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FIRST is NOT an educational program - never was - never will be [thank God!]
To determine if your team is successfull, you only need to ask one question:
=> how many students on your team are now planning on studying science or engineering in college?
the robot building contest is only a platform, a foundation, a underlying bridge, that allows engineers to take high school students through a complete engineering design cycle, from initial problem analysis, through design, build, test, deployment, field modification, and real world competition.
Do you know what the engineering design cycle is? Do you know how to perform data-driven analysis of the game and its rules, to define the optimum game strategy?
How to write a set of system requirements that will meet all the required functions of the game/rules? how to turn that into a design specification? How to break down your system design spec into subsystems?
how to test each one as a unit? how to integrate them all together and test them as a system?
How to implement a closed loop PID feedback control system that optimizes performace while remaining stable? How to optimize SW code for speed? min code space? min variables?
Can you define the physics of the game and determine the energy, power and work specifications your machine will need to meet?
There is no way you could teach high school students everything they would need to know in 6 weeks (or even in a year) to build a state of the art, competitive machine. You simply cant lump 4 or more years of engineering classes, and many years of professional experience into a program like this.
If you could, then instead of sending kids to a university for 4 years, all we would need to do is let them be on a FIRST team for 6 weeks - right?
?!
I think Im going to change my signature line to one of Dean Kamens other famous quotes " at some point in the next 6 weeks you might start to think you are involved in a robot building contest. Then you are in SERIOUS trouble!"
FIRST is not about building robots - its about building careers!
If you let a group of HS student take the kit of parts, and bolt it together, with a few holes drilled here and there, and a few lines changed in the default code - then what have you shown them about engineering?
FIRST should NOT leave a student with the feeling that he gets it now - he can do it by himself now -
FIRST should leave you with a deep sense that this engineer stuff is awesome, and you cant wait to learn how it all works, cause you want to do this for the rest of your life.
Engineering is not easy, its not simple. Its a lot of work. Pushing the state of the art means you are standing on the shoulders of every engineer and scientist who paved your way, and you are now taking their work one step further.
Im 45 years old, and when I see the things some people are working on, it gives ME goosebumps!
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