Most of what I'd say in response to this discussion I've already said in
my post about why we care about the competition aspect of FRC but I thought I'd add in a bit more.
People care about winning. They want to be the best. I'd argue it's a natural instinct that came out of the desire to survive. Whatever it is, that desire to be the best drives people to do more than they'd ever do otherwise. It drives innovation to happen faster than it would ever happen otherwise. In FRC it creates the very top teams.
Instead of trying to work against that view, why can't FIRST use it to their advantage? Use the fact that people are competitive to bring the program farther than it would ever go otherwise. They've been doing it for a long time--it's what sets FIRST apart from most other STEM programs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jman4747
So I'll ask, would you rather continue inspiring and training the community or leave (as you imply by saying: "losing even a percentage of them") because you cannot have one champion/championship and can no longer be the "one true champion"?
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I'm going to ask you something: if aiming for the top is what has been pushing teams on, and what has created the powerhouse teams, do we want to lose that?
FRC as a program will go on without them. Even if (and I don't believe this will happen, but just imagine) the top 10 or 20 teams suddenly disappeared, the program isn't going to just collapse. But FRC as we know it will not be the same, and not in a good way.
So much of the awe, inspiration, and "how is that even possible?" I felt this year came from watching the top teams. Staying up to watch 148's reveal over and over (and it came out at like 11pm), reloading CD until 254 posted their reveal, looking through all the pictures and videos of 1114 my friends and I could find to try and figure out how their robot worked, watching the webcasts as 2056 won their
22nd regional in a row, plotting data to see how high an OPR of 158 really is, talking to various teams at champs, watching the matches on Einstein...if these experiences were possible because of the desire to be the top--and some teams getting there--is that bad?
I'll be a senior when the split champs is implemented. The rookies who join that year will not experience a single championship as a student. Do I think FRC will drastically change in 2017 just because of that change? Yes and no. I don't think everyone is suddenly going to stop trying to do their best. But I do think something will change. At the very least we won't be seeing those final matches played out in front of everyone at champs, and I think the changes go deeper than that. They may not know what is missing, I may not know what is missing--we may never know exactly what we've lost. I can imagine, but will never know, what it's like to have champs without divisions, and I think this is a larger change than that.
Losing the top to benefit the bottom isn't a trade we should be looking at, not when there's a way to help everyone. I'll say it again: 2021, districts > DCMPs or super regionals > single champs. Both levels of inspiration, less traveling for a larger competition, less expensive per competition, more sustainable, etc.