A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?

[E. Wood]

I have two points I would like to bring up.

First is the idea that the driving principles of FIRST are brought up too many times during competitions. Yes competition is a part of FIRST but it is just a part. If you attend three regionals, it’s only nine days. If you include the six week build season really the competition is only 48 days long, start to finish. Now I understand that every team is run differently, but the teams that I am associated with work during the so called off-season to promote STEM education and participate in community service events. Compare 48 days to 317 and tell me that other things FIRST teams do are not as worthy of public airtime as the robots are. I have heard many times over my years as a student and now a mentor that FIRST uses the competition to achieve its goals. The competition is not the point, it is merely a tool. The ideas and goals of FIRST are brought up during competitions because it is the organization’s most public event and they want the public to know that FIRST is about more than a robotics competition. That’s why the two highest awards given have nothing to do with the robots performance but instead with a team’s ability to achieve the goals of FIRST. If you are unsure of what these goals are visit the FIRST website and read their mission statement.

Also I happen to work with some wonderful, very talented students who do not consider themselves "nerds". Some of these students do not work on the robot and are inspired and excited by the education and outreach side of our teams. Others of these students do work on the robot but do not differ from other students their age in way besides the fact that they are on a FIRST team. I too do not consider myself a "nerd". Sure, I have what you may call "nerdy" moments and be an engineer by trade but this does not automatically make me a nerd. I believe that FIRST students can be very creative, bright students but to call us all "nerds" is unfair. That is a title that must be accept and carried by each individual person. If you want to be a nerd, good for you, there is nothing wrong with that, but some of us have other titles in mind for ourselves.

[ajd]

Originally Posted by E. Wood

I too do not consider myself a "nerd". Sure, I have what you may call "nerdy" moments and be an engineer by trade but this does not automatically make me a nerd. I believe that FIRST students can be very creative, bright students but to call us all "nerds" is unfair. That is a title that must be accept and carried by each individual person. If you want to be a nerd, good for you, there is nothing wrong with that, but some of us have other titles in mind for ourselves.

The trouble with the "nerd" label is the same as the trouble with any label (think "jock," "learning disabled," "ADD," "goodie two-shoes," "communist"): they obscure the real, individual people they are applied to.

Part of FIRST's mission is encouraging kids to move away from the culture where kids inordinately look up to music/sports stars. It's trying to break the culture where the most athletic/social students are often considered the "elite" and the more intellectually-/mechanically-/technically-/whatever-inclined are lower on the totem pole. But it must be very careful to avoid encouraging the "nerds" to form cliques of their own. Society needs all types, and I feel that FIRST's rhetoric sometimes fails to acknowledge that.

[Mr V]

On the subject of "nerds" and other labels/groups of people, I was talking to another mentor at the Seattle regional. Not sure how we got around to it, but he shared what he thought was the greatest thing that has came about as a result of their program. It was that it got two groups together the "nerds" the "gear heads" and working side by side they found out that they were more alike than different and basically went along way to erasing those labels.

[Taylor]

To my eyes, FIRST has turned its focus to TOMA (Top Of Mind Awareness), and that has led to the things with which you disagree.

Regarding the message: People come and go. There are people who went to kickoff who are no longer with the team; there are people at the team who didn't go to kickoff. We've got parents, administrators, sponsors, friends at events - some just for a day, some just for a couple hours. If the message isn't repeated, it's lost.

FIRST has every right to brand itself, and it should. To reach the long-standing goal of being in every high school in America and abroad, people (a) have to know about FIRST and (b) realize FIRST isn't other robotics competitions. The more I think about Dean's comments at kickoff, the more I'm thinking it wasn't aimed at VEX/BEST as much as it was aimed at BattleBots. Most of the public associates competition robots with SawKill or HammerPound - the type of robotic competition that FIRST is most decidedly not. Creating that separation is necessary, and a key way to do that is through the branding of FIRST.

[jason701802]

Originally Posted by E. Wood

That’s why the two highest awards given have nothing to do with the robots performance but instead with a team’s ability to achieve the goals of FIRST. If you are unsure of what these goals are visit the FIRST website and read their mission statement.

I so wish this were true. The Chairman's award and the Engineering Inspiration award are not given to the teams that do the best to spread the word of FIRST, instead they are given to the teams to best spread the word FIRST. It has become virtually impossible for a team to win the Chairman's without starting a FRC or FTC team and mentoring tens of FLL teams. We live in a small, fairly isolated community that is incapable of supporting another FRC team. Why can't we be given credit for showing kids what is so great about science and technology and for getting people together in our community instead of getting a few people involved with a FRC or FTC team. It can be very had to convince people that FIRST is so great when the cost per person is so high and similar benefits can be had without being directly involved in FIRST.

I am not saying that FIRST does not benefit those involved in incredible ways or that it is not an incredible program, just that FIRST involvement is not the only way to get kids excited about math, science and engineering, and that FIRST needs to recognize this fact.

Originally Posted by E. Wood

2. Do you think an average FRC game has more convoluted rules than American football, basketball, and baseball? Not even close. Yet those three sports are immensely popular. Many - probably a majority - of spectators who watch those sports do not understand the nuances of all of the rules, yet they still seem to enjoy watching the games.

FIRST doesn't need to dumb down the challenge to make the game fun to watch.

Yes, but the "major" sports work because they have the same rules year after year and the general goal is simple. Having a new game each year is part of what makes FIRST so fun, but if FIRST wants more people walking in from the streets, they need to create games that can be concisely described. Breakaway and Aim High are good examples of this, Lunacy wasn't even that bad, but I think this years game may have been the worst in my 10 years of FIRST (in terms on simplicity and explain-ability).

[AndyH]

This year especially, I have several concerns with FIRST. I realize that they have a right to do as they choose, but we have a responsibility to evaluate our participation in FIRST.

Here are two of the things bugging me:

1 - Where is Woodie? He is the educator; Dean is the salesman. In my opinion, FIRST is heading away from the former and toward the latter.

2 - Whatever we do, FIRST is always asking for more. Not, "We know that schools are really cutting budgets, and we appreciate that you have made this a priority. Let's talk about how we can keep this affordable." Instead they ask, "What can YOU do for FIRST? How can you get more teams involved, etc?" Perhaps they should also focus on keeping current teams involved. FIRST seems to no longer care about sustaining. Growth is the only goal, and it's HUGE for them. In my opinion, this has gotten more and more obvious over the past few years.

Notes - I know that they have done the light bulbs. That doesn't actually help make the program more affordable. It's more promotion for FIRST. A REAL savings would be to not require us to use motors that burn out frequently and are $20 to replace. For FTC, Lego is clearly making a fortune.

Also, we DID try to get people involved. We made a huge deal in our community to get people excited about the championships. Now we don't even know if there will be room for them to sit, but that's another thread...

[Cuog]

I would say I have very mixed opinions on some of this. I guess I'll start with the bad and end with the good for those that like to be a little more optimistic.

First and foremost in my mind is the cult like nature of FIRST lately(maybe longer but its struck me heavily in the past few years). The current expansion methods seem right out of the cult playbook, there's #1(Dean) that everyone needs to worship for his amazingness($$ Segway etc.), next get some celebs to talk about you for a second and publicize that sentence to death. Don't forget the most important thing you can do as a member of FIRST is to get more people to join. My opinion is that this is the wrong way to grow FIRST. It is a great program focused on gracious professionalism and mentorship, and I think if it were allowed to grow naturally the program would be so much better for the students. I think that the push for more is leaving those who have already joined FIRST out in the cold. It's a little bit of one in hand two in bush scenario, and I wish FIRST would stop dropping the kids in hand to chase those hiding in the bushes.

Second, and what hit me hard, is the focus on Engineering only. For those that forgot FIRST = For Inspiration and Recognition of SCIENCE and Technology. This past year, I have stepped up a lot more to what has been the hardest challenge for me so far: mentoring my old team. During my time mentoring I've spoken with a number of people from educators, business people, members of FIRST, parents, and many more. All of them are excited to hear about the help I've given in sharing my experience with the students, and helping the bridge the generational gap. They're excited to hear my personal projects, building a small machine shop, the cars I'm building, the electrical and programming challenges I give myself build amplifiers and gadgets. Then things turn, they ask what I'm studying in school. I tell them Environmental Science. They all give me the same look that says nothing more than "Oh, what a waste" and the conversation is over. All through High School, I didn't know what I wanted to do for a living, but I knew I liked building things. I came from a line of engineers, I enjoyed FIRST, so everyone everywhere told me to become an engineer, it seemed to make sense, so I did. When I got to engineering I found it very much wasn't for me. While I've been pretty decent at math and problem solving, it just pulled the soul out of me, and I had no desire to continue. It turned out my passion had been machining, something I've been working on heavily in my spare time with what little money I have to spare. My area of study moved to one of my interests that most people wouldn't guess: Environmental Science. Had anyone spoken up against the wave of engineering to encourage me to pursue machining originally I would have taken it, but instead, I got to take the long way.

They're small problems, but I feel they're the cause of most of the things I hear complaints about, and I think they're holding back FIRST's potential to be truly great.

Now the good:
Spectator games: I know FIRST isn't as successful at this as some would like, but I am glad they are making the effort, and I hope with practice they become proficient at making games enjoyable to watch, and enjoyable to design toward.

Mentorship:
When I was a student on the team my team prided itself in being 100% student run/managed/led, because we didn't have the advantage of working with skilled mentors, I feel that I missed out on a good opportunity. I'm glad that is not the direction FIRST is taking, and I am quite glad my team has left that tradition as well.

Coopertition:
I'm glad to see this idea embodied in FIRST as well. A level of competition is a great fuel for creativity. I very much like the way this is balanced with the idea of cooperation. Some years the execution in the competition isn't optimal as some have already given details. I feel we should all forgive what is such a small misstep in the scheme of things.

For the TLDR crowd:
FIRST needs to stop being a cult, and remember they're for more than just engineering.
FIRST has done great at making an accessible competition focusing on mentorship and coopertition and should continue to improve these aspects of the organization.

As far as the "nerd issue" I would just like to point out that mainstreaming typically nerdy ideas seems to be very successful; just look at the success of recent movies like Tron, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings etc. coming from a nerd heritage can be very advantageous, but that doesn't mean you need to embody the downsides of nerddom. Keep the good and throw out the rest, and make it better.

[E. Wood]

Originally Posted by jason701802

I so wish this were true. The Chairman's award and the Engineering Inspiration award are not given to the teams that do the best to spread the word of FIRST, instead they are given to the teams to best spread the word FIRST. It has become virtually impossible for a team to win the Chairman's without starting a FRC or FTC team and mentoring tens of FLL teams. We live in a small, fairly isolated community that is incapable of supporting another FRC team. Why can't we be given credit for showing kids what is so great about science and technology and for getting people together in our community instead of getting a few people involved with a FRC or FTC team. It can be very had to convince people that FIRST is so great when the cost per person is so high and similar benefits can be had without being directly involved in FIRST.

I am not saying that FIRST does not benefit those involved in incredible ways or that it is not an incredible program, just that FIRST involvement is not the only way to get kids excited about math, science and engineering, and that FIRST needs to recognize this fact.

I actually had the same thought many years ago. Both of the team I have worked with are from small rural areas with a limited amount of resources. I was under the impression that only "big city team" could win. I however pressed forwarded a a few years later we won. At the time we had a few FLL teams but that was it as far as other FIRST teams go. We did have a lot of community outreach and stories of how we had changed our culture using the principles of FIRST. The presentation is the biggest part of Chairman's Award. Highlighting your teams strengths is a must.