What would you do to improve the FIRST experience?

[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

[jweston]

I would greatly appreciate it if future playing fields are not nearly as expensive/time intensive to build as Stronghold's. Yeah, Stronghold is a really, really cool and beautiful game. And building a practice field is a fine challenge. But I don't think I'm alone in thinking that being able to build even a partial practice field from wood for this year was very difficult, even for some of the better resourced teams.

It felt like the flashiness and effort to build the field this year took some of the focus of the robot. It would be nice if the time and expense of a practice field received greater consideration when designing the game.

I'm expecting next year's field will be completely empty except for gaffer tape.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by jweston

I'm expecting next year's field will be completely empty except for gaffer tape.

Aerial Assist came pretty close: four box goals, a truss (which could be simulated with a net or even a beam of light), and high goals. Only the four box goals were on the field.

Edit: Also, the number of defenses makes doing demos a bit more involved. We've given up trying to set up a tower at demos; the pyramid would have been pretty rough to demo for Ultimate Ascent (we just shot Frisbees).

Edit2:

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

I would get rid of every song at any event that I can identify by looking at how people in the stands are dancing.

I'll have to disagree on that one.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by jweston

I'm expecting next year's field will be completely empty except for gaffer tape.

Oh god, my poor robot. Only if we limit teams to 2 CIMs or limit travel between zones with rules cuz holy crap I don't wanna take cross field hits with 6 CIMs again.



Improve Team Exp?

Focus on the team experience. Every event needs to understand they are providing a service the teams are buying. This needs to be drilled into every volunteer.

There needs to be a process for removing consistently abusive volunteers.

Transparent and open processes and procedures. (Judging and Field side)

More, events, more often. I wanna see every Saturday in February, March, April, and May have robot events on them, multiple events, around the country. Even if it's just playing scrimmages. We can't just play 2 or 3 times a year. This is all about being the STEM equivalent of getting kids bouncing that basketball for hundreds of hours, we need to provide venues for it. We don't need showy venues, or fancy AV systems. We need the robot equivalent of pickup games. We need bot jams where they show up, find out the game, build a bot, and compete in a weekend. [1] We need portable fields that can be set up by a bunch of kids in an hour to play robots.

Stop focusing on growth. unpopular statement but - teams that don't move don't inspire. Let's focus less on "a team in every school" and more on building sustainable programs. Would a school start a Division 1 football program without a coach with some basic experience or knowledge? No. Why are we doing FRC teams that way?



Those last two really have to go together - don't start teams with people who have no experience with teams. But how do they get experience? By being at these events.

[1] Didn't CD used to do this with the EduBot stuff at the Ford Sweet Repeat? Or is my memory finally going.

[techhelpbb]

I think it would be worth investigating official practice facilities.
I mean people build gyms - and people build escape rooms - why not build robot gyms?

At this time my FIRST oriented Makerspace goals do not provide for a game field.
It's bad enough I am pouring a small retirement into tooling .

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

We need the robot equivalent of pickup games.

+1 DING DING DING DING DING

[George A.]

I would like to see a process to prevent district teams from competing in full regionals, as well as a system that allows cross district competition to count towards district standings.

My one gripe is that a team competing in a district can travel to a regional and win an award there and qualify for Championships. I'm not here to argue the merits for and against it, but it always left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth that a team A) can pay the same amount as tam B) and gets different competition because of where they are located.

Team A plays in a district event and as a result would get 2 district events (minimum of 12 Quals each) AND can go to a regional event.

Team B would get 2 regional events.

My issue is that Team A can make the semi finals at their districts, and win an award at each which is enough to qualify for District Championships where they then get another opportunity to qualify for the Championship. However, if Team B literally does the exact same thing then their season is over unless they miraculously get off the wait list.

But on top of that Team A can then go to a regional outside their district format and win a qualifying award to go to St. Louis. So either make is so that any team can compete anywhere, or that districts stay districts and regionals stay regionals.

To counteract the "teams like to play with teams from other areas" argument, I would allow districts to count for your standings no matter where you play. If a MAR team wants to compete in Michigan, or a PNW team wants to fly out to NE why shouldn't they?

At this point why not standardize the points gained from each district and allow them to collect the points towards their district standings? Have the first 2 districts count towards your standings at your "home championship" because everyone would be playing the same 2 events, and the same games.

[Taylor]

To improve the FIRST experience, I would improve the spectator (layperson) experience. Set up many displays all over the premises explaining the program, explaining the game, explaining the tournament structure. I would make "you are here" maps throughout the facility, highlighting key areas of interest (field(s), pits, restrooms, concessions, vendor/sponsor booths, etc).
As it was last year, the Championship event was not welcoming to the family-who-saw-it-on-a-bus-and-stopped-in crowd. At all.

[FarmerJohn]

FIRST needs to stop being so arrogant/selfish and admit that IFI has better lower and middle level robotics competitions, and an overall better competition structure. FRC tops all, but VRC is better than FTC in every way possible, and VIQ gives teams more out of their season than FLL does. And they both cost a whole lot less. If FIRST really cared about inspiring students they'd either try their best to actually make these lower and middle level competitions better or just tell students to do VIQ and VRC. If you're promoting an educational program whose alternative is better in every way, you're not in it for the students, you're in it for yourself.

[Hot_Copper_Frog]

Originally Posted by FarmerJohn

FIRST needs to stop being so arrogant/selfish and admit that IFI has better lower and middle level robotics competitions, and an overall better competition structure. FRC tops all, but VRC is better than FTC in every way possible, and VIQ gives teams more out of their season than FLL does. And they both cost a whole lot less. If FIRST really cared about inspiring students they'd either try their best to actually make these lower and middle level competitions better or just tell students to do VIQ and VRC. If you're promoting an educational program whose alternative is better in every way, you're not in it for the students, you're in it for yourself.

Could you elaborate a little bit about why you believe VRC is "better in every way" than FLL and FTC programs?

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Originally Posted by FarmerJohn

FIRST needs to stop being so arrogant/selfish and admit that IFI has better lower and middle level robotics competitions, and an overall better competition structure. FRC tops all, but VRC is better than FTC in every way possible, and VIQ gives teams more out of their season than FLL does. And they both cost a whole lot less. If FIRST really cared about inspiring students they'd either try their best to actually make these lower and middle level competitions better or just tell students to do VIQ and VRC. If you're promoting an educational program whose alternative is better in every way, you're not in it for the students, you're in it for yourself.

Agreed. Having mentored both FLL and Vex IQ for the first time this year, I like Vex IQ a whole lot more than FLL. I like the field better(and that you can pack it in a box) and the fact that the game isn't just a mess of a bunch of random tasks. Having the students focus on one or two tasks and do them the best they can is more similar to Vex, FTC, and FRC style games. I also like how in qualifying matches, it's team based on not just solo play. I can't comment on Vex vs FTC as I've never done either.

[FarmerJohn]

Originally Posted by Hot_Copper_Frog

Could you elaborate a little bit about why you believe VRC is "better in every way" than FLL and FTC programs?

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

Agreed. Having mentored both FLL and Vex IQ for the first time this year, I like Vex IQ a whole lot more than FLL. I like the field better(and that you can pack it in a box) and the fact that the game isn't just a mess of a bunch of random tasks. Having the students focus on one or two tasks and do them the best they can is more similar to Vex, FTC, and FRC style games. I also like how in qualifying matches, it's team based on not just solo play. I can't comment on Vex vs FTC as I've never done either.

I could write a book about why VIQ/VRC are superior to FLL/FTC. Alongside the reasons listed above, teams get to compete more for less money. If we make the assumption that time involved in the program is related to inspiration (a very safe assumption, since FIRST is always promoting spending more and more time in their programs), VIQ and VRC provide more inspiration per dollar due to the greater amount of time invested into the program by the students through increased match count and number of competitions and the decreased cost of competing. Then you get to the quality of competitions. In the VEX programs, the focus of the competition is the experience of the teams and students, and they spare no expense when it comes to making things easy and accessible to teams. FLL/FTC, on the other hand, are a little less team focused. It seems that FLL/FTC care more about the quantity of teams competing ($) than the quality of each team's experience. Then you can look at the games. FLL is a mess of missions that relies on perfect programming (or perfect parents) to succeed. All age groups compete together so the younger students rarely come out on top of the older ones. VIQ, on the other hand, is less software intensive, which not only makes it more accessible to younger students, but also makes it more difficult for someone other than students to do a majority of the work. Elementary and middle schoolers are separated so that nobody is competing against someone with years of experience that they do not have. The games are simpler and involve more practice and iteration and less lining up in base carefully. FTC games are, as I've experienced, unorganized and imbalanced, and it doesn't seem like the game design committee has ever competed in an a enjoyable game before. VRC games are straightforward, easy to explain, and easy to watch, plus they're designed by a group of people who know competitive robotics inside and out. VRC is also separate by age groups so that high schoolers and middle schoolers don't compete together. I'm sure other people have examples as well, but these are my experiences.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by FarmerJohn

I could write a book about why VIQ/VRC are superior to FLL/FTC. Alongside the reasons listed above, teams get to compete more for less money. If we make the assumption that time involved in the program is related to inspiration (a very safe assumption, since FIRST is always promoting spending more and more time in their programs), VIQ and VRC provide more inspiration per dollar due to the greater amount of time invested into the program by the students through increased match count and number of competitions and the decreased cost of competing. Then you get to the quality of competitions. In the VEX programs, the focus of the competition is the experience of the teams and students, and they spare no expense when it comes to making things easy and accessible to teams. FLL/FTC, on the other hand, are a little less team focused. It seems that FLL/FTC care more about the quantity of teams competing ($) than the quality of each team's experience. Then you can look at the games. FLL is a mess of missions that relies on perfect programming (or perfect parents) to succeed. All age groups compete together so the younger students rarely come out on top of the older ones. VIQ, on the other hand, is less software intensive, which not only makes it more accessible to younger students, but also makes it more difficult for someone other than students to do a majority of the work. Elementary and middle schoolers are separated so that nobody is competing against someone with years of experience that they do not have. The games are simpler and involve more practice and iteration and less lining up in base carefully. FTC games are, as I've experienced, unorganized and imbalanced, and it doesn't seem like the game design committee has ever competed in an a enjoyable game before. VRC games are straightforward, easy to explain, and easy to watch, plus they're designed by a group of people who know competitive robotics inside and out. VRC is also separate by age groups so that high schoolers and middle schoolers don't compete together. I'm sure other people have examples as well, but these are my experiences.

It seems most of your areas of concern center around the competition aspects. How would you compare the non-competition aspects of the programs? The Core Values and research projects are a central aspect of FIRST Lego League, and you are seemingly not considering them here.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by FarmerJohn

FIRST needs to stop being so arrogant/selfish and admit that IFI has better lower and middle level robotics competitions, and an overall better competition structure. FRC tops all, but VRC is better than FTC in every way possible, and VIQ gives teams more out of their season than FLL does. And they both cost a whole lot less. If FIRST really cared about inspiring students they'd either try their best to actually make these lower and middle level competitions better or just tell students to do VIQ and VRC. If you're promoting an educational program whose alternative is better in every way, you're not in it for the students, you're in it for yourself.

I am a huge fan of the V** programs, but FTC does have at least one significant, positive difference from VRC, and there are other more debatable differences.

If you want to design and create custom parts, FTC offers far more opportunities. Designing and creating more custom parts doesn't equal more inspiration (at least not in my book); but it can equal more fun. It can also equal less fun, and/or a barrier to entry. YMMV

My bottom line: Let's not ascribe malice to either program, or attempt to kick either to the curb. Both encourage students to stick their toes into STEM waters at low-ish cost, and with low-ish mentoring requirements. If both tripled in size, they/we still would only be nibbling at satisfying the total North American (not to mention the rest of the world) needs.

Tell students, adults, and sponsors about both and let them pick the one that is right for them. Don't attempt to make the choice for them, graciously and professionally let them choose the one that best suits their circumstances.

Blake