[dodar]

Originally Posted by EricH

You forgot about FIRST LEGO League and FIRST Tech Challenge. Neither of those mentions competition... or robotics...

FIRST is not just FRC. FIRST's mission is, in paraphrase, to inspire young people to pursue STEM careers through exciting mentor-based programs. (I'm too lazy to go look up the exact mission statement right now.)

Now the question becomes: Where does that inspiration come from? And what can deny it? I would argue that that comes from building a robot to compete. I won't deny that winning is fun, and losing is not, and more particularly losing because a ref misses a call isn't fun at all, but does that totally negate the inspiration of build season? (I can't answer that one. I'd even go so far as to say that it depends on the individual student(s) involved.)

Sorry if I come off as blunt but we are talking about FRC, not FLL or FTC. FIRST had the opportunity to call it FIRST Robotics Challenge back when they named it but they actively decided to call it a Competition. FIRST wanted to emphasize it as a main goal for the high school level. We may not think it inspires the current students, but I can for sure tell you that the regionals/districts/championship matches all inspire middle schoolers, elementary schoolers, college students, and parents. And if it affects them then the inspiration is diminished.