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Unread 11-05-2014, 15:51
Foster Foster is offline
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Re: A Request

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Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber View Post
When a father and son watch football together and the kid is inspired to go outside and toss a ball around because he wants to be like [some football player that I don't know cuz I don't watch it]. What were they watching? peewee football or the NFL? FTC is peewee football. It impacts the students in it but it's a crap tool for inspiring students not involved. For that you need something exciting, something sexy.
/sigh, I wish you could not type so fast.

Pop and Junior go to FRC and watch. "Gee would like to do that, it looks hard"

Pop and Junior go to VEX/FTC. "Gee like to do that. Welp, that looks like the Erector set I had as a kid, lets go see."

Me: "Why sure it's easy, look here, just nuts and bolts, if you know your right from your left and can button a shirt you can build one. (Need to be able to do righty tighty / leffty loosey and the button shirt means you have the dexterity to put the parts together).

And don't disrespect Pewee or Little League. The Pro guys got started there. You never know what motivates. I see stuff and go "cool, out of my skillset", but I see an easier / lower level and go "Hey, I can do that" and I do and oddly I get better. And soon I have that skillset to.

/rant 2
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Unread 11-05-2014, 15:53
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Re: A Request

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Originally Posted by Foster View Post
/sigh, I wish you could not type so fast.

Pop and Junior go to FRC and watch. "Gee would like to do that, it looks hard"

Pop and Junior go to VEX/FTC. "Gee like to do that. Welp, that looks like the Erector set I had as a kid, lets go see."

Me: "Why sure it's easy, look here, just nuts and bolts, if you know your right from your left and can button a shirt you can build one. (Need to be able to do righty tighty / leffty loosey and the button shirt means you have the dexterity to put the parts together).

And don't disrespect Pewee or Little League. The Pro guys got started there. You never know what motivates. I see stuff and go "cool, out of my skillset", but I see an easier / lower level and go "Hey, I can do that" and I do and oddly I get better. And soon I have that skillset to.

/rant 2
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Unread 11-05-2014, 17:02
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Re: A Request

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Originally Posted by Foster View Post
...And don't disrespect Pewee or Little League. The Pro guys got started there. You never know what motivates. I see stuff and go "cool, out of my skillset", but I see an easier / lower level and go "Hey, I can do that" and I do and oddly I get better. And soon I have that skillset to...
I think everyone's on board with all these competition robotics programs being highly beneficial to the students in them. When a kid wants to be an NFL player, he doesn't go try out of the Eagles, he goes to little league. (Andrew did in fact note this impact.) I'm not saying this analogy applies to competition robotics, but it certainly doesn't indicate a disrespect for little league. That's where kids actually get good at their vision, but it's not the vision in most of our heads at that age. (Ok, so once upon a time I wanted to be in the WNBA.) No disrespect.

My take on the Varsity argument:
For us, FTC is in fact a middle school team. It is, in fact, our JV team for FRC, and I know many other FRC programs that use FTC (or VEX) this way. I also know a lot of programs that don't do this, and I know brilliant high school students on FTC and VEX that will make fantastic professionals (not FRC experience).

I don't think FRC is better than VEX. I do think that FRC is better than FTC in several ways, but none of them have to do with the engineering and teamwork challenges. In my personal experience with each program and events, FTC just isn't as professional and doesn't have the community presence/commitment that I see from FRC and VEX. This--particularly not knowing its root cause--discourages my participation, and I think it's also what Koko Ed is alluding to. I'd like to understand what drives it. I still volunteer for FTC, but it just doesn't seem to have it 'together' yet. That became abundantly obvious to us as we started our FTC team, and we actually had a discussion about it with the high-level FIRST HQ contact person* that had answered us about the problem they'd caused. His/her answer was (no joke), "well, we can't compete with VEX".

I don't think that is reflects poorly on the students in FTC. Their challenges and solutions are just as impressive as FRC and VEX. The program doesn't appear to do them justice, and at least in our case the limit is quite salient.

*Position and gender redacted for privacy.
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Unread 11-05-2014, 17:22
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Re: A Request

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Originally Posted by Siri View Post
In my personal experience with each program and events, FTC just isn't as professional and doesn't have the community presence/commitment that I see from FRC and VEX. This--particularly not knowing its root cause--discourages my participation, and I think it's also what Koko Ed is alluding to. I'd like to understand what drives it. I still volunteer for FTC, but it just doesn't seem to have it 'together' yet. That became abundantly obvious to us as we started our FTC team, and we actually had a discussion about it with the high-level FIRST HQ contact person* that had answered us about the problem they'd caused. His/her answer was (no joke), "well, we can't compete with VEX".
I'm in no way disagreeing or agreeing with this statement (so don't read too much into my question), but I am just wondering what you mean by FTC being less "professional" and "together".
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Unread 11-05-2014, 17:28
Christopher149 Christopher149 is offline
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Re: A Request

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Originally Posted by JeremyLansing View Post
Coming from a high school in Iowa, almost every 4A school in our area had at least 1 FTC team, while Iowa still only has 6 FRC teams in the entire state.
To muddle the topic, the UP of Michigan (1/3 the population density and 1/10 total population of Iowa) has 1* Vex team, 0 FTC teams, and 18 FRC teams.

*There is one in Iron Mountain, but I'm not sure and don't know where to find if there are any others.
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Unread 11-05-2014, 17:37
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Re: A Request

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Originally Posted by cadandcookies View Post
You might be thinking of FLL, which recently switched to permanent team numbers.
No, I am talking about FTC. We must just be different with the changing team numbers, or maybe I just have a horrible memory.
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Unread 11-05-2014, 17:52
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Re: A Request

FTC is in no way an activity for "inferior" students. There are some FTC robots that I would consider to be of higher quality than the majority of FRC robots. Does FRC have bigger and more expensive robots and competitions? Yes. Does FRC do a better job of inspiring kids to do STEM? Yes. Unfortunately, not everybody can afford to participate in FRC. FTC's finals aren't anything like Einstein, but the program itself is much larger. There's two programs because FIRST was not willing to compromise on the "varsity" aspect of FRC, but still wanted to get lots of kids involved in FIRST.
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Unread 11-05-2014, 18:01
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Re: A Request

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Originally Posted by magnets View Post
FTC is in no way an activity for "inferior" students. There are some FTC robots that I would consider to be of higher quality than the majority of FRC robots. Does FRC have bigger and more expensive robots and competitions? Yes. Does FRC do a better job of inspiring kids to do STEM? Yes. Unfortunately, not everybody can afford to participate in FRC. FTC's finals aren't anything like Einstein, but the program itself is much larger. There's two programs because FIRST was not willing to compromise on the "varsity" aspect of FRC, but still wanted to get lots of kids involved in FIRST.
I never said FTC kids were inferior. I just said FTC isn't interesting to me. I don't want to do FLL either. I just want to dedicate my energy to FRC. Simple as that.
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Unread 11-05-2014, 18:05
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Re: A Request

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Originally Posted by Foster View Post
So, don't mock the FTC / VEX programs.
No one here was mocking the Vex or FTC programs.

Everyone in the thread so far agreed that the impact on the students of Vex or FTC just about matches the Impact of going through the FRC program. All we are pointing out, in the grand scheme of things, it's not a good a tool as FRC for culture change. It's just not as much if a 'spectator sport'. It's not as flashy. It's harder to draw in your average person with little robots on little fields that can be hard to see from a distance. But I can take my FRC robot out for a spin at the park and interact with the public, play with kids ("munchkin bowling" this season as Sisk would say ). It gets kids interested and want to learn more. Then, once you have them hooked, they can make the Vex/FRC/FTC decision based on individual needs and money resources and what not. It's not like we (frc teams) act like the other programs don't exist, they all get equal airtime under the FIRST name.
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Unread 11-05-2014, 18:26
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Re: A Request

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Originally Posted by magnets View Post
There are some FTC robots that I would consider to be of higher quality than the majority of FRC robots.
I've seen VEXIQ robots better than the majority of FRC robots.
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Unread 11-05-2014, 18:38
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Re: A Request

I remember how I got in to FIRST. One of the teachers at my Elementary school said something about robots at a local arena, which happened to be the STL FRC Regional at the time. I thought "Oh that sounds like fun can we go dad?" so we went, and I was blown away watching these huge robots drive around a huge field and it looked like fun, and they had something on FLL there and I saw that and thought "I can do that!" Then we went to a minor league baseball game and a local school un-affiliated
FIRST group was presenting FRC and FLL there, so at one point I got in to FLL through one of the community teams, and I was hooked.

I did FLL for three years, then at one point I was leaving the FLL team for some reason or another and decided I wanted to go bigger, but I didn't think I was ready for FRC, so I joined an FTC team. I have done that for three years, and it was my plan to move up to FRC for my last three years. I was enjoying FTC a lot, and was thinking of staying, but then our team made it to the CMP and I was watching the Einstein matches. That right there convinced me to go. The quality of game-play, the fantastic engineering, 254s BEAUTIFUL machine. It inspired me, but FTC played a part in that as well.

Yes, FTC doesn't have all the glory of FRC, and yes, it is in fact smaller and cheaper, but when that's all you can afford/gain access too, would you rather just not have FIRST at all? The TETRIX kit is like an un-assembled LEGO set, but you are not constrained or grounded (#CADJokes) to that whatsoever, you have a huge set of raw materials to work with. And yes, most FTC teams probably don't know what a 6 wheel drop-center WCD is, and there isn't any point. It turns fine without a dropped center with a simple tank style drive. They are 18" long. Some teams even have a crab style drive, it's really cool actually. You have to do many of the things you have in FRC. Just on a smaller scale and slightly simpler. FLL to FRC is a MASSIVE jump. FTC is a good middle ground.

Don't bash FTC because it's smaller. It recognizes and inspires people about STEM education, it worked for me, and I am not the only one. And unless I am mistaken, isn't that what FIRST is about? (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Yeah, it is.


"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders."

#2cents.
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Unread 11-05-2014, 18:48
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Re: A Request

On the whole culture change thing:

Minnesota was part of the original FLL pilot program in 1998. We've been growing an FLL volunteer basefor sixteen years now, and we have 600+ teams in the state. Our annual growth is around 20%. It has gotten to the point here where FLL is an expected school activity at the majority of elementary and middle schools in the state. Our FLL qualifiers have volunteers who have been volunteering for more than ten years. FTC is smaller, but we're looking at next year a minimum of doubling our teams next year to around 140. I would be very surprised if in the next three years the amount of sustainable FTC teams eclipses that of our sustainable FRC teams.

Why is this important?

By introducing kids to FTC and FLL at an early age, and expanding those programs, we help to make robotics an anticipated activity for elementary, middle, and high school students.

If you want to actually fix a problem, you don't go to the symptoms, you go to the roots-- in this case, the impressionable young students in elementary, middle, and high school. Like it or not, FTC and FLL are as important to culture change as FRC is. FLL is a large program than FTC and FRC combined, and FTC is going to catch up and pass FRC in terms of students and teams soon.

If you personally aren't interested in being involved with FTC or FLL, that's your deal and as intensive as FRC is I don't blame you-- you certainly aren't under any obligation to put even more of your time into it-- but don't diss the programs. They're as essential to the broad picture as FRC is.
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Unread 11-05-2014, 20:33
Andrew Schreiber Andrew Schreiber is offline
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Re: A Request

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Originally Posted by Foster View Post
...
But what cranked my started was the "change the culture". Really? All the time hands on with the robot (5 kids on a team means lots of touch time) and multiple design / build / compete iterations, we are changing roboteers lives over here. Nice that you spent $ 18,000 on 20 kids and built a robot and went to 2 events. For $12K I build 10 robots, compete in 4 events and change 50 kids into roboteers. Oh wait, I need mentors, min 2 for each robot, so I have 20 parents working with roboteers. Minor skills needed (righty tighty and maybe some programming) vs machine skills of the stars. One controller and a battery vs PDU, RIO, BDF, CAN, CAM, etc. So FTC and VEX is accessable to average Mom / Dad / Grandparent.

...

So, don't mock the FTC / VEX programs.

Oh, I was an FRC mentor for 4 years, but 7 years as VEX. Match you roboteer for roboteer.


...

We are trying to change a world, less than 3% of the students in schools have a chance to do the coolest thing in the world, COMPETITION ROBOTICS. Why slam a roboteer and a robotics program that has the same goals and objectives?

/rant
Feel better? I've snipped out the parts that are based on a disagreement of terms/particularly needed responding to.

So, here's the big difference that's causing the disagreement and your heartburn, you are trying to do culture change at the Micro level. Nothing wrong with that, I do the same thing. Student by student. It's important. And FTC/VEX/FLL are better at it than FRC. You can have costs an order of magnitude lower (FLL is 2 orders lower). It's great. I'm happy to be involved in these programs and I'm $@#$@#$@#$@# glad they exist. I came up through them.

I'm talking about culture change at the Macro level. I'm talking about the sort of thing I can drag my parents to and they'll say "This is awesome". Something that, after a quick explanation of the rules, I can have my sister and me nieces and nephews cheering and screaming like lifelong fans. The sort of thing that if I pull up a video at work my coworkers will stop and watch. The spectacle, the speed, the size... all of this is important to these goals. FTC/VEX don't meet them. Trust me, I've tried.

From the perspective that I'm looking at, the one I'm more concerned about, FTC/VEX/FLL are inferior programs at achieving the goals I'm looking for.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Foster View Post
And don't disrespect Pewee or Little League. The Pro guys got started there. You never know what motivates. I see stuff and go "cool, out of my skillset", but I see an easier / lower level and go "Hey, I can do that" and I do and oddly I get better. And soon I have that skillset to.
Micro. I was looking at Macro. See Above.




And as far as saying that there are FTC bots more competitive than FRC bots. Yeah, and there are FRC teams that should be FTC teams until they can hack it in the majors. It's less costly to learn how to play the game there.
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Unread 11-05-2014, 21:55
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Re: A Request

Quote:
Originally Posted by Foster View Post


And don't disrespect Pewee or Little League. The Pro guys got started there. You never know what motivates. I see stuff and go "cool, out of my skillset", but I see an easier / lower level and go "Hey, I can do that" and I do and oddly I get better. And soon I have that skillset to.
As a member of an FRC team for 4 years, a returning mentor for this past year and mentor for FTC since it started as a middle school program here in Michigan this quote is really exactly what I believe FTC was meant to be.

Looking at our team these last three years, with 3 years of FTC gradeschoolers going through our program, the students who come out of FTC and onto our FRC team are far better prepared and skilled in all aspects of the build season. I think you put it best saying all Pro's got started there, in reference to the peewee's or little leagues or in your reference to using FTC to gain that skillset required for aspects of the FRC build season. Seeing how it is ran in Michigan it seems that it makes the most logical, to me atleast, that FTC leads to FRC. It seems as though the natural progression through FIRST programs should be jr. FLL to FLL to FTC to FRC. The robots get bigger as you go, it becomes more and more a spectator sport and the whole thing becomes more exciting.

That being said, FTC definitely has a place in even the highschool environment because it is much lower cost, the longer build season makes it less demanding during a specific six week season that FRC has(that so happens to overlap with midterm exams, not that that is exactly relevant). However funds are not the determining factor because if you work hard enough at it you can always find funds. For the most part, money doesn't just fall into the laps of teams as I'm sure FTC teams know, so it is up to the team to go out and find money.

I do not mean to offend anyone by this post, because I am a strong advocate and believer in FTC as well as FRC. This is simply what my experience, albeit limited compared to many of the other mentors on this site, has shown me. And it most definitely could vary depending on geographical area and many many other factors.
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Unread 11-05-2014, 23:20
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Re: A Request

For the people who like to see numbers:
As of this spring, Florida had 68 FRC teams and ~116 FTC teams.
We have lost 72 FRC teams since 2003. At least two of our 72 lost FRC teams became FTC teams.
There are a couple FRC/FTC teams; For example FRC 233 has FTC 6323 and FRC 4013 has FTC 5070 and FTC 6379. These teams may have the same mentors and/or students.

Here are the links to our Tesla League Page and the overview of Florida Leagues Page.

I also welcome you all to attend the 2015 FTC State Tournament to see how the Top 24 Florida FTC Teams show their team spirit and how Barry keeps the FTC audience fired up (he was on Franklin at Champs).
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