[StillDefective]

I remember how I got in to FIRST. One of the teachers at my Elementary school said something about robots at a local arena, which happened to be the STL FRC Regional at the time. I thought "Oh that sounds like fun can we go dad?" so we went, and I was blown away watching these huge robots drive around a huge field and it looked like fun, and they had something on FLL there and I saw that and thought "I can do that!" Then we went to a minor league baseball game and a local school un-affiliated
FIRST group was presenting FRC and FLL there, so at one point I got in to FLL through one of the community teams, and I was hooked.

I did FLL for three years, then at one point I was leaving the FLL team for some reason or another and decided I wanted to go bigger, but I didn't think I was ready for FRC, so I joined an FTC team. I have done that for three years, and it was my plan to move up to FRC for my last three years. I was enjoying FTC a lot, and was thinking of staying, but then our team made it to the CMP and I was watching the Einstein matches. That right there convinced me to go. The quality of game-play, the fantastic engineering, 254s BEAUTIFUL machine. It inspired me, but FTC played a part in that as well.

Yes, FTC doesn't have all the glory of FRC, and yes, it is in fact smaller and cheaper, but when that's all you can afford/gain access too, would you rather just not have FIRST at all? The TETRIX kit is like an un-assembled LEGO set, but you are not constrained or grounded (#CADJokes) to that whatsoever, you have a huge set of raw materials to work with. And yes, most FTC teams probably don't know what a 6 wheel drop-center WCD is, and there isn't any point. It turns fine without a dropped center with a simple tank style drive. They are 18" long. Some teams even have a crab style drive, it's really cool actually. You have to do many of the things you have in FRC. Just on a smaller scale and slightly simpler. FLL to FRC is a MASSIVE jump. FTC is a good middle ground.

Don't bash FTC because it's smaller. It recognizes and inspires people about STEM education, it worked for me, and I am not the only one. And unless I am mistaken, isn't that what FIRST is about? (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Yeah, it is.


"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders."

#2cents.