Is FRC truly competitive?

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by thefro526

The level of competitiveness seems to vary heavily based depending on the region and the teams ideals.

Very true. but that doesn't mean that FIRST isn't a sport or isn't competitive. It is just that teams choose to not really compete.

There are plenty of high school football teams that don't really compete.

There are a zillion examples of businesses that barely eke out a living because they choose not to really compete and a lot more that go out of business. Have you ever seen the TV show "Restaurant Impossible" on the Food Network ?

Even though some studenst don't really care about competition, hopefully we can inspire students to learn how to effectively compete against one another, and then later in life they can carry those lessons into the marketplace. The advantage of FIRST is you can learn via coopertition.

That is one of the gems here. You are not just learning how to build a robot. You are learning how to survive. And that is an extremely competitive proposition.