[FRC Blog] We're Listening

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

Just to verify, I am hearing you propose this standard for changes to the FRC program:

No decision made by FIRST regarding FRC will ever cause a mentor to leave the program.

If he's proposing a standard, it's more along the lines of:

No decision made by FIRST regarding FRC will ever cause a significant number of long-time, core mentors of highly regarded (i.e. Hall of Fame) FRC teams to leave the program.

[George Nishimura]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

His proposed standard is more along the lines of:

No decision made by FIRST regarding FRC will ever cause a significant number of long-time, core mentors of highly regarded (i.e. Hall of Fame) FRC teams to leave the program.

I don't see a proposed standard in his post. To me it's more the fact that FIRST should question, and account for, any decision that could cause several experienced mentors to leave the program.

FIRST can make a decision that causes that, but they have to recognise the cost of such a decision up front. We are all worse off if FIRST continue an approach where they only realize the repercussions of important decisions after the damage has been done.

The best way to avoid making any decision that could ostracize valuable members of the community is to keep an open dialogue with [at least] a subset of the community, especially before committing to an important decision.

An outline of the vision in the short, medium and long-term would also help put their decisions in to perspective, so we're not trying to reverse-engineer their thinking to understand decisions that contradict our previously held beliefs about their vision. Especially when this is such a community driven organisation.

[MrRoboSteve]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

If he's proposing a standard, it's more along the lines of:

No decision made by FIRST regarding FRC will ever cause a significant number of long-time, core mentors of highly regarded (i.e. Hall of Fame) FRC teams to leave the program.

Suppose you were considering a change that you knew would make 20 mentors of HoF teams quit, but it allowed 4000 more students each year to be inspired by going to Champs. Does that mean you'd never make that change?

[MrRoboSteve]

Originally Posted by George Nishimura

I don't see a proposed standard in his post. To me it's more the fact that FIRST should question, and account for, any decision that could cause several experienced mentors to leave the program.

FIRST can make a decision that causes that, but they have to recognise the cost of such a decision up front. We are all worse off if FIRST continue an approach where they only realize the repercussions of important decisions after the damage has been done.

The best way to avoid making any decision that could ostracize valuable members of the community is to keep an open dialogue with [at least] a subset of the community, especially before committing to an important decision.

An outline of the vision in the short, medium and long-term would also help put their decisions in to perspective, so we're not trying to reverse-engineer their thinking to understand decisions that contradict our previously held beliefs about their vision. Especially when this is such a community driven organisation.

Eric's statement expressed disbelief that FIRST would consider any decision that caused mentors to leave. My point is that, with as many mentors as there are now, there's no major decision that FIRST can make around the competition schedule that won't cause mentors to leave. (I take Eric's POV as more representative than many of the commenters here, based on the team he's affiliated with.)

Let me give you an example. Some of the proposals floated around on this and other threads propose a 5 or 6 event schedule for a team, if they go all the way. That sort of schedule, if adopted, will certainly cause mentors to leave because it's too much time. Yet the only time "mentors leaving" gets discussed in these threads is over the change from "one true championship" to "two championships," and its motivational effect on teams.

I agree with your statements that FIRST needs to carefully consider the impacts of changes that it makes. At the same time, giving a small number of mentors veto power over changes will make it very difficult to make decisions. And I totally get where you're coming on reverse engineering their thinking, being one of the chief practitioners of that particular art in these threads. There are clearly many more factors going into this decision than what has been presented publicly. I suspect this is a decision that needed to be made now, and with everything else that goes on during competition season got as much communication effort as they could. (Couldn't resist more reverse engineering).

Can you point specifically to where FIRST is ostracizing members of the community as part of this decision? I see where there are differences of opinion regarding the means to achieve goals, but haven't seen any ostracism.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

Can you point specifically to where FIRST is ostracizing members of the community as part of this decision? I see where there are differences of opinion regarding the means to achieve goals, but haven't seen any ostracism.

The ostracism came when they announced what amounts to a major change of direction for all FIRST programs with (as far as we're aware) no input from anyone outside of FIRST HQ.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

Suppose you were considering a change that you knew would make 20 mentors of HoF teams quit, but it allowed 4000 more students each year to be inspired by going to Champs. Does that mean you'd never make that change?

I posted in another thread a few minutes ago:

Those HOF/Otherwise super-elite teams are as inspiring as they are because of a very small number of very dedicated mentors.

If a change makes those mentors want to leave, its bad. Losing those mentors, would in turn make those HOF/Otherwise super-elite teams less inspiring.

If those teams are less inspiring, does allowing 4000 more students see the husk of their former inspiration achieve more than letting fewer see them be their best?

[MrRoboSteve]

Difficult question, isn't it? I think reasonable people, all committed to FIRST's goals, could disagree on the answer.

[DonRotolo]

Sorry, tl;dr

Mentors come and go.

Many railed against Aliances at first.
Many railed against Districts at first.
Now we rail against semi-CMPs. But in a few years, when we end up with 4 or 5 of them, we'll add a new layer, and we'll be back where we started.

The only other solution is for someone to build a venue that can handle 1200 FRC teams plus all other FIRST programs. No Way No How.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

The only other solution is for someone to build a venue that can handle 1200 FRC teams plus all other FIRST programs. No Way No How.

Really? The only other solution? You can't think of any other ones?

How about keeping Champs at 600 teams? Even this year, 38 out of 121 teams from MAR are going to Champs. (That's 31%, by comparison, 43% of MAR teams went to the DCMP). I think we can afford to let a smaller percentage of teams go to champs. The district system makes this easy, since the proportion of teams let through from a region is easily adjusted.

[Drakxii]

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

Suppose you were considering a change that you knew would make 20 mentors of HoF teams quit, but it allowed 4000 more students each year to be inspired by going to Champs. Does that mean you'd never make that change?

You know why these teams are HoF right? They spend alot of time working within their community advancing STEMs, building up the FRC community, and pushing FIRST goals not only here in North american but other countries as well. I believe that these HoF teams help to inspire far more students every year then this expanded Champs will.

Also the idea that a student needs to get to champs to be inspired is silly and reflects bad on any team and it's mentors/coachs that can't qualify or lacks the funds to go.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

Just to verify, I am hearing you propose this standard for changes to the FRC program:

No decision made by FIRST regarding FRC will ever cause a mentor to leave the program.

Originally Posted by cgmv123

If he's proposing a standard, it's more along the lines of:

No decision made by FIRST regarding FRC will ever cause a significant number of long-time, core mentors of highly regarded (i.e. Hall of Fame) FRC teams to leave the program.

Just so you two are aware, you're putting words in my mouth. I am proposing no such standard. I am putting out a question that should have been considered, but wasn't. (And just to be more to the point: The question was aimed more at a CD poster who seemed to be saying "HQ is always right, shut up" than at HQ.)

Originally Posted by George Nishimura

I don't see a proposed standard in his post. To me it's more the fact that FIRST should question, and account for, any decision that could cause several experienced mentors to leave the program.

FIRST can make a decision that causes that, but they have to recognise the cost of such a decision up front. We are all worse off if FIRST continue an approach where they only realize the repercussions of important decisions after the damage has been done.[snip]

Exactly what I was getting at. You've got long-term, committed mentors talking about leaving. That's not a good thing for their teams (regardless of the reason).

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

Suppose you were considering a change that you knew would make 20 mentors of HoF teams quit, but it allowed 4000 more students each year to be inspired by going to Champs. Does that mean you'd never make that change?

No, it wouldn't. It would, however, mean that I would reach out to those mentors either before or immediately following with a very detailed reasoning why the change was being made, and why it was being made in the way that it was. There's a difference between that and the method HQ used... It would also mean that I would be taking that change very seriously, not lightly. I would be making sure that I had as much information as I could before making the decision.

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

Eric's statement expressed disbelief that FIRST would consider any decision that caused mentors to leave. My point is that, with as many mentors as there are now, there's no major decision that FIRST can make around the competition schedule that won't cause mentors to leave. (I take Eric's POV as more representative than many of the commenters here, based on the team he's affiliated with.)

You also are putting words in my mouth, and you are making a seriously flawed assumption to boot. I'm not expressing disbelief, I'm saying that they apparently didn't consider that particular effect of their decision. And when you look just at the team I'm affiliated with, you ignore the team(S) in my signature. If you can honestly tell me that you've never heard of at least one, you got another think comin'.

I agree that it's difficult to make a decision and not have mentors leave--but mentors leave anyways, for other reasons. There's a difference between a few mentors leaving for personal reasons and lots of mentors leaving because HQ makes a mistake.

Originally Posted by cgmv123

The ostracism came when they announced what amounts to a major change of direction for all FIRST programs with (as far as we're aware) no input from anyone outside of FIRST HQ.

Bingo. If HQ takes no input, and then changes the course rather radically, then they're going to alienate critical people.

Originally Posted by Racer26

If those teams are less inspiring, does allowing 4000 more students see the husk of their former inspiration achieve more than letting fewer see them be their best?

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

Difficult question, isn't it? I think reasonable people, all committed to FIRST's goals, could disagree on the answer.

I'm going to ask a related question; your answer will tell me (and yourself) a lot about your views on the whole topic under discussion.

Quantity or Quality?

Spoiler for :

If you favor "Quantity", your view lines up with HQ's apparent view. Lots of teams means lots of inspired students, which is good for FIRST's goals.

If you favor "Quality", you take the view that a lot of teams do: Slow down the growth in favor of sustainability. Not quite so many teams, but they'll last longer, and each individual team will impact more students. This is also good for FIRST's goals. That's why we're taking the threat of mentors leaving seriously.

[dudefise]

As an alum, I'm not super against this or for it - really don't have enough information. I do find it a bit surprising since it's so...different. Same with RR. Not the biggest fan of the game but I'm quite happy with some of the outcomes - students inspired, things built and ideas realized.


My compromise would be to instead of adding another full layer, simply get one HUGE venue (or two adjacent large venues), in a big city and expand to 8-alliance Einstein.

Bigger conventions happen all the time. So why can't we do that? What's the point in diluting the "CHAMPIONSHIP" name if you could do the same elsewhere? That's the bit I'm confused about.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by dudefise

My compromise would be to instead of adding another full layer, simply get one HUGE venue (or two adjacent large venues), in a big city and expand to 8-alliance Einstein.

Bigger conventions happen all the time. So why can't we do that? What's the point in diluting the "CHAMPIONSHIP" name if you could do the same elsewhere? That's the bit I'm confused about.

It's not in this thread, but there's some discussion in http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=136519&page=4 (start at post #48) on just what it would take to get that happening. Some square-footage requirements, some loose sizes, and throw in other stuff that needs to be handled. Good luck...

[KelliV]

Originally Posted by Racer26

Those HOF/Otherwise super-elite teams are as inspiring as they are because of a very small number of very dedicated mentors.

HOF teams are inspiring because an ever changing group of people spent a lot of time creating programs that will withstand student, sponsor, and mentor turnover. No one group makes a team a HOF team.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by KelliV

HOF teams are inspiring because an ever changing group of people spent a lot of time creating programs that will withstand student, sponsor, and mentor turnover. No one group makes a team a HOF team.

I'm sure you can attest to this better than I can. While I'm certain many of these teams experience turnover like the rest of FRC, some of these HOF teams have cultivated a sustained mentor base that isn't easily impacted by turnover. Having the ability to retain those key mentors is huge. Institutional knowledge of FRC often makes the difference between a good team and a great one. The fact that some of these teams have mentors who've been with their program, or at least FRC for 10-15+ years is certainly a testament to the program those teams have created. I would argue that this key group of mentors certainly helped shape those teams, and many of them continue to do so today.