[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

The problem is they're quite transparently pushing their robotics competition on every team in FRC, at the expense of the teams that do VRC now.

FIRST has quite transparently been pushing their "Gracious Professionalism" propaganda on every team in FRC, FTC, and FLL, at the expense of the teams that do BattleBots now. I haven't heard any complaints about that.

Originally Posted by StevenB

I'm hearing an awful lot of complaining about the removal of a strict constraint mixed with a lot of complaining about the addition of a strict constraint.

Absolutely 100% hit the mark. Well done sir.

In my mind I keep going back to a quote by a very prevalent and distinguished member of the FRC GDC (numbers are as of 2009 but the intent still applies):

I have said it before, and I will say it again: If between them FIRST, IFI, BotBall, BEST, and PLTW are collectively dedicating even a single neuron firing to the contemplation of how to beat the "other guys," then collectively they are all fools.

Let's look at some reality. TSA will reach 150,000 students this year[1], the FIRST Robotics Competition will reach an estimated 41,000 students[2], Project Lead The Way manages to contact 500,000 students[3], BotBall touches approximately 5,000[4], and the VEX competitions add about 6,000 more[5]. That is a grand total of about 700,000 students involved in these programs today.

As of 2007, there are an estimated 16,400,000 high school students in the U.S.[6]. So collectively, these guys are affecting a grand, whopping, huge 4.2 percent of the U.S. high school student population. That is right – 4.2 percent. Over 95% of the current high school students in the United States are not engaged by any of them.

Given a potential market that is 25 times larger than the entire population currently served by these programs – and remembering that it has taken nearly 20 years for them to grow just to this point – the ONLY focus that anyone should have is how to reach that larger market.

The publicly-stated goal of each of these organizations is to provide inspiration and education on STEM topics to those that have not yet "seen the light." You don’t do that by trying to convince those already converted that your particular phrasing of the message is better. You do it by reaching out to those that have never heard the message in the first place. A little less time spent on turf wars, and a little more time spent on reaching the 95% of students who are oblivious to your existence, might be wise.

-dave

We all know the competition. We all know the rules (pending clarification on some, i.e. capping the tower, etc). The changes made in TU1 were made three days after ship. Three days. Not after Week 1 regionals. I can't speak on how much the other people affiliated with FRC at various levels agreed with them, but Dean's remarks and his homework made his personal position quite clear. Nothing about the TU1 should be surprising.