Is a FIRST Team equal to a traditional sports team?

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by highlander

I very much doubt that 99% number. I know a lot of athletes, and while I don't know 1678 personally (but I don't doubt their dedication considering their successes), there is no way they can compete against peak-level high school athletes who work 3-5 hours (or more) on average every single day year-round to maintain their skill level and competitiveness. Don't shortchange a dedicated athlete.

If you are comparing the average FRC team to the average sports team, the comparison becomes even more one sided since almost every high school sports team practices at least somewhat year round for quite a few hours per week. In comparison, while many FRC teams do off-season work, their time commitment again pales in comparison to sports.

However, having said that, it seems to me that during the build season, time commitment can be roughly equivalent, if not a more to high school FRC teams over high school sports teams.

For our team, I believe its the equivalent if not more, vs our athletes in our State.
The difference though is what our society/culture deems as relevant/important.

Our football players/coaches/parents and other volunteers dont have to worry about funding their own facilities, pay for their own uniforms, mowing the grass, taking care of the bleachers, paying their coaches or paying for the buses to take them to games. Our robotics team has to do all of that in addition to teaching our students robotics-related skill sets. So I guess we spend more time doing Robotics but not as much time honing our skills.