[ilikerobots97]

I really enjoyed the game, but I'm not a fan of the medieval theme. Although I'm sure some FRC participants dug the theme, I think it ultimately damaged FRC's appeal to the general high school population.

As I'm guessing many others here on CD do, I take pleasure in showing off robotics to my friends (whether for recruiting or not). To explain FIRST / FRC, I usually watch insane reveal videos (118 in 2013, 148 in 2010, etc.) with them, as well as a bit of match play. Importantly, however, I try to avoid showing them any of the cheesiness associated with FIRST, and this year, it was certainly much harder.

In my honest opinion -- although again, I'm sure some FRC participants dig this, and I don't mean to offend anyone -- most high school students would cringe at parades of mascots dancing to "Cotton-Eyed Joe", using the word "coopertate" (as featured on The Fosters), and watching an emcee -- who is dressed up in a medieval costume -- talk as if he was actually from the middle age.

In high school (I just graduated), I was on a relatively smaller team, and I was the only one on my team who played a sport. When I was trying to recruit my friends (many of whom did play sports), most were immediately turned off by the "silliness" -- which I feel sometimes masked the competitiveness of FRC -- and many poked fun at me for being involved in such a corny program.

I think that if FIRST was more focused on robotics and less on the corny aspects associated with robotics, it would be able to appeal to a far larger number of students. I get the idea that the corniness helps students overcome being intimidated, but I think the subset of high school students who don't want to do robotics due to the stigma of participating in a "nerdy" activity has a much greater cardinality than the subset of students who are too intimidated to do robotics (but would be willing to join if they saw mascots dancing to the "Cotton-Eyed Joe").

I might have a pretty unpopular opinion here, but I just thought I'd share my two cents.