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

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

I appreciate your clarification about your combative tone. It seems that you were attacking everybody in Michigan that does not agree with you even though they did not make the rules. But now I understand, thanks.

I'm not attacking anyone; but you might catch me disagreeing with a policy or two (and supporting one or two).

Originally Posted by Ed Law

Let me first answer your question. I am going to rewrite it from "To keep all the parents happy in our school district, we will have to make FLL K-8, FTC 5-12 and FRC 6-12" to "To keep all the parents happy in our school district, the program will have to be change d to K-8 for FLL, 5-12 for FTC and 6-12 for FRC."

Thanks to Mr V's help we now know that FIRST HQ will prevent participation by any student who is too old for a program, and will allow participation by all other (younger) students.

So, I'm guessing that means the "program" doesn't need to change. FIRST HQ will enforce FIRST's rules (I'm thinking that FIRST HQ owns the "program"), and schools will enforce school system rules.

Am I overlooking some reason for a third set of rules (FiM rules) to be introduced? I realize that you are Ed, and you are not FiM; but if you happen to know FiM's reason, I'm curious.

Originally Posted by Ed Law

Yes, you and I are miles apart on this issue. And I am not trying to convince you. My biggest disagreement with you is with your philosophy which you quoted "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." Just because there is a saying by somebody in the past does not make it right or the truth. Many people have said many things in the past. It depends on the context. Not everything can be applied to every situation. I am a firm believer in Kaizen (continuous improvement). We put a lot of emphasis on Kaizen at my place of work. Many of us work on Kaizen projects on the side. Even if something is not broken, we try to improve process/product that affects our work, to make it more efficient, to make us more productive, to make work life more enjoyable. It directly translate to the bottom line. Customer satisfaction will increase and the company will be more profitable and competitive. A company that does not change things and wait until it is truly broken will most probably not going to be able to survive for very long in this global competitive economy.

Ed, we agree here more than you know.

I'm familiar with kaizan-style quality improvement methods. I have the tee-shirt (OK, it's really a polo shirt, but that's close enough). Here is how I use the phrase, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it."

Properly applied, that phrase is part of exactly the sort of thinking that is at the core of those methods. In those methods you start by identifying defects, and then you look for their root cause(s), or at least for a way to exert some control over parts/processes that will have a desired effect on the defect.

In addition to the obvious defects that exist when a product or process doesn't satisfy a requirement (function, performance, whatever), lost opportunities to make a product/process cheaper, or otherwise better, are defects in something (I won't quibble about what that "something" is).

However, if no one involved in an improvement exercise can identify a defect, neither the product or process is changed just for change's sake. Changes are only made for an identified reason. In other words, you don't fix it if ain't broken.

Bringing the conversation back to the thread's general topic... I continue to look forward to learning what motivated FiM's plans to enforce a local change in the ages/grades allowed to participate in local (local to the communities affected by FiM policies) FIRST programs.

I know the FiM volunteers are earnest, sincere volunteers working very hard to accomplish something good. It's for that very reason, that it should be very easy to describe what defect, whether it was a lost opportunity or an outright failure to satisfy some requirement, they are attempting to affect.

Blake

[Tom Line]

FYI, proving FiM pays attention, they put out this email today.

__________________________________________________ ________
FLL® program registration is now open! Below is exciting news!

PROGRESSION OF FIRST PROGRAMS WITHIN MICHIGAN
Michigan is strongly committed to the FIRST® progression of programs. Each FIRST program, from Jr. FLL® to FLL® to FTC® to FRC®, offers our students unique opportunities to learn, grow, and build upon previous knowledge. Outstanding growth across all of our programs in the past few years positions Michigan well to implement a FIRST Robotics program progression pilot across the state. Many of our school districts now have the full complement of FIRST programs from K-12, enabling participants to start in Jr. FLL in early elementary, progress through all of our FIRST programs, and be on a high school FRC team when it comes time to make that critical decision to pursue a STEM career.

When we established FIRST in Michigan in 2008, we adopted Dean Kamen’s vision at the time as our mission: to establish a sustainable FRC team in every high school. Dean’s vision has expanded to give younger students the opportunity to experience STEM through hands on, real world challenges too. Jr. FLL, FLL, and FTC are now critical building blocks to FRC. A few years ago, we took the first step by piloting FTC in the middle school to build a stronger bridge between FLL and FRC. Using extensive grants to incentivize middle schools to choose FTC, the results after just four FTC seasons were overwhelmingly positive: the majority of students on FTC teams finished middle school eager and ready to join their high school FRC team. Furthermore, their skills and expectations better align with FRC.

It’s now time to formalize the lessons we’ve learned. FIRST and FIRST in Michigan are pleased to announce phase two of the pilot in Michigan, which utilizes an adjusted progression of programs:

Elementary School Programs: Jr. FIRST LEGO League (Jr. FLL) (K-3) and
FIRST LEGO League (FLL) (4th - end of elementary)

Middle School Program: FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC)

High School Program: FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC)

Transitioning Your FLL Middle School Teams to FTC
Starting in 2015, all new teams forming in late elementary (4th grade through the end of elementary), or the equivalent outside of the school system, register for FLL. All new teams forming in middle school, or the equivalent outside of the school system, register for FTC. Existing middle school FLL teams within or outside of a school setting have the choice to stay with FLL for up to two more years, or move to FTC beginning this season.

Several events have transpired to make this the perfect season to start, or transition your middle school team to FTC, and pass your FLL kit down to the elementary level. Foremost is the new platform for FTC: The LEGO MINDSTORMS® NXT has been replaced with the Java-based Android platform powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. This means new and old FTC teams will be on equal footing with programming this year, as all FTC teams will learn Java for the first time. With grants through FIRST in Michigan and the state of Michigan, along with potential grants FIRST is working to secure with sponsors, the transition from FLL to FTC could be essentially free. Passing your kit down to elementary students is easy. We can show you how to run a community night to engage families and students of all ages in FIRST.

If you have already registered a middle school FLL team this season but would prefer to move to FTC, we can help. Please contact *********

We are looking forward to another incredible year.

***********
***********


Note: I removed contact information and names to prevent them from being spammed.

[Peter Chen]

Here's the official announcement from FiM. Bottom line is that middle school FLL teams have two years to transition to FTC. After that, middle schools (and presumably, teams with middle school students) will no longer be allowed to participate in FLL in Michigan -- FLL will be for 4th-5th grade only.

Note that this being described as a pilot program by FIRST and FiM, which implies to me that FIRST is considering making this change more broadly.

Any suggestions for Michigan teams who believe FLL has tremendous value for middle school students and want to continue in FLL?

Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 19:38:18 -0400
Subject: FLL Announcement - Progression of Programs (MI FLL Team Blast 2015.01)

FLL® program registration is now open! Below is exciting news!

PROGRESSION OF FIRST PROGRAMS WITHIN MICHIGAN

Michigan is strongly committed to the FIRST® progression of programs. Each FIRST program, from Jr. FLL® to FLL® to FTC® to FRC®, offers our students unique opportunities to learn, grow, and build upon previous knowledge. Outstanding growth across all of our programs in the past few years positions Michigan well to implement a FIRST Robotics program progression pilot across the state. Many of our school districts now have the full complement of FIRST programs from K-12, enabling participants to start in Jr. FLL in early elementary, progress through all of our FIRST programs, and be on a high school FRC team when it comes time to make that critical decision to pursue a STEM career.

When we established FIRST in Michigan in 2008, we adopted Dean Kamen’s vision at the time as our mission: to establish a sustainable FRC team in every high school. Dean’s vision has expanded to give younger students the opportunity to experience STEM through hands on, real world challenges too. Jr. FLL, FLL, and FTC are now critical building blocks to FRC. A few years ago, we took the first step by piloting FTC in the middle school to build a stronger bridge between FLL and FRC. Using extensive grants to incentivize middle schools to choose FTC, the results after just four FTC seasons were overwhelmingly positive: the majority of students on FTC teams finished middle school eager and ready to join their high school FRC team. Furthermore, their skills and expectations better align with FRC.

It’s now time to formalize the lessons we’ve learned. FIRST and FIRST in Michigan are pleased to announce phase two of the pilot in Michigan, which utilizes an adjusted progression of programs:

Elementary School Programs: Jr. FIRST LEGO League (Jr. FLL) (K-3) and FIRST LEGO League (FLL) (4th - end of elementary)
Middle School Program:FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC)
High School Program: FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC)

Transitioning Your FLL Middle School Teams to FTC

Starting in 2015, all new teams forming in late elementary (4th grade through the end of elementary), or the equivalent outside of the school system, register for FLL. All new teams forming in middle school, or the equivalent outside of the school system, register for FTC. Existing middle school FLL teams within or outside of a school setting have the choice to stay with FLL for up to two more years, or move to FTC beginning this season.

Several events have transpired to make this the perfect season to start, or transition your middle school team to FTC, and pass your FLL kit down to the elementary level. Foremost is the new platform for FTC: The LEGO MINDSTORMS® NXT has been replaced with the Java-based Android platform powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. This means new and old FTC teams will be on equal footing with programming this year, as all FTC teams will learn Java for the first time. With grants through FIRST in Michigan and the state of Michigan, along with potential grants FIRST is working to secure with sponsors, the transition from FLL to FTC could be essentially free. Passing your kit down to elementary students is easy. We can show you how to run a community night to engage families and students of all ages in FIRST.

If you have already registered a middle school FLL team this season but would prefer to move to FTC, we can help. Please contact [information elided for privacy--send me a private message if you need this].

We are looking forward to another incredible year.

Michigan FLL Partner

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Peter Chen

Any suggestions for Michigan teams who believe FLL has tremendous value for middle school students and want to continue in FLL?

I'd suggest a letter to FIRST HQ (ideally, to the FLL director) with some examples of why you believe that. Not sure I'd copy FiM, but that might be a good idea as well.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Peter Chen

...
Any suggestions for Michigan teams who believe FLL has tremendous value for middle school students and want to continue in FLL?

Possible courses of action are numerous, and more or less obvious (I think). Choose one that is appropriate for a volunteer focused on students, and then graciously and resolutely embark upon it.

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Peter Chen

Any suggestions for Michigan teams who believe FLL has tremendous value for middle school students and want to continue in FLL?

Register your FLL team. From the sound of it you still have two years to petition your case with FiM and FIRST HQ.

Existing middle school FLL teams within or outside of a school setting have the choice to stay with FLL for up to two more years, or move to FTC beginning this season.

[leon r]

Wow, just wow, this is first I am hearing of this issue in MI and am shocked by it! I can sort of see why they are doing this (mainly to accommodate FTC), but they are seriously shortchanging MI middle school kids from FLL experience! FLL is SO MUCH more than just robots! The project, the research, the core values and teamwork is invaluable!

I have coached FLL for 7 years and FRC for combined 5 years (97/98, 2014-2016) and I consider FLL as a vital step in STEM education. As a parent of three FLL kids, I wouldn’t trade FLL for any other level of FIRST activity (even FRC!).

Also consider that internationally, FLL goes up the age of 16 (as of Jan 1st of competition year), that means that kids will turn 17 during the year. Which means that they can be 18 years old by the time World Festival comes around! So, if you ever send any MI kids to that tournament, they are going to be up against 18 year old! Talk about stacking the game against them!

I do not know what I would do if Mass ever did something like this, perhaps traveling to one of the adjacent states to compete? But that is easy to do in a small New England state .

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by leon r

Wow, just wow, this is first I am hearing of this issue in MI and am shocked by it! I can sort of see why they are doing this (mainly to accommodate FTC), but they are seriously shortchanging MI middle school kids from FLL experience! FLL is SO MUCH more than just robots! The project, the research, the core values and teamwork is invaluable!

The accomodating FTC part is the key thing here. Because of the prevalence of FRC in Michigan, there's no real place for FTC unless you move it to middle school. There were only a handful of FTC teams in Michigan prior to the switch and maybe one or two events, now both are much more common.

While pushing FLL back to lower grades may not be ideal, having FTC at the middle school level and making teams more prevelant helps students transition into FRC much more easily (speaking from first-hand experience as an FLL student who was totally lost when joining an FRC team in 9th grade). This may put FLL teams at a slight disadvantage for competitions, but maybe if the system works well it's something that can be standardized in the future.

[Hot_Copper_Frog]

Originally Posted by leon r

Wow, just wow, this is first I am hearing of this issue in MI and am shocked by it! I can sort of see why they are doing this (mainly to accommodate FTC), but they are seriously shortchanging MI middle school kids from FLL experience! FLL is SO MUCH more than just robots! The project, the research, the core values and teamwork is invaluable!

I have coached FLL for 7 years and FRC for combined 5 years (97/98, 2014-2016) and I consider FLL as a vital step in STEM education. As a parent of three FLL kids, I wouldn’t trade FLL for any other level of FIRST activity (even FRC!).

I couldn't agree more that FLL is a vital step in STEM education that offers a wide range of positive experiences for students. The transition to FLL in elementary school and FTC in middle school is, in part, to improve their FIRST experience overall. I'm a graduate of FLL/FRC myself, and I wish I had been able to experience FTC as a middle step between the two. By the time I aged out of FLL I was bored - the build and programming weren't challenging enough. But hopping right into FRC was overwhelming. FTC is a great middle step.

Originally Posted by leon r

Also consider that internationally, FLL goes up the age of 16 (as of Jan 1st of competition year), that means that kids will turn 17 during the year. Which means that they can be 18 years old by the time World Festival comes around! So, if you ever send any MI kids to that tournament, they are going to be up against 18 year old! Talk about stacking the game against them!

Well then I guess it's a good thing that winning at the world festival level isn't the focus when creating an overall stronger FIRST community.

I think people are seriously underestimating how capable elementary and middle school students are. Now that our program has matured (our first middle school FTC teams were founded in 2011) and we have students coming up to FRC that have been through the full progression of programs, I'm blown away by how prepared these freshman are. They've had 3-4 years of FIRST core values, and the more technically challenging FTC build has prepared them very well for FRC. I don't think I've spoken with a single student who has gone through this progression and had anything negative to say about it.

[kgzak]

Originally Posted by Hot_Copper_Frog

I think people are seriously underestimating how capable elementary and middle school students are.

I would just like to point out that the Ortberg division finalist alliance had 2 teams that where middle school teams. One of those teams was the captain of the alliance that moved on to the championship and placed 10th in the Edison division.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

The accomodating FTC part is the key thing here. Because of the prevalence of FRC in Michigan, there's no real place for FTC unless you move it to middle school. There were only a handful of FTC teams in Michigan prior to the switch and maybe one or two events, now both are much more common.

Respectfully - This isn't correct - FTC and FRC can coexist quite easily in a single "team". - There are great heaping piles of prima facie evidence that says they can, and that when they do the students benefit in several ways.

I can understand that the "there is no real place for FTC" [because high schools have FRC teams] can sound reasonable if you say it fast, or if that idea is woven into a PowerPoint slide deck describing a plan to constrain what students are offered; but it's just not correct.

We can discuss the benefits of complementary FTC/FRC participation by a single "team" if you like. I'll be glad to share my opinions, along with pointers to real-world examples.

Originally Posted by Hot_Copper_Frog

I couldn't agree more that FLL is a vital step in STEM education that offers a wide range of positive experiences for students. The transition to FLL in elementary school and FTC in middle school is, in part, to improve their FIRST experience overall. I'm a graduate of FLL/FRC myself, and I wish I had been able to experience FTC as a middle step between the two. By the time I aged out of FLL I was bored - the build and programming weren't challenging enough. But hopping right into FRC was overwhelming. FTC is a great middle step.
...
I don't think I've spoken with a single student who has gone through this progression and had anything negative to say about it.

I agree with everything I have explicitly quoted here, and with your post in general; but ...
(IMO) It is irrelevant.

The topic being discussed isn't whether FTC prepares students for FRC, nor is the topic whether FTC is a good intermediate program to experience between FLL and FRC.

The topic is whether anyone should actively discourage and/or put barriers in the way of students, schools, 4H Clubs, Scouting troops, whoever who want to participate in FLL after they are out of elementary school, or participate in FTC after they are out of middle school.

In my opinion, no one should discourage them and/or erect any barriers.

There are plenty of reasons why I think this. The most fundamental is this. If an undecided/tentative student or group wants to try (for the first time) a hands-on STEM activity during their middle school or high school years; FRC can be good for them, but to get honest-to-goodness, hands-on, hardware and software, design/construction/integration/testing/operating/speaking experience in a lower-pressure, lower-cost, less-time commitment, simpler environment; forming or joining an FLL or an FTC team is the way to go. Forming or joining an FLL or FTC team that is associated with (mentored by) an FRC team is even better.

So, in my opinion, the OP, and the person who resurrected this thread yesterday both are on the right track. Encouraging the Michigan school systems to offer FLL/FTC/FRC in elementary/middle/high school respectively is a good idea. Discouraging the Michigan school systems, and/or anyone else, from offering FLL/FTC to older students is not a good idea. The cons far outweigh the pros.

When is it ever a good idea to tell a pre-college student of any age that because of someone else's opinion, their only viable FIRST STEM robotics option is FRC?

Blake
PS: The VEX VRC and VIQ programs, and a few other STEM programs are obvious alternatives to FIRST's programs - For the purposes of this discussion, I'm focusing only on the FIRST programs.

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by gblake

Respectfully - This isn't correct - FTC and FRC can coexist quite easily in a single "team". - There are great heaping piles of prima facie evidence that says they can, and that when they do the students benefit in several ways

I agree that there are examples of this being the case, but in Michigan it was more of the exception than the rule. Consider that prior to the switch to middle school there were like 20 FTC teams and like 300 FRC teams, clearly the vast majority of teams did not have FTC teams.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

I agree that there are examples of this being the case, but in Michigan it was more of the exception than the rule. Consider that prior to the switch to middle school there were like 20 FTC teams and like 300 FRC teams, clearly the vast majority of teams did not have FTC teams.

That is interesting, but again - Whether or not examples existed in Michigan isn't the topic of this thread.

The topic of this thread is about whether FiM or any other entity should be putting up barriers to, or explicitly discouraging people from, or recommending that any organization explicitly prevent, forming FLL (or FTC) teams for the benefit of older students.

I wrote about the abundant entities/groups that participate in and benefit from both the FTC and FRC programs simply to keep the discussion rooted in easily examined, real world facts (instead of me only asserting an opinion).

I'll grant you that for any number of reasons, it might not have ever been common in Michigan, but that might simply mean that the good people of Michigan were missing out on some really good STEM opportunities.

Blake

[leon r]

Michigan is certainly a special case, because of how well they have integrated FIRST into their school curriculum and I understand that there was (is?) a tremendous imbalance between their FRC and FTC teams. But… do you ruin kid’s FLL experience in order to boost FTC participation? Forcing kids to move up into FTC in 6th grade is just not right!

I agree that they could suggest it, but do not force it! Current system allows 10th graders on FLL teams (in 49 states), but students are encouraged to move up to FRC/FTC in 9th grade! The point is, they have a choice!

BTW, this is a pilot program, which means that if they like it, they might apply it to the other states and/or the world…