pic: Growth of FIRST in Michigan

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

This is truth. I refer to Gail Alpert as the "Super RD", even if she isn't actually an RD.

<snip>

Yes, Gail is amazing and FiM would not be where it is now without her (and frankly a number of others as well) working their fingers to the bone on this.

BUT... ...Gail was blazing a new trail. Others can follow without nearly the heroic effort required.

The chart that started this thread off should be inspiring copy cats all over the country if not the world.

Dr. Joe J.

[Duncan Macdonald]

Originally Posted by marccenter

... But don't forget that the Gov. Synder has been particularly supportive by setting aside $2 million in state grand funds, with legislative approval of course, to encourage the growth in the Great State of Michigan....

Can anyone share (or point to) the value proposition FIM put forward to earn this support? Was this support initiated by FIM or by Gov. Synder? Is there something unique to Michigan that means other regions couldn't hope for similar levels of government support?

The high level (chicken and egg) template seems simple enough.
1) Reach team density critical mass.
2) Optimise costs for teams.

[Jim Zondag]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

There is nothing I know of in the MI experience that could not be duplicated in dozens of other states.

Agree, the road is paved, please follow.

If we ever want Robotics to be a sport which competes with 'real' sports, then we all need to up our game. Sure after 25 years, we have had great success and now have tens of thousands of participants, but in the grand scheme of things, this is nothing. There MILLIONS of kids who play basketball, and that it just one of several main stream sports. If we truly expect 'cultural transformation', then we need to get MUCH larger, and do it MUCH faster.

Reducing participation costs and increasing ROI to bring us closer to parity with mainstream youth activities are the best way to achieve this. Ignoring this reality will restrict growth until this change is made.

BTW: Here in Michigan, according to the data we have, in 2016 we now have more high school students participating in FIRST Robotics than we have playing Hockey. So we have actually finally passed one of the 'real' sports. Can any other robotics organization on Earth claim this?

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

...
BTW: Here in Michigan, according to the data we have, in 2016 we now have more high school students participating in FIRST Robotics than we have playing Hockey. So we have actually finally passed one of the 'real' sports. Can any other robotics organization on Earth claim this?

If you compare VEX or FIRST in Virginia to Virginia hockey, I think there is a good chance the comparison might turn out well.

However, before you could collect the stats you might need to explain to Virginians what hockey is.

More seriously, Virginia's Prince William County schools (with Loudoun and Fairfax starting to catch up) almost certainly have more students in robotics programs (a mix of VRC, FRC, FTC, FLL, VIQ, SeaPerch, and whatever I might have forgotten) than those schools have in several of their sports programs. That's nothing to sneeze at when you consider that PWC has a total population of around 450K.

The FIM and PWC/VA examples are very different in some ways, and much alike in others. If both remain successful, maybe their influences will merge into a cultural tsunami somewhere around Indianapolis.

Blake

[wilsonmw04]

in FiM events have you ever had the following:
extra paperwork outside of STIMS required by FiM to go to an event?
Limitations on the amount of power you can draw in your pits?


Trying to find out what is normal/accepted and what is not.

[MrBasse]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

in FiM events have you ever had the following:
extra paperwork outside of STIMS required by FiM to go to an event?
Limitations on the amount of power you can draw in your pits?


Trying to find out what is normal/accepted and what is not.

Yes and Yes. There are requirements for all teams to provide two volunteers per event you attend and the required VIMS paperwork associated with that. There is also a special consent and release form for FiM that covers all the standard things that the FIRST consent and release form does.

We have had limitations on pit power, but mostly it is common sense things like not using a compressor or a refrigerator or other things that you really don't need in a pit.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

in FiM events have you ever had the following:
extra paperwork outside of STIMS required by FiM to go to an event?
Limitations on the amount of power you can draw in your pits?


Trying to find out what is normal/accepted and what is not.

In the spirit of Chief Delphi I can answer your question in a half way of sorts.

Most of the seemingly draconian pit regulations for events in the high schools for CHS events come directly from lessons learned in PNW. I know MAR at the very least has a separate C&R form, probably due to the fact that VirginiaFIRST bears more explicit responsibilities at this level of play than they did in the past.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

In the spirit of Chief Delphi I can answer your question in a half way of sorts.

Most of the seemingly draconian pit regulations for events in the high schools for CHS events come directly from lessons learned in PNW. I know MAR at the very least has a separate C&R form, probably due to the fact that VirginiaFIRST bears more explicit responsibilities at this level of play than they did in the past.

That's an excellent answer. That's exactly what I was looking for. That's an answer I can understand and live with.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

That's an excellent answer. That's exactly what I was looking for. That's an answer I can understand and live with.

When decisions are made out of one's control, context tends to make those decisions more digestible.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

When decisions are made out of one's control, context tends to make those decisions more digestible.

+1

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

Agree, the road is paved, please follow.
<snip>

I think Jim and Gail (and others) have made the smoothest road in Michigan. Maybe the state should hire them.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

Agree, the road is paved, please follow.

If we ever want Robotics to be a sport which competes with 'real' sports, then we all need to up our game. Sure after 25 years, we have had great success and now have tens of thousands of participants, but in the grand scheme of things, this is nothing. There MILLIONS of kids who play basketball, and that it just one of several main stream sports. If we truly expect 'cultural transformation', then we need to get MUCH larger, and do it MUCH faster.

Reducing participation costs and increasing ROI to bring us closer to parity with mainstream youth activities are the best way to achieve this. Ignoring this reality will restrict growth until this change is made.

BTW: Here in Michigan, according to the data we have, in 2016 we now have more high school students participating in FIRST Robotics than we have playing Hockey. So we have actually finally passed one of the 'real' sports. Can any other robotics organization on Earth claim this?

I hate disagreeing with Jim but...

Jim, the work FiM has been doing has cleared a lot of the event logistics and cost hurdles but it has done nothing to solve the mentor hurdle. FiM has been able to handle it's astonishing growth in part due to the large number of engineers and engineering companies in the region. I haven't looked at it in a few years but I'd be willing to bet that a large number of FRC teams are congregated around the I75 corridor through Automation Alley (Detroit -> Flint -> Saginaw) where the density of engineers and companies that are long time supporters of FIRST is unparalleled. It also has at least 3 HoF teams within a 45 minute on a side triangle. (51, 67, 27) And more World Championship winning teams exist in Oakland County than exist in most states. This has led to not only a massive growth of teams but also an increase in quality.

My point is, there's still one last hurdle to explosive quality growth that FiM cannot help regions with, the road is there but you still have to figure out how to drive down it.

[mathking]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

Agree, the road is paved, please follow.

If we ever want Robotics to be a sport which competes with 'real' sports, then we all need to up our game. Sure after 25 years, we have had great success and now have tens of thousands of participants, but in the grand scheme of things, this is nothing. There MILLIONS of kids who play basketball, and that it just one of several main stream sports. If we truly expect 'cultural transformation', then we need to get MUCH larger, and do it MUCH faster.

Reducing participation costs and increasing ROI to bring us closer to parity with mainstream youth activities are the best way to achieve this. Ignoring this reality will restrict growth until this change is made.

BTW: Here in Michigan, according to the data we have, in 2016 we now have more high school students participating in FIRST Robotics than we have playing Hockey. So we have actually finally passed one of the 'real' sports. Can any other robotics organization on Earth claim this?

When I talk to people, and in particular to school administrators, about the cost of FRC I use the sports model. Since we are talking about an activity for high school age students, I make the comparison to high school sports. Here are the high school sports with more than 100,000 total participants (from NFHS, for 2014-2015):

Football: 1,085,182
Track: 1,057,358
Basketball: 970,983
Baseball: 487,770
Softball: 365,528
Combined: 853,298
Soccer: 808,250
Volleyball: 486,594
Cross Country: 472,597
Tennis: 340,116
Swimming: 303,925
Wrestling: 269,704
Golf: 221,405
Lacrosse: 193,235

Since it was referenced, hockey has 45,293. So FRC is starting to push into the realm of being a "real sport" in terms of participation.

At my school, the FRC team would rank high (but definitely not at the top) of the total cost/participant. And FRC has a lot of curricular overlap. If I split the cost of equipment also used in classes then FRC is in the middle in cost. It also costs far less, for example, than our marching band. (The band having similar curricular overlap.) So I try to get them to see this as similar to adding a sport. With events that are daily driving distance away the costs per student go WAY down compared to other sports. Moving us to the bottom third.

I completely agree that we should be driving FIRST to push down the cost. I would love to see a time when FIRST manages just the championships, or even better something like "super regionals" and then championships. That would make it more like a state athletic association. And the districts manage their competitions. With a majority of the entry fee going to the districts. But I also think that we need to get schools to change how they few FRC and think of funding it like they do their band or their track team.

edit: As for mentors, that is one of the biggest hurdles. Allow me to propose one big avenue for creating new mentors: increasing participation in FRC. I also coach track and field. And finding qualified coaches is often a challenge. Particularly for technical events. As participation has grown (and more HS sports are shrinking than growing right now) it has become easier because there is a larger pool of mentors to draw from. If we can drive up participation we can also create more potential mentors. I would bet that part of the large supply of mentors in Michigan is because there are so many FIRST alumni there.

[PayneTrain]

That is very true, Andrew. Teams on the outside looking in on FiM are acute to the differences between each party.

Even during the economic downturn FiM still had the most valuable resource: great people, and a lot of them. I am obviously partial to looking at FiM through a Virginia-oriented lens, but before the FVC->VRC split that also coincided relatively closely with the great recession and a bunch of other factors, you could draw more parallels between the RCPs that made up Michigan FIRST leadership and those that made up my region. FiM, it can be safely said at this point, had the leadership and foresight (and looming threat of the program's collapse) that no one else had when moving to districts (a system that very smart, dedicated, and competitive people opposed at the time)

Virginia had a climate that lent itself to a great explosion of sustaining VRC teams (which is great!) and unstable and folding FRC teams (which is not great). We also have never and likely never will have a single team of the same caliber of the top dozen Michigan teams for a lot of reasons; unsurprisingly that answer is yet again, people.

It will be interesting to see over the next three years if my region will be able to become the power it has the potential to be or if the status quo will continue to let our car coast down the shoulder while the rest of FRC blows by us.

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

In the spirit of Chief Delphi I can answer your question in a half way of sorts.

Most of the seemingly draconian pit regulations for events in the high schools for CHS events come directly from lessons learned in PNW. I know MAR at the very least has a separate C&R form, probably due to the fact that VirginiaFIRST bears more explicit responsibilities at this level of play than they did in the past.

I am so confused by this answer. "CHS events" "draconian regs" "C&R form" "lessons learned from PNW" "more explicit responsibilities"

I really don't know what you are talking about...

Dr. Joe J.