[rourke]

I want to keep this thread on point. This is about growth. Period.

My “challenge” seeks to steer collaboration AWAY from all of the controversial aspects, and to focus it towards GROWTH (less controversial). For instance…..

• I only support collaboration when without it there would be no second or third team.
• My vision and application of collaboration is “participative”. Students that want to be involved in the design phase have the opportunity – they work hand-in-hand with the multi-school design team. Students that want to build parts get to – they work side-by-side building parts or make their own. Students that want to write programs get the chance to load their code into the robot and test it out. No one gets hand-outs. No one gets short changed.
• My vision of collaboration does not have super teams wiping out smaller teams, or hundreds of robots all looking identical. If it is used for growth, then this is of no concern. Be responsible with it. Use GP as a sense check.

As Karthik mentioned, we are continuing to use collaboration as a growth strategy in Niagara, by adding a 4th team to the region. They are NOT copying The Triplets. But, they are copying a U.S. team’s robot. The students want to compete in off-season competitions and want the confidence in a proven design the first time. Next year they will build their own unique robot from scratch – because of this initial confidence builder. They would not have signed up to do this without it. It was really easy to convince them to jump on board and start spending money when they knew they had the ability to copy something that worked.

There is a win-win here for both the “For” and “Against” Collaboration Camps. Keep the good aspects, toss out the bad. Focus it on growth only. I believe FIRST can grow faster with it, than without it.