Do mentors helping students build robots regardless of size inspire? Yes.
Do robots regardless of size make the general public take interest in science and technology? Yes
Do students learn some important life skills like team work regardless of robot size? yes
But, I personally feel that having a predetermined kit to work from is an extremely limiting factor in many robotics competitions out there. Yes, there are students who get something out of them but, having an open ended kit allows for a higher diversity of students to participate. For example, we are currently trying to recruit a senior who has his welding certificate from our local community college. Whether or not he joins the team is completely dependent on being able to weld to keep his skills up. There is no way we could recruit him if we did VRC/FTC. The opportunities for students to be exposed to and learn about real world manufacturing, fabrication and assembly are so much more advanced in FRC.
My other major issue with VRC/FTC/FLL is the event format. Having multi-day FRC events makes our program stand out as being something more than a science fair to our school and community. Having regionals where students on our team get to tell their their friends that they are going to a 3 day event in another state is a
BIG deal. And for those students who aren't on the honor roll or play a sport it is a
HUGE deal.
I think that FFL is a great thing. I have personally volunteered at our local FLL event for the past 5 years (many times on my birthday). Its fun and a great scale for that age group.
I think the greatest thing for FTC would be to allow 6th and 7th graders to participate. If they would be allowed to compete then
FIRST would have a better overall system for promoting its core values. I would stand completely behind a setup where a student could go FLL in 4-5th grades, FTC in 6-8th grades and FRC in 9-12th grades. Leaving the overlap to adjust for economic and emotional levels of course.
Back to the thread topic:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory
I sure hope FIRST has some sort of minimum standard they intend to enforce for quality.
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Agreed