives to create the type of program that MN has. I work in public policy, and I know that trying to rely on self started grassroots programs to change broader community issues is very slow going, on the scale of decades.

I'm still curious how you propose that rookie teams identify competent local teams as useful mentors. Running a workshop isn't any better than relying on honors as a criteria. At least here in California teams that are alliance captains or first picks and are Chairman's, EI or other engineering award winners are generally quite good at what they do.

The fact is that what I've proposed will not be a large burden on the FIRST staff. Here's what I proposed: 1) Tell us whether the game will require cooperative robot play (and nothing more) in August. 2) Provide to experience teams (perhaps those that meet the honors won criteria) the names of new interested FRC teams being formed PRIOR to formal registration as those become available. 3) Ask the experienced teams explicitly to approach the new teams to provide guidance and assistance.