Quote:
Originally Posted by tickspe15
Whether build season is made longer, shorter, or eliminated all together nothing will change. Bad teams will still be bad and good teams will still be good.
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I agree, but I personally believe that removing access restrictions to the robots will make the FRC better.......Much Better
There is considerable supporting data supporting this position:
Lets start with what we know:
Most of the teams in the FRC lack the ability to play the game well.
This year's median team contribution per match was about 18 points.
This is a capped stack of 3 totes. So HALF of the teams are worse than this.
Only 16% of the league could reliably do a 6 stack, and only 3% could reliably do 2 stacks.
If our ultimate goal is to make robotics into a spectator sport, this is not a recipe for success.
This trend is pretty much the same every year, regardless of the game. Most of the teams in the FRC lack any real ability to play the game every year.
This would indicate that either the challenge is too hard, there is not enough time, or both.
Next if we look at team capability growth through the season, we can see a clear trend of how teams improve the more they use their robots.
From this you can see that average capablity doubles when teams attend their second event, and more than triples with the third.
What this clearly reflects is what we all already know: Teams get better if they spend time using their robots.....much better.
Given the fact that teams only get 20-30 minutes of on field time at each event, the data would indicate that a little more access would go a long way toward improving overall on-field capability of the teams and would make FRC a much better spectator sport.
Lastly, lets explore the statement that the best teams will always probably win regardless of the constraints. The data also supports the fact that this is almost certainly true.
Adding the capability growth graph of the FRCTop25 teams to the chart we get this:
This elite group of teams have an average capability at their opening event which is better than the entire league average after 5 events.
They are simply way, way better than the vast majority of teams.
Nothing which FIRST HQ could do in terms of rules or additional constraints could possibly affect this gap.
So in summary, what do we know from the data:
1. Most FRC teams are pretty bad
2. Most FRC teams clearly improve if they spend more time using their robots.
3. It does not take a lot of additional access time to make teams get several times better on average.
4. The best teams are way better than everyone else
5. Additional constraints will do nothing to close the gap between the leaders and the rest.
So, in summary,
- Robot access restrictions do not hold back the small number of very good teams.
- Robot access restrictions hurt the vast majority of the teams
- Removing robot access restrictions will have the biggest positive impact on the weakest teams.
FIRST Management.....Wake Up....your own rule set is your own greatest liability.
Continuing to do something just because this is how it has always been done is not a good enough reason.
Einstein said,
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
The average ability of FRC teams will never change as long as these access restriction rules remain in place.
Many people fear change.....but I thought FIRST wanted to change the world.
This is not the changing the world, this is changing one simple rule.......give us back our robots please!!!!