[EricH]

I'm going to respond in two ways: First, the two holes I see in your argument. Next, my perception of what the ACTUAL problem is.

First, your two holes are in your #1 and #3 statements. The first is that the preferred way to encourage participation in FIRST is to maximize the number of teams in elims, and the other is that teams drafting their own second robot is a bad thing (paraphrase). The second one is easier, so I'll start there: I've seen VERY few events where one team, let alone multiple, has the ability to pick their own 2nd robot, and actually does so. I believe this to be an infrequent occurrence, thus, on any risk matrix, it would need a rating of "catastrophic" to need serious action taken.

Back to the first hole. Maximizing the number of teams in eliminations is a good thing, IF "we're all winners" is a good thing. However, I note that this is a COMPETITION, thus, "we're all winners" is not something you really want to encourage. Furthermore, I would posit that the preferred method of encouraging participation is not necessarily maximizing the number of teams in eliminations, but maximizing the number of inter-team interactions through pit visits, alliances, team socials, and other similar activities. Maximizing the number of teams in eliminations is but one aspect of this, and seems to be the ONLY one you're focused on. Please, look at all of the trees in the forest, not just the oaks.


Now, my perception of the ACTUAL problem, relating to attrition. There are generally 3 or 4 causes of a team not returning. I'm going to go ahead and list them; they are: Funding, Lack of Mentorship, Lack of Administrative Support, and Lack of Interest (students/parents). Of the four, again, you seem to only be tackling one, the last one--I agree that interest is higher if you win more--but I would argue that you need to watch out for all four. What if, for example, your high school decided that robotics was no longer worthwhile? Could your team survive the transition to another administrative base? What if your mentors suddenly burned out or got transferred? (One team I've been involved with did have this problem--they've been doing VRC and FLL since that year.) How about funding? Can you increase your fundrasing quickly enough, if your sponsors pull out or you don't get that big grant (see the Texas thread)? Or what if all your current students graduated, and somehow you didn't have any recruiting?

As a side note: You weren't been around for this, but one of the ALL-TIME most successful years for one FRC team was followed the very next year by that team NOT being in EXISTENCE. Think about it: Einstein Finalist, along with a lot of other awards/event wins. Gone. Split into 2 or 3 other teams, at least one of which since folded too, re-emerging as a rookie for a year or so, might still be around. Think about that for a minute. That isn't a problem of not getting inspiration from being in eliminations! In that case, I believe I remember hearing that it was some form of administration issues leading to the split, and a sponsor doing something-or-other that led to lack of funding for the team that folded. This was a top-tier team. Not a mid-pack or low-end team. Top-tier attrition. That could be you guys. That could be anybody.


So attrition isn't a problem that can be solved just by slapping restrictions on what teams can and can't be picked by alliance captains in order to artificially boost the number of different/lower-ranked teams in the eliminations. Another thing ya missed was the first year of alliances, and the various things tried that year to make it work. What ended up happening was largely the system we've used ever since. FIRST has had multiple iterations of the selection rules to even things out a bit--the most notable being the serpentine, but others include monkeying with how teams are ranked. Whether they've worked well is up for debate year by year.

And this isn't something, at the offseason level at any rate, that FIRST is even going to want to address. Their attitude towards offseason events is something like "put it on our calender, if you want to; if you want to use our fields, here's who to contact; here's a form of field control you can try to use" and other than that they don't touch them. They'll acknowledge they exist, and support pre-stop-build scrimmages within range, but they don't go any further. That guideline isn't going to happen, not from HQ at any rate, unless they actually see this as a solution to a problem.


Here is my solution to the attrition: Start tracking the teams that drop out of FRC. Figure out how many are going to FTC and VRC, and possibly other competitions, because that's where a lot of them end up. The robots and budgets are smaller, the mentors have a little less work, there are a LOT more teams, and they're at least as effective. I can think of at least 4 FRC teams, off the top of my head, that aren't in FRC anymore... but are in VRC or FTC. Those aren't attrition. They're multiplication.