[EricH]

Originally Posted by John Retkowski

However, with all due respect, I find it hard to understand the argument: "It's not about the robots." I believe the robots are a lot more important than many of us realize both in a competitive way and different way.

Let's ask ourselves this,” If it’s not about the robots, what's FIRST about?”
Easy. It's about inspiration.
Next question: What are we trying to inspire?
Another pretty straight forward answer. We're trying to inspire young people (really everybody) to become STEM leaders and show people how much science and technology matter.
One more question. (cmon you guys are smart you can do it)

How do we inspire? By building and competing with robots!
But it's not about the robots. [...] I can only speak for myself, but when I first heard about a robotics team in my area I didn't join because I thought, "Hey, maybe I can work on writing a paper." I wasn't thinking, "I hope they'll have a business plan!" I'm willing to bet that most young people first joined a team for one reason: To build robots.

You've gone fishing, right? Let's take a look at a typical fishing trip from the perspective of a fish. (Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this.)

"Oh, hey, that looks (or smells) tasty. I think I'll take a look and see if it actually is good." *nibble* "Eh, not bad. But I'll pass for now--wait, it's leaving!" (This is the one where the fisherman thinks the nibble is the real bite.)

"Oh, hey, that looks (or smells) tasty. I think I'll take a look and see if it actually is good." *nibble* "YUM!" *bites the whole thing* "Hey, OW, WAIT, STOP, I don't like this! Wait, there's a new world out here I can just barely see OW!" (Doesn't end well for the fish, so I'll stop there.)

"That" is the bait, wrapped around the hook--which is, of course, reeled in. Did I mention that I was going somewhere with this? First, let's see if you can figure out this one: who's saying it, and what is "that"?

"Hey, that looks interesting. I'll take a look and see what's up." *a few months--or years--later* "WOW. That was intense. There's so much to learn and see out in the STEM fields." (or... "Meh, not my cup of tea.")

Give up? Of course, it's a new student joining a robotics team because of the robot! (The other one is a student deciding that he/she isn't interested.)


By this time, if you've made it this far, you're asking "what's his point?" My point is this: It's not about the robots, because the robots are the bait, hook, line and sinker. We're the fishermen trying to catch the students to inspire, and we're using a robot to do it. For the students, yep, it's all about the robot: for those that see the bigger picture (including the students who've been around a while), the robot is just a vehicle. To go back to fishing for a moment, you could also: use a big net (trawling), "tickle" a fish (AKA barehanded grabs), or spear a fish (or other ways).

This is all about the robots because it is NOT all about the robots. For better or worse, FIRST has chosen to use robotics competitions as their primary vehicle of achieving their goals. They've put a lot into those competitions. After the first year, they could have backed off, gone to another idea... but they stayed with it. Now... there's no way out, for them. It has to be about the robots... because otherwise, how are they going to reach kids? It has to not be about the robots... because their purpose is not to find the best robot for X but to inspire and recognize.

It's a vicious cycle, and it's difficult to explain. I hope I've been clear enough, but if I go further I'll be having a circular argument with myself on how it is/is not about the robots because it is not/is about the robots and all that.


Which leads us back towards the original question, which I'll expand slightly:
Is there a way to still crown a single World Champion Alliance, while still maintaining the Inspiration and the Recognition of a single Championship event, in two (or more) ChampionSplit events? As a side item, is it possible to also get 25% or so of FRC teams TO the Championship?


My answer to my own challenge... let's just say I cheat in mine, and look a lot longer than the two years we have to come up with a good one. I don't look at 2017. I'm looking at 2021 and beyond. I'm also looking at all the areas that aren't districts.

Spoiler for stop reading if you don't want my opinions to form yours:

My answer is simple: We've got 5 years to get as much of FRC as possible into a district system. THEN we can go to FIRST and say, "You know that SuperRegional model you had like 10 years ago? You wanna break that out again, and reformat the DCMPs and ChampionSplits into SuperRegionals, and give us one World Championship again? Oh, and while you're at it, can we get some of the Championship items like conferences and a Hall of Fame to the SuperRegionals?"

In my opinion, that's the only way we can accomplish all of the items above. It's going to take time--time we have, and don't have. It's going to take volunteers we need to recruit, take venues we need to find, take teams that don't exist yet that need to be started. It's not an easy solution, but difficult problems often demand difficult solutions.