Town Hall Meeting Video

[steelerborn]

Originally Posted by meg

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



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.

Meg, I hope I am not coming across as mean or argumentative since we were also just talking in a previous thread.


I did not see that thread thank you for bringing that to my attention. And I also did not hear about the murder not far from the dome. I knew there was one on the metrolink I believe several months ago. St. Louis is not a safe city, Detroit is not a safe city. Big cities will naturally have higher crime rates. I am very protective of all of my students whenever I go to nationals, and I also used to live near Detroit so I know how it is.


About the extra time the First champ winners will receive I think that this is an excellent point. I could think of a couple of solutions (but doesn't matter since FIRST did not ask on input). One could be to hold them alternating every year (St. Louis, then Houston, and then the next year Houston, Detroit). Another is that the teams could ship their bot right after the championship to the other event, and sign a form stating that they will not use their practice bots in the meantime. I think that this would be acceptable, and also play best of 5 instead of best of three.

I don't think the top 4 alliances should get to go. FIRST is a competition and the reason people don't like the 2 champ idea is because it (to an extent) is taking this aspect out of FIRST. By taking the top 4 you are essentially taking the competition out as well by making 4 alliances winners. Also FIRST would/should pay for all the travel, shipping, and hotel costs for the teams that win the first event. I feel like this is within reason to do for the 4 winning teams on the winning alliance.

[George Nishimura]

I attended the meeting. My frustration with the panel was they set out at the beginning a set of questions, and didn't fully answer all of them.

I would actually prefer if they gave a medium where people can submit questions and they would give a thought out and lengthy response, rather than immediate, hand-wavy answers to avoid answering the difficult questions.

I think the moderator was right to ask whether the other questioners were fine with Mike asking a second question; there was limited time and some people didn't get the chance to ask their question in the end, so it was the polite thing to do.

The panel was defensive, but on the flipside I thought the questions were unnecessarily aggressive. While it clearly shows their passion, aggressive questions are not as effective as clear concise ones.

I had two questions that I didn't get to ask (and will email soon):

1. How is this scalable? If FRC had > 4000 teams, we will have 3 championships?

2. Considering they will have to negotiate 2020+ contracts soon (as they said), have they learned anything from this announcement? Are they going to approach it differently?

[Banderoonies]

Originally Posted by momter

Very discouraged by teams who believe that being the winner is the goal of the program. Especially coming from Mentors. Of course we all would love to win. That is not the core of FIRST as one speaker at the town hall mistakenly stated. It's time for teams to reevaluate the core goals of FIRST. You're sliding down the slippery slope to where athletics has landed. I have witnessed mentors explode over the results of a match. What message does that send? It breaks my heart to see this. In reality, many teams will still not qualify for the championships due to the lack of resources that are available to them. Maybe we should be more concerned about this than where we will be competing or how many trophys we can collect. In addition, I've lived near Detroit and have spent time in Detroit. It will be a fantastic venue!

I certainly hope you didn't misconstrued my comment in the town hall as "being a winner is the goal of the program" because that was NOT my intent and also not what I said.

I said that high school age kids "want a champion". Having someone to look up to and aspire to be is a motivator for improvement. Having been abruptly cut off by the moderator, it unfortunately scrambled my thoughts along with my ability to articulate my points of view effectively. For that I will apologize as i should have been better at keeping my concentration despite this interruption.

The point I was trying to make was this: Years ago, I was inspired and motivated by Team MOE (365). They WON Chairman's. That means they were the best in the world and the champions of spreading the FIRST mission. Seeing their success was my motivator to do all I could to inspire my team through their example.

My students have learned more because of a change in mindset on our team. This mindset change came from being motivated by MOE and other champions both on and off the field. We went from "finish the robot and it's good enough" frame of mind...to a mindset of "Our job is never done till FIRST's mission is fulfilled". That means, continuous improvement on the robot- to LEARN, continuous outreach to our community to drive the first mission and continuous learning, growth and improvement. That was the point I was trying to make and had I not been cut off, maybe I could have articulated it better.

[skatsu]

Thanks 1640 for the video. Here are some thoughts:

Looks like the first needs to implement something like what most schools have like a PTA. There should be an organization that represents the students and FRC programs. They "talk" about cooperating with the community, but sounds more like lip-service.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by skatsu

Thanks 1640 for the video. Here are some thoughts:

Looks like the first needs to implement something like what most schools have like a PTA. There should be an organization that represents the students and FRC programs. They "talk" about cooperating with the community, but sounds more like lip-service.

No more groups please. One person, approved by WFA winners, whose sole responsibility is to represent us at every major decision point. Give that person the ability to send out surveys and gather unbiased FIRST wide data. Frank Merrick is the voice of FIRST. Now we need a conscience.

[Mike Schreiber]

I do appreciate FIRST's attempt at explaining things. Have to give them credit for trying. I understand that their really is no ideal solution, and FIRST is an organization run by people.

As an attendee I was a little annoyed that FIRST had hired a moderator as if there was some sort of debate to be had rather than having someone we know and respect talk to us openly and honestly. It seemed a very defensive move so that they wouldn't have to be the one to tell us "stop ranting and ask your question". The whole thing felt very political.

Speaking of people we know and respect - I couldn't help but notice how particularly quiet Frank was during this whole thing. It really gave me the vibe that this was not a well received and unified decision within FIRST (this is just my opinion from what I saw).

As others have said those asking questions could have been more polite, but this sort of thing happens when a decision is made which they disagree and they were not consulted.

I wanted to ask a logistical question but chose to let others ask theirs instead:

How is FIRST planning to do the competition at Cobo and the opening / closing ceremonies at Ford Field.

This is ~1 mile walk. While there is safety in numbers and it is probably no big deal for most students, this could be very difficult for some older or handicapped attendees. We also have to think about the sheer number of people that need to move across Detroit and how long it will take everyone to exit, re-enter and get seated. As if a 9 pm ending wasn't late enough this year. Many people chose to opt out from opening / closing ceremonies myself included due to a desire for dinner. If you add a 1 mile walk - who is going to even want to go?

Also how is FIRST planning to have any parking available?

This overlaps with both playoff Hockey, early Tigers games, and prime construction season. I tried to park near JLA and take the people mover to the Wing's game on Tuesday before the championship...it was not a quick process.

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

Your outcome is dictated by your worldview. You feel that success comes from the field of play. I disagree with that entirely. I measure success, and in turn my team does as well, by how many students we get excited about STEM. How many students we graduate to college. How many students come back to mentor as Alums. If a team is "struggling" it probably has nothing at all to do with the ranking of the robot on any given field, but rather another issue all together. You are correct that success matters. How each team measures their success is different. One is no better than the other. However, my "successes" are a lot more under my control. Your's is dependent on the chaotic nature of an FRC game field.

This is right. I helped fill out the GA WIT grant app for our team and not one part wanted to know how many trophies you won. A lot of people actually do care about the hard work more than the trophy.

One takeaway I got from the video was that in order to do super regional you need a more geographically consistent district structure but team growth is outpacing that.

I had wondered for a while early in my FRC career how California hadn't had a district structure with so many teams. It was shocking recently when GA FIRST asked if we wanted districts next year or not because I never thought we would get here before California. So I would say you can't assume that FIRST will grow how it seems it will now. I mean who in 2011 expected that GA would have districts by 2016-17?

[PayneTrain]

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.

I'm really glad you said most of what I was thinking here so I didn't become unhinged trying to get the point across. My experience in FIRST this year can attract a variety of adjectives, but the three I'll use a lot in the coming days as I gather my thoughts are bizarre, baffling, and absurd. I find the extreme contrast between the words of the FIRST founder on alumni and FIRST's actions with alumni bizarre. I find the shunning of alumni who actively participate in FIRST to be baffling. I find the behavior of some FIRST personnel at the town hall towards alumni actively participating in FIRST absurd.

I work with this program because of how much it meant to me as a student. I've made sacrifices that on the surface seem pretty idiotic, but it's all for a program that I like to think has had my back and cares about the contributions I make to it. Well, I liked to think that.

[Brandon_L]

Has there been any discussion about what happens after 2020/contracts run out? Will we return to a single CMP?

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

Has there been any discussion about what happens after 2020/contracts run out? Will we return to a single CMP?

4 championships. One in Houston, Detroit, Atlanta, and Orlando. (Just trolling the West Coast teams)

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

Has there been any discussion about what happens after 2020/contracts run out? Will we return to a single CMP?

I dunno about you but I sure hope they move up build season to after Thanksgiving.

[grstex]

In case anyone is curious as to who is on the Board of Directors, all members of FIRST leadership are listed on their website. The executive advisory board has several former mentors.

[T^2]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

No more groups please. One person, approved by WFA winners, whose sole responsibility is to represent us at every major decision point. Give that person the ability to send out surveys and gather unbiased FIRST wide data. Frank Merrick is the voice of FIRST. Now we need a conscience.

Nah. What FIRST needs is a competent competitor. Right now, they might as well be Standard Oil.

[Andrew Y.]

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.

Nicely put. Unfortunantly some peple ive spoken with took my distaste for this decision as "why do you not want to reach more kids? It is not about winning. You need more GP"........smmhh

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by grstex

In case anyone is curious as to who is on the Board of Directors, all members of FIRST leadership are listed on their website. The executive advisory board has several former mentors.

Thanks for the link. Very interesting reading to be found in the FIRST Strategic Plan at the bottom. I was particularly amused by the second bullet point on page 4 of the strategic plan..."Create a more efficient, responsive organization...implement more robust systems and processes that are more responsive to the FIRST community..."