[FTC]: 128 Teams in 2013 FTC World Championship

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by team F.T.C 4240

FRC recruits the "best" students? With our FRC team (and I'm hoping most FRC teams), they try recruiting anyone that is interested. They don't just find the people with the highest grades and only asking them to join, or exclude people that are very interested but aren't a straight A student. It's not like they don't let one of the "best" students join FTC because they are good. FTC requires a lot more commitment and time then FRC, but FRC does get a lot more media and sponsorship's then FTC.

By recruiting the "best" students, I meant more along the lines of the brightest. I've never really heard of FTC teams having tryouts, but in FRC it's common, especially in states with 100+ teams, to have tryouts for FRC. I'm not about to turn this into an FTC vs FRC argument (Believe me, I had to resolve those way too much in my school), but about time commitment, it's really about the same. FTC has a year round build season, but FRC doesn't just have 6 weeks. A proper FRC team spends all year training, practicing, and prototyping. After 6 weeks of intense building, they need to spend every moment possible practicing driving on a practice bot and developing strategy. It's about the same time commitment as FTC. That all being said, I can see why there are 400 FRC teams at championships. Do I think this is fair? Not really. I think we need more FTC teams. FTC is a great program that is accessible to most everyone in the world and is probably the best way for kids to get started in engineering. FRC is the largest vehicle for culture change, but isn't the most accessible to students around the world.