3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's

[Chris Fultz]

The FIRST booklet in the Popular Mechanics magazine mentions going to a 3 year cycle, where the game would stay the same for 3 seasons, and then a new game announced. With ths cycle, all 4 year students would see 2 games, and most other students would see either 1 or 2 games depending on the cycle.

I can think of many positives and negatives to such a system - what do you think?

This thread is for the NEGATIVES ONLY! A separate thread is for the positives.

EDIT - THIS IS IN THE "RUMOR MILL" BECAUSE IT IS BREIFLY MENTIONED IN THE SUPPLEMENT TO THE PM MAGAZINE. I DO NOT KNOW WHERE THE IDEA CAME FROM OR EVEN IF IT IS BEING CONSIDERED AT FIRST. IT IS AN INTERESTING IDEA, SO I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE GOOD TO SEE WHAT THE CD COMMUNITY THOUGHT.

[cziggy343]

It would level the playing field more. By the time that we got to the third year, teams would have gotten other team's ideas.

HOWEVER: by the third season... the entire robot might be (in theory) another teams. They may not have spent as much time on their own conception of building a robot, and instead waiting until season two or three to just copy the "really good teams"

[Jared Russell]

Huge negative #1 - by year 2 and 3, every single robot will look largely the same. As it is, there is a ton of design convergence between Week 1 Regionals and Championships.

Huge negative #2 - many students (for a variety of reasons) don't get to participate in FRC for all 4 years of high school. Repeating the same game would rob many of these students from the "Oh my god, how are we going to do this" moments that is an important part of the feeling of accomplishment that comes when your robot finally scores a tube/ball/whatever.

There are many, many more negatives (far more, in my opinion, than there are positives)

[SenorZ]

I thought a major component of FIRST was solving a novel problem in a limited amount of time. Using the same game for 3 years is just practicing refinement.

[Dancin103]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

The FIRST booklet in the Popular Mechanics magazine mentions going to a 3 year cycle, where the game would stay the same for 3 seasons, and then a new game announced. With ths cycle, all 4 year students would see 2 games, and most other students would see either 1 or 2 games depending on the cycle.

I can think of many positives and negatives to such a system - what do you think?

This thread is for the NEGATIVES ONLY! A separate thread is for the positives.

I'm not a fan of this. I think having students on the team for 4 years experiencing 4 different games is great because they have the opportunity to work with the many different obstacles that are presented over those different games and time period.

Just my $0.02.

Cass

[Alexa Stott]

It definitely takes a lot of the challenge out of it. I think it would also be very discouraging for a student to come onto the team during the second or third year of the cycle. They might come in with new ideas, but be unable to actually implement any of them because the team has already found a winning design. At that point, they just become glorified maintenance workers.

It would also make me less motivated to get a working design during the first year because I would know that I have the next two years to perfect it, rather than just six weeks. A 3-year cycle defeats the purpose of FIRST having a deadline.

It would also just simply get stale. As already pointed out, teams would eventually just start designing essentially the same robot. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I'm usually ready for something new by the time the last off-season events are being played.

[tim-tim]

I think it would greatly take away from FIRST.

There would be less motivation/stress.

[Akash Rastogi]

Robots would look the same.

I do NOT want to be stuck with a game I don't like for 3 years.

Not as much "real world" experience because of such a long deadline

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

I do NOT want to be stuck with a game I don't like for 3 years.

I would not want to be stuck with a game I DID like for 3 years.

That would just ruin the fun! I couldn't even stay with the same game for two years! It would be fun the first year, but then get continuously boring each consecutive year played. Like previously mentioned, every robot would look the same after the first season. PLUS, we wouldn't be able to get the great feeling of excitement we get before kickoff, and the way a new game gets our minds working in that "great engineer" like way, having us think of endless possibilities for various parts of the robot. AND, we would have to wait longer for a water game!!!

[akoscielski3]

Would new teams be able to form after second or third season of same game??? and if so they would have a huge disadvantage.

I dont believe that it would be very fun if they did this. Its just not the same thing that I participate in FIRST for.

Also Teams would be designing a robot during the off season so that they are prepared to just start building when the 6 weeks start. or start building before the 6 weeks even start !

[Alexa Stott]

Originally Posted by akoscielski3

Would new teams be able to form after second or third season of same game??? and if so they would have a huge disadvantage.

I dont believe that it would be very fun if they did this. Its just not the same thing that I participate in FIRST for.

Also Teams would be designing a robot during the off season so that they are prepared to just start building when the 6 weeks start. or start building before the 6 weeks even start !

I'm not really even sure how you'd delineate between seasons, since the current structure is kickoff->build->ship->regionals->championships(->offseasons).

They would most definitely have to find some way to change the current rules about build season. Would teams be expected to build (or rebuild) a robot every year? Or could they reuse the same one? Since FIRST always seems so intent on taking competitive advantage away from veteran teams, how would they even the playing field for rookie teams?

One last point: I know that my life would be a lot less exciting if I didn't have the frenzy of kickoff and build season to look forward to each winter.

[J_Miles]

Originally Posted by Jared341

I would not want to be stuck with a game I DID like for 3 years.

Agreed. I liked Breakaway, to an extent, but after Championship 2010, I was MORE than done with it. It will be the same way with Logomotion, I think: It's a great game (In my humble opinion), but, at the same time, losing that "Oh my God, what will the game look like this year?!" feeling this coming January would really disappoint.

[Zuelu562]

If the cycle is implemented incorrectly, we will very easily see what many are predicting, the same exact bots year 3.

EX: Year 1 of 3: Team YYYY, a veteran team, feels no challenge in the new competition and finishes their bot week 3 and tests for the remaining 3, and take home 3 regional wins and a championship division.

Year 2 of 3: Team YYYY uses the exact same build technique as last year, with any minor things they found useful. 80% of the robots at their events look like theirs did a year earlier. They take 3 regionals and the world champion title.

Year 3 of 3: Again Team YYYY uses almost the exact same bot and techniques as they did in the previous two years. They take world champion again. ALL of the robots at their events look like a version of theirs that participated in the previous two years.

You see my point? FIRST needs to either prevent this type of thing from happening or make it so that innovation in technique or build is rewarded.

See my thoughts on the pros of this cycle.

[J@GMFlint]

Originally Posted by Dancin103

I'm not a fan of this. I think having students on the team for 4 years experiencing 4 different games is great because they have the opportunity to work with the many different obstacles that are presented over those different games and time period.

Just my $0.02.

Cass

Agreed!

Also, under a 3 year game cycle, the intensity and focus of the build season would likely be diminished reducing the challenge and benefit of them being exposed to the entire "high speed-high stress-high performance" aspect of the process. Now, we only get one season to get things right & are pressed to do so. Knowing there's a couple more seasons to get better or "copy" concepts... seems likely to dull the edge that can otherwise be developed in the face of the challenge as we do now.

Why even have a "build" season at all after the 1st year?

Would they then limit off-season work, or allow it and become an official year-round activity? It already is for many teams so limiting work could shut some teams down.

What about rookie teams who enter in the 3rd year when everyone could be theoretically already at max. potential. Level playing field?? Not likely.