What would you do to improve the FIRST experience?

[nickbrickmaster]

This year, I had the honor of being chosen by my team as a Dean's List semifinalist. While I did not make finalist, one question was asked in my interview that really got me thinking.

What would you do to improve the FIRST experience?

I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas in response to this question.

[Niezrecki]

I love FIRST and I love many things about the program, however I do hold one opinion that might not be so popular. Throughout my experience as a student in the FRC Community, we had a lot of ups and downs having to deal with the craziest of situations. Eventually that storm cooled and we were able to focus upon the team and team growth. Luckily we got to go to St. Louis that year and managed to grow the team with many different passionate students.

However, looking back on that experience, the awards were a nice form of recognition at the time. But they are not what I got out of FIRST. Leadership skills, communication skills, electrical knowledge, mechanical knowledge, physics applications, corporate relations, and many more developmental skills are what I walked away with from the program. And it changed me.

Too often I find that Alumni and Mentors focus too much on making the robot successful rather than making the team successful. If I were to change one thing in FRC, it would be to put the students before any other drive. Failing as a student is just as valuable as succeeding as one. Obviously I think there must be a balance. But when it comes to a decision of machining a component, deciding on a design, programming a robot, and making many other team decisions, I believe that there is great value in mentors only providing guidance rather than direction.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

After attending and watching dozens and dozens of events, one thing is clear to me. There should be some kind of FMS connection checker system available to teams and maybe at inspection to make sure all teams can connect to the field without a problem. I would have it available to all teams all throughout the competition so if they messed with any code or network stuff, they can double check to make sure they can still connect to the field before they actually head out to the field and place the robot on the field. Takes a huge load off the FTA's while also making sure less teams sit dead on the field because of communication issues.

[GeeTwo]

The vast majority of the FIRST experience is positive. Sure, there is always the Byzantine process that is inspection, and there are the occasional troublemakers that show up in any large crowd, and Recycle Rush was an underwhelming game, but negative issues/points are the exception rather than the rule.

The biggest improvement that could be made to the FIRST experience is to have MORE of the experience. Last year, 3946 won a berth to CMP, and it was transformative to our team members, and possibly to the team as time goes by. While the best teams in FRC were at CMP, we always get a fair cross section of CMP-playoff caliber teams at Bayou Regional. The things that most inspired our team members at CMP were the maker fair, the sponsor booths, and Karthik's strategy seminar (OBTW, in reverse order). Finding a way to bring a slice of these experiences to regional (and district) events would be a big improvement to a great number of teams.

Another improvement that occurs to me is something we are working on locally - that of finding a way for nearby FRC teams to work together more often. This is the first year we have mentored rookie teams (two of them!), and I can say with confidence that their rookie years were much more successful than our rookie year on many fronts. This is the first year when we had more than a very few hours interfacing with members or mentors of other FRC teams outside of FRC and FLL events. We strive to build up our relationship with our neighbors in full realization of Gracious Professionalism. It may not be exactly FIRST phrasing, but this is how one of our recent drafts of our core values defined GP:

We build each other up, including our competition. Compete with grace, succeed with grace, fail with grace: always learning, always teaching, always inspiring.

[Hitchhiker 42]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

Another improvement that occurs to me is something we are working on locally - that of finding a way for nearby FRC teams to work together more often.

I think this is an important aspect that would grow FIRST in a very positive way if utilized even more. Even teams that are not rookies should (and do, but more!) cooperate together on different pieces, helping each other succeed.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

The biggest improvement that could be made to the FIRST experience is to have MORE of the experience.[...] The things that most inspired our team members at CMP were the maker fair, the sponsor booths, and Karthik's strategy seminar (OBTW, in reverse order). Finding a way to bring a slice of these experiences to regional (and district) events would be a big improvement to a great number of teams

Agreed. After doing decent at a couple of events last year, the students started talking a third regional, or Champs waitlist. The mentors put their heads together and figured out that Champs wasn't happening, and a third regional wasn't going to happen last year.

Guess what the plans were this year? Yep, 3 regionals. And we punched our CMP ticket at the second one.


I wouldn't mind having some workshops and other similar Championship elements at regionals. If they could be fit into the schedule, and there was space for them, that could be a great addition to the regional experience.

[Citrus Dad]

I've lost the earlier thread (I think started by Boltman) about match scheduling at Central Valley Regional. I suggested that there is a better way to schedule those matches so as that we don't have oddities where the best teams (yes, there is sorting of abilities in FRC) don't play each other or end up in alliances together during qualifications. We saw the same thing happen at Silicon Valley this year. 1678, 254, 971 and 368 never played each other and 1678 was allied with all 3 others. 3 teams were unbeaten and 368 could have been unbeaten as well.

It turns out that the NFL goes through substantial schedule permutations to arrive at equitable constrained schedules for the season. (Baseball, basketball and hockey don't have this problem because each team plays the others multiple times.)

Let's not confuse "arbitrary" with "random." Random doesn't guarantee fair, especially if we don't have multiple draws. Playing 1-3 events each season doesn't guarantee that everyone will have an equitable chance. (And BTW, the current method is not truly "random" because it requires a seed value to get it started. This has long been an issue in statistical analysis.) The situation requires intervention to arrive at a fair schedule. No scheduling method will be perfect, but most efforts will be better than the arbitrary method used now.

[rsisk]

Lower the cost of FRC events and increase access (Districts is one solution)
FLL increase access to more events, 1 QT is not enough

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by rsisk

Lower the cost of FRC events and increase access (Districts is one solution)
FLL increase access to more events, 1 QT is not enough

Amen!

Jim Zondag points out that although FRC has scaled up, the registration price has not scaled down. This is a shame. Lower registration would help a lot to keep FRC growing.

Regarding your second point, NorCal does not have QT slots for all the registered teams in our region. Last year, we had nearly 20% more teams than available QT slots. Eight of our FLL teams didn't get in to a QT. Apparently, it is fairly common for a region to have more teams than QT spots, at least according to FIRST HQ.

We're switching the 24 FLL teams we started in the past two years to VexIQ because it is cheaper for our teams and easier to host an event, among other things.

-Mike

[Michael Corsetto]

I'd like to see more FRC sponsor money go towards FRC Teams and STEM initiatives, and less money go towards ShowReadyProductions and Venue Fees.

I think re-allocating hundreds of thousands of dollars of sponsor money could make the FIRST experience better for many struggling and disenfranchised teams.

-Mike

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

I'd like to see more FRC sponsor money go towards FRC Teams and STEM initiatives, and less money go towards ShowReadyProductions and Venue Fees.

Big shows in big venues were an important step toward making FIRST loud enough to be heard, back in the day when new Regionals were filling in the gaps on the map. Now the gaps are smaller.

Today, investment in building team competitiveness pays off more. Look at Robo Zone. Nearly all their remote footage is shot in high school gyms. Michigan's big show is just the last of 22 events this year. More competitive teams create more engaging shows. TV can bring new people into this tent, and that will grow the tent, faster than spending more money on the tent itself.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

Big shows in big venues were an important step toward making FIRST loud enough to be heard, back in the day when new Regionals were filling in the gaps on the map. Now the gaps are smaller.

Today, investment in building team competitiveness pays off more. Look at Robo Zone. Nearly all their remote footage is shot in high school gyms. Michigan's big show is just the last of 22 events this year. More competitive teams create more engaging shows. TV can bring new people into this tent, and that will grow the tent, faster than spending more money on the tent itself.

Richard,

Totally agree, it was a necessary FIRST step (ah, get it?)

The district model has shown that we don't need to spend so much money anymore to host effective events.

Even if some areas take many more years to transition to districts (looking at you, CA and MN), I hope we can collectively continue to ditch the large venues and expensive union labor fees at Regional events. This will allow regional RPC's to redirect local sponsor money back to teams that need it to stay alive or grow to a new level.

-Mike

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

I'd like to see more FRC sponsor money go towards FRC Teams and STEM initiatives, and less money go towards ShowReadyProductions and Venue Fees.

I think re-allocating hundreds of thousands of dollars of sponsor money could make the FIRST experience better for many struggling and disenfranchised teams.

-Mike

Dangit.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Michael Corsetto again.

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I've lost the earlier thread (I think started by Boltman) about match scheduling at Central Valley Regional. I suggested that there is a better way to schedule those matches so as that we don't have oddities where the best teams (yes, there is sorting of abilities in FRC) don't play each other or end up in alliances together during qualifications. We saw the same thing happen at Silicon Valley this year. 1678, 254, 971 and 368 never played each other and 1678 was allied with all 3 others. 3 teams were unbeaten and 368 could have been unbeaten as well.

It turns out that the NFL goes through substantial schedule permutations to arrive at equitable constrained schedules for the season. (Baseball, basketball and hockey don't have this problem because each team plays the others multiple times.)

Let's not confuse "arbitrary" with "random." Random doesn't guarantee fair, especially if we don't have multiple draws. Playing 1-3 events each season doesn't guarantee that everyone will have an equitable chance. (And BTW, the current method is not truly "random" because it requires a seed value to get it started. This has long been an issue in statistical analysis.) The situation requires intervention to arrive at a fair schedule. No scheduling method will be perfect, but most efforts will be better than the arbitrary method used now.

For anyone wondering, you can find out about the current scheduling algorithm here. You can also download it and try to create schedules for yourself.

[Zagar]

I have to agree with the ability to have more teams work together in the build season.

This was my first season with FRC, and Metal Muscle 1506 is incredibly fortunate to have the FIRST Center at Kettering which we now share with 7 other teams. All of the teams located in the FIRST Center learned from each other, worked together and were able to lend a helping hand whenever needed.

I know building such a facility is no small endeavor, but it would be incredible if FIRST were able to have more of these facilities around the country and the world. I know they are building another one soon in Grand Rapids, but wouldn't it be great to have more of them scattered around? Even teams that are not part of the Center could come in and practice on the field, talk about the robots, awards, designs and collaborate on everything FIRST.