[Rick TYler]

Sean raises an interesting point, but (fortunately) I haven't seen much evidence of the worst part of his fears -- that is, cheating in FIRST to win. The vast majority of competitive sports in the US are between groups of friends or kids who get together to "play" something for fun. I went through 12 years of kid sports (soccer, basketball, and Little League) and cannot ever remember a case of systematic cheating. I know there have been cheating incidents in youth sports, but not on a systemic basis. As an adult, I can't remember stories of cheating in "club" sports like softball, cycling, rugby, or soccer. Cheating in professional sports are generally linked to money. Money is the great corrupter of people in sports, I believe, and it strikes me as very unlikely that something like FIRST would ever get to that level.

As for the implied argument that the competitive aspect of competition robotics will corrupt our souls -- that winning and losing will be the only thing we care about -- I'm not worried about that either. It's already the case for a very passionate minority, but I can't see what would change the ratio of win-or-die folks to win-but-don't-forget-to-have-fun people that we have now. FIRST is nearly 20 years old with a highly competitive culture already in place. It's never going to be as popular as the NBA or MLB, so I don't think we have to worry about that ratio tilting completely to the "win-or-die" side of the equation. If that was likely, it would have happened already.

I believe the biggest challenge for FIRST is not the worry of over-competitiveness, it's how to grow a lower-cost high school program that any club or school can enjoy without having to raise $20,000 and build a machine shop. When FRC and FTC combine to reach the 90 (95?) percent of the high schools in North America that don't already have a robotics team, THAT will be success, regardless of how competitive the students feel.

Actually, as long as the adults involved keep their cool, the students will be fine. When the parents, mentors, and other adults care about winning more than about the personal growth of students, THAT'S when the program will be in trouble.