Keep FIRST in Michigan (FiM) from killing FIRST Lego League

[kgzak]

Originally Posted by Allison K

I feel like 5th graders won't be able to get the full depth of experience out of FLL at 10 years old with just one prior year of competition, especially given the breadth of strategy involved in both the robot game and the research project.

I don't really agree with this. Enigma (FRC 2075, FTC 5385, FTC 5391) has two grade school FTC teams and their mentors are the high school FRC team students and some parents. FTC 5391 made it to worlds this year by way of a super regional. I think this shows that grade school students can be mature enough to compete at an FTC level.

About the fact that FIM seems to be pushing out FLL, I personally like the idea of FTC as a lower grade level. I know the big thing is that it costs more to run an FRC team than an FTC team and that there are schools who can't afford to run an FRC team but Michigan has never had very many FTC teams. FRC is growing very rapidly in Michigan and a lot of it is due to the grant money that has come recently but as far as I can remember Michigan has always been a state with a lot of FRC teams. FIM's goal currently (as well as FIRST in general) is to get a robotics program in every high school. FIM wants an FRC team in every high school. By putting an FRC team in every high school there is no more need for FTC teams in the high schools so why not make it in the grade schools?

On the flip side of this, Michigan is turning from being one of the most competitive states to compete at to the the state who has some elite teams, a bunch of average teams and some below average teams. Granted if these teams survive they will get better with experience but many of these teams won't survive. The money just isn't there. These teams might be able to survive as an FTC team though which would give the students the ability to have some sort of STEM hands on education that they otherwise might not have. So maybe we do have FTC and FRC in the high schools, one is for the schools who can afford the expensive nature of FRC and the other for the teams who can not.

I know that I wouldn't be the same person I am today without the FIRST experience I had, but I don't know if the FTC experience would have effected me as much as the FRC experience did. But some experience is better than no experience.