Town Hall Meeting Video

[smistthegreat]

Originally Posted by Eugene Fang

I'm going to play devil's advocate here. It's unlikely that such a busy person as Grant will be able to dedicate two weekends in a year to visit both FIRST championships. If I were a student, I'd be disappointed if the championship my team was going to didn't have the same celebrities or opportunities provided by the other.

That's an excellent point. I've been operating under the assumption that each of the 2champz will be of similar "inspiration quality" (non robot events) as the current cmp, which I believe is the goal. This may end up not being true.

[momter]

Originally Posted by RonnieS

I invite you to tour 314 classroom. It is made for kinder gardeners. They seem to be making some great robots out of it. This is with hand drills and hole matching and amazing effort.

-Ronnie

I would love to. We are also doing great thinks with our Elementary and middle school regarding robotics and coding. These younger students are so eager to learn.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Eugene Fang

I'm going to play devil's advocate here. It's unlikely that such a busy person as Grant will be able to dedicate two weekends in a year to visit both FIRST championships. If I were a student, I'd be disappointed if the championship my team was going to didn't have the same celebrities or opportunities provided by the other.

There is room for more celebrities. More VIPs. We only limit ourselves by our thinking.

That would actually make a good thread topic discussion.

Jane

[Jared Russell]

Unfortunately (and as expected) this town hall went exactly like every other town hall I've ever seen or been to.

The people in attendance have already self-selected for being particularly passionate about the issues being discussed, and damage the effectiveness of their otherwise-legitimate concerns by failing to separate their anger from their message and taking cheap-shots with the microphone. Meanwhile, the people answering questions under the spotlight can't really deviate from the party line, are put on the defensive by all the hostility, and as a result end up getting short with the audience. By the end, everyone's blood pressure is higher. This just proves, that no matter how smart or well-respected the participants are, we in FIRST (on all sides) are human.

[lynca]

Congrats to the FIRST board for holding a town hall and walking through the difficult process of selecting a championship venue.

I watched the whole town hall.
I encourage everyone to watch the entire video before posting their opinions on the dual championship model.
The questions and heckling from the audience left me disappointed for many FIRST mentors.
Some where along the way for those FIRST mentors, Dean's gracious professionalism message has been lost.

My key takeways from the presentation:
1. FIRST decided to hold firm the January kickoff date instead of shifting the six week model into December to accommodate a super-regional schedule.
2. West coast venues were not available, Houston was the next best option (low-cost flights for western teams)
3. FIRST is exploring the idea of allowing teams to choose which championship to attend
4. The Dual championship model will scale as FIRST grows

Key takeways from the Q&A session:
1. A FIRST alumni is not on the board of directors
2. FIRST is considering a summer event that brings together the winners of each championship (hint hint... IRI)
3. FIRST Mentors need to focus on asking questions and proposing solutions , not heckling the board.

[Matt_Boehm_329]

Originally Posted by lynca

2. FIRST is considering a summer event that brings together the winners of each championship (hint hint... IRI)

Doesn't this make a true competition championship even more exclusive though rather than expanding the experience to a wider audience?

[connor.worley]

Originally Posted by Matt_Boehm_329

Doesn't this make a true competition championship even more exclusive though rather than expanding the experience to a wider audience?

It's something like a compromise.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by Matt_Boehm_329

Doesn't this make a true competition championship even more exclusive though rather than expanding the experience to a wider audience?

They might just be making IRI "official" that is all. Besides, teams self select for IRI anyway.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

They might just be making IRI "official" that is all. Besides, teams self select for IRI anyway.

This is only true for the field competition side of things. And that is fine. IRI is IRI; it is not FIRST. It only reflects a few facets of the multifaceted organization. For those focused on the field competition aspect, IRI fills the need and will likely continue to. FIRST is much broader in scope and in sharing its mission and goals than IRI can ever be. Each serves a purpose.

Jane

[brandon.cottrell]

By the way for anyone who might be confused because you can't see it, the weird noise during the last question of the town hall meeting was the microphone randomly falling off the stand and the guy asking the question catching it. It was a sweet catch.

[EricDrost]

Originally Posted by brandon.cottrell

It was a sweet catch.

Thanks!

[steelerborn]

I am a mentor in California, and hearing the comments made about my state essentially being lazy and taking too long to make a decision on districts really made me upset. It seemed that every single question that was asked from Michael was fielded with something about how California needs to get on the ball. Just really upset me because I feel that there were some great questions that were not answered fully. I am so ready to help with this in anyway I can! Michael if you are reading this let me know how I can help out with the districts!

I personally like the two championship idea, as long as there is some "final" match event with the winners of both. And some other things will need to be adjusted. But I think it is wrong how it was done without notifying or asking for input from important members of the FIRST community.

Concerning the safety issues about Detroit... St. Louis is second in the country when it comes to crime... And Atlanta is also in the top 6 at least.
FIRST has had championships in some "dangerous" places, and I haven't heard very many reports from teams about how bad the cities were.

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by EricDrost

Huge thanks to 1640 for this. Everybody should watch the Town Hall - it gives a very clear statement of what FIRST's priorities and nonpriorities are.

This is so true.

What scared the hell out of me was the snippy answer to "How many FIRST Alumni are on the BoD?" and resulting followup. It's unfair that the decisions that affect our community most are being made by those who don't know what the community is truly like. It's one thing to visit teams and talk with them, but another to live and breathe the team for months at a time, if not the entire calendar year.

On top of that, the 'we can't poll thousands of people' rationale just doesn't make sense to me. You have a Hall of Fame. You have the Championship WFA's. Use those as a focus group - you've identified them as being the best people and programs in FIRST, so why not use them?!

I'm still trying to digest my thoughts on this one, but so far - not at all fair to teams, and not at all happy with it. I'm very glad FIRST at least made an attempt to open the door with discussion... but they certainly did not handle it well at all.

[meg]

Originally Posted by steelerborn

I personally like the two championship idea, as long as there is some "final" match event with the winners of both. And some other things will need to be adjusted. But I think it is wrong how it was done without notifying or asking for input from important members of the FIRST community.

I think it would need to be more than just the top 2 teams competing. What if the top 4 teams at one event were better than the winner of the other?

Since the two events are on different weeks, there will be significant advantage to the teams playing that week. Not only do they have an extra week to prepare (and let's be honest here, most of the teams on Einstein have 2 robots), but they will be able to see how the first championship event did things and be able to take those and improve upon them. Which is in the spirit of FIRST, but hardly makes the Championships even playing ground

Originally Posted by steelerborn

Concerning the safety issues about Detroit... St. Louis is second in the country when it comes to crime... And Atlanta is also in the top 6 at least.
FIRST has had championships in some "dangerous" places, and I haven't heard very many reports from teams about how bad the cities were.

Did you see this thread? There was also a murder just a few blocks from the dome on Friday. The safety of St. Louis is also a very serious concern for me. Our team specifically chose to have the students miss more school and drive instead of fly because we were so concerned about safety on the public transit in St. Louis.


In a slightly different note, I did my best to express a concern instead of being aggressive the panelists, I understand that they're working hard. I definitely didn't appreciate being asked if I "believed everything I read in the papers". It was insulting to me to be dismissed so easily.

[Banderoonies]

Originally Posted by Libby K

This is so true.

What scared the hell out of me was the snippy answer to "How many FIRST Alumni are on the BoD?" and resulting followup. It's unfair that the decisions that affect our community most are being made by those who don't know what the community is truly like. It's one thing to visit teams and talk with them, but another to live and breathe the team for months at a time, if not the entire calendar year.

On top of that, the 'we can't poll thousands of people' rationale just doesn't make sense to me. You have a Hall of Fame. You have the Championship WFA's. Use those as a focus group - you've identified them as being the best people and programs in FIRST, so why not use them?!

I'm still trying to digest my thoughts on this one, but so far - not at all fair to teams, and not at all happy with it. I'm very glad FIRST at least made an attempt to open the door with discussion... but they certainly did not handle it well at all.

Totally agree! It is for the above reasons (not getting community input), that many in the FRC community felt unrepresented leaving them frustrated and angry.

Some here in this string considered negative positions to be "ungracious". I would suggest it is "ungracious" to not allow folks to articulate their views on the decision. Only allowing questions and not allowing people to voice opinions, made people feel that their opinions on the decision didn't matter.

They had to know this news would not be popular. People need a chance to voice their free speech rights and opinions without being made to feel like negative positions are automatically considered "ungracious". No one got openly nasty or inappropriate. They merely voiced their displeasure.

People love this program and put many years into it and they all have a right to have a voice in how they feel when someone is shaking up the world they have come to love.

Had decisions been made by including a subset of folks who actually were part of the FRC community (legacy? hall of fame?), it may have been much easier to accept change and I think there would have been less frustration....I also think the resulting solution would have been very different.