Future First Championship News

[Fielding S.]

So FIRST's mission is to inspire as many young people to pursue STEM-related activities and careers as possible, right?

According to Dan Bossi in his announcement video, FIRST is different from other sports in that FIRST is more a celebration of every team's achievements and efforts. I remember somebody posting (I'm not going to even attempt to find the post) that because of more winners being crowned, CMP is becoming more like a science fair and less like a, well, competition/championship.

To me, this sounds like FIRST is trying to make FRC less of an actual sport. FIRST's desire to inspire as many people as possible is very understandable, but they're going about this the absolute wrong way.

It doesn't take a genius to know that major sporting events are much more popular than science fairs and conventions. How many kids dream of becoming a professional athlete someday? In contrast, how many kids dream of becoming a scientist that wins best-in-show someday?

In order to accomplish FIRST's main goal, robotics programs must become more like sports. Sports are universally popular, inspiring, and captivating. Yes, this means having one all-encompassing championship event and giving the title of "World Champion" to the best in the world. Why is this contrary to the mission of FIRST? It seems to have worked out for many sports programs.

[Rangel]

Originally Posted by jman4747

This is not that bad. I don't think north or south will be "easy" to win due to not playing "half" the world. Districts would feel a bit better but we realy don't loose anything when you think about it. It's ambiguously unsettling because it's new and I like the alternative more. And yea it's more of a bummer when your shop is 5min from the former worlds location and the south championship is now 10hrs away. Thats all there is to it.

If you quit because of this you missed the point and maybe you shouldn't have joined up in the first place? Sponsors and aren't pulling out. Apparently FIRSTs sponsors are very on board or they couldn't afford two championships! Mentors share knowledge and show kids what engineering is realy like. If you are a mentor would you realy abandon your current and future students because you can't be the undisputed champ?

Why we are here now and why you shouldn't quit after 2016 is the same reason you do FRC and not just VRC/FTC in spite of the cost. The big robots are still realy cool and the amout of technical knowlage that can be attained is unrivaled for a high school program. Couple that with more sportsmanship and as much teamwork as any other sport and you have the best thing I've ever seen. Watchability is a fuction of team performance and that will go up naturally as more teams spring up and the field gets denser in the north and south.

I'd rather see districts but whatever. Now put it back in Atlanta!

When most people say they are quitting, I don't think they mean quitting their robotics teams. I think they mean that they won't compete with their teams in FIRST anymore and instead compete in another competition such as VRC. There isn't anything wrong with that either. No one is obligated to stick to FIRST since it's not the only competition around that promotes STEM and they shouldn't be scrutinized just because they do switch. I'm pretty sure these mentors do get FIRST and if they believe competing in FIRST is no longer in their team's best interest, then there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, if a competition could end up discouraging teams so much that they end up leaving FIRST, perhaps there is something wrong with the decisions being made or that have already been made. I'm all for expansion but maybe the focus should be on districts and super regional instead of dividing championships.

[Link07]

I don't know about you guys, but I don't really like this idea that much.

[stephencornwell]

First they create a game that completely eliminates all defense and direct competition among teams, lacking even winners and losers outside of the finals. Then they create a second world championship eliminating the prestige of winning worlds because only half of the best teams were there. First is quickly eliminating all the competitive elements from the competition that have driven teams to work so hard and fostered such a communal spirit of competitiveness

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by Fielding S.

So FIRST's mission is to inspire as many young people to pursue STEM-related activities and careers as possible, right?

According to Dan Bossi in his announcement video, FIRST is different from other sports in that FIRST is more a celebration of every team's achievements and efforts. I remember somebody posting (I'm not going to even attempt to find the post) that because of more winners being crowned, CMP is becoming more like a science fair and less like a, well, competition/championship.

To me, this sounds like FIRST is trying to make FRC less of an actual sport. FIRST's desire to inspire as many people as possible is very understandable, but they're going about this the absolute wrong way.

It doesn't take a genius to know that major sporting events are much more popular than science fairs and conventions. How many kids dream of becoming a professional athlete someday? In contrast, how many kids dream of becoming a scientist that wins best-in-show someday?

In order to accomplish FIRST's main goal, robotics programs must become more like sports. Sports are universally popular, inspiring, and captivating. Yes, this means having one all-encompassing championship event and giving the title of "World Champion" to the best in the world. Why is this contrary to the mission of FIRST? It seems to have worked out for many sports programs.

Okay fine but crowning 6 champions out if 3,000 is NOT like giving everyone a trophy. I for one would be quite fine telling sponsors we did the best out of 2,994 other teams or 1,497 if you think of it as the half. We don't need to be a sport we need to show people how fun what we do is regardless format. There is so much more.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Madison

For the sake of informing the discussion, the circles on this map represent a 750 mile radius drawn from each of the three cities. It's pretty clear that these areas encompass a majority of current FRC teams.

I chose 750 miles because that's the furthest I've ever driven without wanting to die. It's about a 12 hour drive.

It took me longer than it should have to figure out that the (Mercator?) projection is the reason the radius around Detroit appeared larger than the two others.

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

When most people say they are quitting, I don't think they mean quitting their robotics teams. I think they mean that they won't compete with their teams in FIRST anymore and instead compete in another competition such as VRC. There isn't anything wrong with that either. No one is obligated to stick to FIRST since it's not the only competition around that promotes STEM and they shouldn't be scrutinized just because they do switch. I'm pretty sure these mentors do get FIRST and if they believe competing in FIRST is no longer in their team's best interest, then there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, if a competition could end up discouraging teams so much that they end up leaving FIRST, perhaps there is something wrong with the decisions being made or that have already been made. I'm all for expansion but maybe the focus should be on districts and super regional instead of dividing championships.

What they are saying is they favor winning over the technical chalenge in FRC. Good riddance. I'll stick with the big robots.

[nerdrock101]

Originally Posted by Jacob Bendicksen

While my initial reaction was very similar to many of those expressed earlier in this thread, I think there's something that we're missing, and that we need to reserve judgement until we find out what it is. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but Dave Lavery's post has made me believe that we're not seeing the entire picture, and that the final result will be better.

The sky, contrary to popular belief, is not falling.

This is my thought too. I'm taking a Hanlon's Razor approach to it: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity". Though, in this case I might change that last word to ignorance. Reader's choice.

I volunteered for a regional last weekend and it completely changed my perspective. There were many teams that were just happy that they finally got the stack of three they designed their robot for, or got a buzzer beater tote onto the scoring platform. It's about what the students can do, not about who else they can beat. If we're proud of them for winning, it's little different from a traditional sport. I'm proud of the robot that comes out at the end and all the work they put into learning how to make it.

[Rangel]

Originally Posted by jman4747

What they are saying is they favor winning over the technical chalenge in FRC. Good riddance. I'll stick with the big robots.

Who is saying VRC isn't a great technical challenge? Heck even on 842 we considered at one point to stop doing FRC and focus on AUVSI's Robosub competition because we thought it was a greater technical challenge and more affordable but ultimately decided on doing both. Would we have been scrutinized for that? And I don't say good riddance. I'd be sad to see so many teams leave.

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

Who is saying VRC isn't a great technical challenge? Heck even on 842 we considered at one point to stop doing FRC and focus on AUVSI's Robosub competition because we thought it was a greater technical challenge and more affordable but ultimately decided on doing both. Would we have been scrutinized for that? And I don't say good riddance. I'd be sad to see so many teams leave.

Well it sure sounds like it. And to be clear I still prefer the expanded district system. This is nothing to quit over however and I think FRC is a bigger technical challenge. Again why haven't you done VRC/FTC exclusively prior to this? The reasons for choosing FRC are not lost in this development.

[evanperryg]

Repeating a lot of what has already been said, but:
-This degrades the significance of winning the championship. Why let the best alliance win when you can let everyone win, right? Wrong. The intensity, the inspiration of FIRST comes, in part, from winning. The feeling of victory in a challenging competition is something irreplaceable and by doubling the winners, that feeling will be diminished.
-This makes IRI a very, very important event. Only at IRI will the best robots in the world be able to compete together. If I were on the IRI planning committee, I'd be looking into larger/better suited venues, cause if this goes the way I think it'll go, IRI is going to become the new champs, at least for robot performance.
-This really doesn't help many teams. The large concentration of teams in Michigan will benefit once it's in Detroit, but, then again, it's not helping anyone else. It's going to be very amusing to watch all those trailers navigate Detroit's strange U-turn based infrastructure. (Clarification: detroit has right turns like normal, but instead of left turns, they have u-turn lights, where you turn around then make a right to your destination) It disregards the large concentrations of teams on the entire east coast, too.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by jman4747

What they are saying is they favor winning over the technical chalenge in FRC. Good riddance. I'll stick with the big robots.

Doing what it takes to win is the technical challenge for many of us. The bar is raised every year thanks to these teams. I'll stick to the competition where they go, because in the process of trying to win, we'll be in a "technical challenge" of our own and we'll end up learning a lot on the way.

[Monochron]

Rampant speculation time! I'm going to go out on a limb and say the "compromise" (if FIRST calls it that) will be to convert these two Championships into the long awaited Super Regionals after the first couple years. It's just crazy thinking, but it would fit much better with what we have been expecting and, I think, be a much better solution that wouldn't require such a huge financial commitment up front.

The timeline is hard to reconcile with this idea though. The fact that this is still so many years away certainly isn't what I expected.

[PayneTrain]

555 posts and we could have done more! Let's see if we get some official dialogue tomorrow.

[BJT]

By 2017 there could be somewhere in the neighborhood of 3600 teams. So each championship event will draw from a pool of about 1800 teams to award chairmans, EI, WFA, etc. Most people here seem to view this as a disaster, Id call it 2010. I was at worlds in 2010 and I don't think it was that bad. The sky wasn't falling from any part of the arena.
As far as awards go, The way I see it this affects 6 teams per year. There will be 2 winning alliances, but thats still a huge accomplishment. All the other awards will have the same value and importance as past years.
What did everyone expect, seriously, FIRST is getting bigger.

My 2 cents