[archiver]

Posted by Joe Johnson, Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 5/2/99 7:06 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: Next year: Make the game understandable posted by michael bastoni on 5/2/99 3:30 PM MST:



I love this thread.

Thanks Andy for starting it.

Thanks Mr. B for stirring the pot.

Ultimately, this question I think that this thread raises is:

Is FIRST ready for Prime Time?

Sadly, I think that the answer is clearly NO. I hate to admit it, but this thing we love is just too complicated for the masses.

FIRST is trying to make it more exciting while allowing robots to play more than one match, a difficult balancing act.

If FIRST is not ready for Prime Time, then I see us as having 3 paths forward:

1) Forget about Prime Time. This is a niche sport with niche fans.

2) Change for format to make it more TV friendly.

3) Become so popular, that the definition of what ready for Prime Time is changed sufficiently to include FIRST as ready.


#1 is my sort of nightmare scenerio. While I really enjoy attending the competitions and impacting the kids on my team and my immediate community, I got into FIRST because I felt that it was going to change the culture of America in ways that I thought were important and necessary.

While Dean can talk all he wants about this not being a science fair, it IS still just a science fair in my mind (only granted a very large and expensive one) as long as we have not had the cultural impact that I think is central to the mission.

I think that some of #2 and a lot of #3 are the real long-term solutions.

I think that some changes can be made to make the game more TV and non-fanatic friendly. What I hope is that we don't make so many compromises in order to become popular that we forget that what FIRST is about is changing what folks consider to be popular. It is a VERY tricky balance.

And yet, I am still bullish on the future of FIRST.

Joe J.