[FTC]: What do you wish FTC would...

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by WRA

Agree with all of the above. Sorry to hear that the yellow alliance is dead. But if I were King for a day and could change only one thing it would be to stop giving the Inspire Award to teams with great robots and nothing else. FRC is requiring (trying anyway) to require teams to at least provide supporting info in chairmans submissions. In FTC I see the Inspire Award land in the winning alliance most of the time (in my experence).

Been to 6 events this year and have talked with team members on the Inspire Award winning teams and many other teams at all of them in an attempt to learn. 1 of the teams truly Inspired me. 2 told me directly that all they did was robot. The others were good teams on and off the field but were not teams that match the award description.

My rant is over now. I absolutely Love this program and only wish the best for it.

To be fair, the FRC Chairman's Award has a much different focus than the FTC Inspire Award-- Inspire Award winners are expected to be competitive for most if not all awards at the event, while a Chairman's Award winning team can have a mediocre to poor robot and not be a contender for other awards (unlikely, but possible).

I obviously haven't been to your competitions in West Virginia, but at our MN State Tournament yesterday, the winner was also the Inspire Award winner, and they were on the board for almost every single other award we gave out. The expectations for overall performance for Inspire Award teams at competitive events are, in my opinion, relatively higher compared to RCA in many areas.

On point with the thread: I'd love to see a new control system as well-- maybe something that eliminates the need for a central FMS altogether. I've been working on a project with linked BLE arduinos, and I feel like something similar could be quite good for FTC, especially if it lets teams use their own control system.

I'd also like to see some sort of encouragement for teams to use things that aren't Tetrix or Matrix. I get that those kits are nice for teams with few resources, but learning how to fabricate a robot using other techniques is very valuable in my opinion. That's another thing I like about how MN does judging-- we have a specific award for creating a 3D printed part, which I think encourages teams to "think outside the kit."