Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH
I'm inclined to agree that the level of play will probably go down (if witholding is eliminated). The question is, will it go down simply from "elite" to "really good", or will it drop even farther, and how much of a drop in play can we tolerate?
|
The average regional event (I cannot speak to district events) featuring a random sampling of 6 teams on the field varies between "unwatchably bad" to "struggles to complete the game objectives consistently", to "good". In no case would it be considered elite or even really good on average. The bar is currently set MUCH lower than it seems you consider it to be. That on field quality would be very bad if rules changed to make the robots actually be built in 6 weeks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gblake
What is the metric? Something along the lines of introducing students to enough positive STEM experiences to open their eyes to the possibility that they might enjoy a STEM career. To do that you don't even need to have competitions. You might choose to use competitions, but they aren't required.
|
FIRST wants FRC to be the vehicle that leads to culture change. You cannot change the culture with a science fair. I don't think that can even be up for debate. It just won't happen. Competition is what makes this cool for kids that don't self select as science geeks. Competition is literally in the name, so clearly FIRST does think competition is crucial to achieving their goals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by efoote868
After stop build day, there are about 20 dedicated students that will continue to meet or work on robotics, but the work is infrequent and not mandatory for everyone.
|
Could you elaborate on what your competition season looks like? You are from Indiana and 868 seems to be an upper tier Indiana team. Are you not taking advantage of unbagging windows? Do you not plan any upgrades for your robot? Do you just unbag to practice/test software? Do you iterate on mechanisms? What are you working on (or not working on) each week between the last week of February and CMP?
Not trying to be obstinate, just trying to understand your very strong pro SBD stance while you currently exist in a district environment which is the closest thing we have to eliminating SBD.
Jim's paper had a very reasonable intermediate step of giving everyone FRC wide 8 hours a week (every week, not just weeks you're competing) unbag time. I've seen almost no discussion of this, just the posts about how the sky will fall if we eliminate SBD and the opposite posts that it's insane we continue to have SBD. This intermediate step is unbelievably easy to implement, saves those who need saving from themselves, and gives huge benefits to all teams at very little cost.
It would be SO much better than the current system for teams like us and teams who can't afford a practice robot. There are so many things teams like ours could do to help those with less resources if such a plan were implemented. We could host scrimmages, we could help teams fabricate upgrade parts, we could do pre-inspections and help teams correct issues with their robots in our shop with the benefit of all our raw materials, components, and tools. The list goes on and on.