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Unread 23-06-2002, 22:42
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Join Date: May 2001
Location: Pontiac, MI
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I'm against

Posted by Ken Patton, Engineer on team #65, The Huskie Brigade, from Pontiac Northern High School and GM Powertrain.

Posted on 5/8/99 7:14 AM MST


In Reply to: Re: You know my vote... posted by michael bastoni on 5/2/99 7:32 AM MST:




(I'm sorry I came into this late - I somehow missed this thread. I hope I'm not too late!)

Mike-

I am in total agreement with you that our single biggest problem is that of sustainability. The great things that happen on all of these teams is because of big efforts from individuals working together, and if we do not have the individuals working, we will not grow into thousands of teams. It applies to teachers, engineers, students, and the entities that allow us to use their facilities (schools, businesses). All of them need to be considered in our sustainability plan. I agree with you that this is what we need to work on as we help to improve FIRST. Lets not lose that even if we disagree on this 'same game' issue.

I think your ideas on the kit are good ones. Making the motors, etc. a bought kit instead of a donated kit will make more sense if we have a lot more teams. Availability would still be an issue - perhaps making sure that each team can get one set of parts through a source that packages everything together - one set per team - would take care of that.

On to the disagreement...

I do not see how keeping the game the same helps. Following are three reasons why. I don't think you have addressed them in your arguments for keeping the game the same. I just don't see how it makes things better.

1. I really do not believe it will be less 'robot work' because, with a carryover game, teams will then have to work on their robots year round if they want to remain competitive. If they know the game, they will start working on it. You can say, sure, wait until the new school year, but I really doubt thats going to happen. Any competitive student/teacher/engineer will start working on it last week. Burnout will become a BIGGER factor, in my opinion. It will be harder to get people to be on the team. It will be harder to work on non-robot projects like fundraising and community awareness, because there will be one other big thing to do.

2. It is not as inspiring to keep the game the same. Re-engineering is important and relevant, but it is not as useful for teaching students the lesson that engineers can make something from nothing, and teams of engineers can do the 'impossible' in an 'impossibly' short time. They won't be impressed by what technical professionals can do with their minds, because they'll know that we just copied last years TechnoJuggerKat or SonOfBeattyAces, because thats probably what it will take to win. I put a lot of value on this point, and I don't think your proposal does.

3. What are the new students going to be inspired about? The drivers will have been practicing all summer, so the new students won't get a chance to drive. The design team will have solidified ideas on what the robot should look like, and the new students will be in a catchup mode until when? Until the game changes again or until the 'players' graduate? What do we do when we are interviewing new students for the Year2000 team - tell them that they will have an impact on the design? I know I'm not going to lie to them. I want to be able to tell them that their ideas will go onto a brainstorming list that will be used. If they don't think they will get to 'play' will they still want to join the team? The reason I think this is important is that, in my opinion, the earlier we get the students on the team, the better. I think we can impact 9th grade lives more than we can impact 12th grade lives. We get the 9th graders for possibly 4 years (and more if they come from a Lego League school).

I just don't see the benefits to keeping the game the same. I totally agree with your emphasis on sustainability, though.

Ken



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