Is FRC truly competitive?

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Ninja_Bait

I meant to say that the FIRST Robotics Competition is about FIRST, first, and competition, second. FIRST has a mission - make a difference in your community and get excited about STEM. That part is not competitive, it is collaborative. It's also universal between all the divisions of FIRST. The Robotics Competition is one tool for that mission. You may say you're part of FRC or FTC or FLL, but really you're in FIRST.

I disagree with what you are saying, or at least how part of it is worded.

the FIRST Robotics Competition is about FIRST, first,
No it isn't. FRC isn't about FIRST - that is a myth.
( it is also the 1st instinct of any institution to promote itself, but I digress )
FIRST is about the mission of FIRST, not the institution of FIRST
This is a concept that is lost on a lot of people, including the occassional judge. Dean and Woodie have been clear on this issue, both in their public announcements and in the direct conversations I've had with them.

JrFLL, FLL, FTC, FRC are all just tools that help drive that mission. There are things that are outside of those four competitions that teams do that help drive the FIRST mission.

FIRST has had a call for months for information from teams that do things outside the realm of normal competitions, applications of lessons learned from FIRST to other real world problems, other applications of creativity. Those other activities also help drive the mission of FIRST.

Coopertition accelerates the development of teams. The teams and their robots compete fiercely and everyone gets better. Teams push efforts to promote the mission of FIRST in their community, and they compete, and they all get better ( think Chairman's )

All of the awards are a competition. Running a winning team, whether it is a robot win or a chairman's win, requires a lot of demanding attributes that employers demand.