FIRST 50 years ago / 50 years from now.

[Brian Maher]

Originally Posted by Whatever

This post reminded me of watching a video waaaay back when I was junior high about an engineering contest at MIT. So I googled away and found the video on you tube. It was broadcast on PBS in 1985. I think the members of this forum will find it interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9ijA4UBCQ0

I apologize if this video is well known on this forum but based on the number of views I am guessing not.

This is a really awesome video, thanks for sharing!

Even in the eighties, driver practice won competitions.

[GeeTwo]

FIRST is absolutely an evangelistic organization - spreading the call to make the world a better place through a better understanding and exploitation of the details of how the world works. I am not aware of any evangelistic force that has succeeded so well that it no longer has a reason to exist. FIRST may wind up morphing and merging, but it will never end so long as there remain those of us loyal to its ideals. (with apologies/acknowledgements to J.K. Rowling).

Predicting the future is always a tricky proposition. A co-worker today mentioned how Heinlein had people working in space in the outer solar system with "slipsticks" on their belts. (OBTW, I had the distinct pleasure of showing my son Perry how one works just last night!) As I think about FIRST in 50 years, I realize that (assuming it exists in recognizable form), it will be thrice its current age. How does today compare to 2000, when FIRST was only eight years old?
From 1992-2000, only two games featured game pieces which were not spherical. From 2001 to 2016, seven games featured non-spherical game pieces (I consider Lunacy cells to be non-spheres).
From 1992-2016, only two games featured a game surface which was not primarily horizontal carpet. By 2066, I expect this to be commonplace.
From 1992-2016, only a handful of robots have not had wheels (#71's The Beast in 2002 Zone Zeal, quite a few pyramid climbers in 2012, a few stationary stackers in 2015, and not much else) . By 2066, I expect non-wheeled robots to be at least as common as swerve drive today, probably as common as non-skid-steer today, and possibly so common that anyone who is planning something so old-fangled as wheels will have to think at least twice before posting it on Chief Delphi, and will be considered an absolute genius if it is executed so well that it actually wins some events.

I expect Chief Delphi to still exist, though it will not use technologies readily recognizable to the dinosaurs who were posting to it in back in the 'teens, much less the 'aughts. I'll go 90% on being able to access a thread from 2016, 80% from 2004, and 65% from 2001.

Originally Posted by tjf

Also, is that Woodie at 10:44!? That would certainly explain quite a bit.

I have very little doubt. While Dean invented FIRST, it is easily arguable that Herb Richardson and Woodie Flowers invented what is now known as FRC through the MIT engineering course 2.70 (now 2.007), "Introduction to Design and Manufacturing". Quite a few of the 3946 alumni proudly tread on Woodie's brick in the 1966 section at LA Tech (known as Louisiana Polytechnic back in 1966, which is oh-so-curiously fifty years ago today).

[sdangelo]

Originally Posted by tjf

I had no idea that this video existed, and yet... It feels so familiar

I believe they showed this video (or part of it) when the US Chief Technology Offer, Megan Smith, spoke at the World Championship in 2015. She's in the video, starting at 1:33.

Edit: Found the World Championship footage. Dean's List Lunch 2015, starting at 1:15.

[Noudvanbrunscho]

50 years from now, FRC is known in Europe as it is in the USA now. We can choose our own regional here in stead of traveling more than one day.
Mabye we have our own championship, let's hope not though. 2 is enough

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Noudvanbrunscho

50 years from now, FRC is known in Europe as it is in the USA now. We can choose our own regional here in stead of traveling more than one day.
Mabye we have our own championship, let's hope not though. 2 is enough

Championships for everyone!

[mastachyra]

What teams will be able to boast that one of their alum have been president of the United States? or walked on Mars?

FIRST will have some heavy hitting advocates by then.

[jajabinx124]

Originally Posted by marshall

Championships for everyone!

One championship for every continent! Except North America... poor North America having 2..

[dodar]

Originally Posted by mastachyra

What teams will be able to boast that one of their alum have been president of the United States? or walked on Mars?

FIRST will have some heavy hitting advocates by then.

And they will be advocating for a Mars Championship.

[SpaceBiz]

Some predictions for 50 years from now

-FRC will be larger in Europe than it is today in the US and Canada
-More than 95% of high schools with 1000+ students in the US will have a FIRST or similar (like VEX) program at their high school.
-FRC will adopt a four-tier system similar to FLL to accommodate the extremely large number of teams in North America.
-It is accepted that no one will ever break the OP robotics streak of 23 regionals because almost all first level (as in you don't need to qualify) events are comparable to today's district events.
-The record for the most district event wins in a row will be more than 23.
-Major Powerhouse teams will have a large following of people who were never team members, mentors, or associated with the team in a similar way.
-These teams will earn profits by licensing apparel and/ or other merchandising
-These teams will also have sponsors primarily interested in sponsoring for brand visibility similar to NASCAR sponsors today (albeit for less money and secondarily as a charitable act)
-ESPN and other networks will pay real money to have the video rights to events at the highest levels of play. This will help cover some or all registration costs for the most competitive offseason events. (Think IRI)
-Electronics/Robotics brands will also sponsor events at high levels of play and FIRST itself for brand visibility.
-All events you need to qualify for will have announcers/anchors talking about the prior match and the next match similar to how they do it at IRI today. This will make watching only one live stream more entertaining.
-There will be a weekly match highlights show produced in a similar fashion to NFL RedZone. By adapting it for FRC the major difference will probably be a longer delay. This will allow for people to effectively watch FRC recreationally when there are hundreds of smaller events going on at once.
-Fantasy FRC will be mainstream, not as big as fantasy football, but still offered by major fantasy sites like ESPN. Many people will play for money.
-There will have been multiple end games that have required flying minibots
-Chairman's wins at super-district championships (third level of four) will consistently do more than what our hall of fame teams currently do
-Dean's list will have more than 4 levels compared to today's three
-Almost or all dean's list winners will get a full ride to the college of their choice
-The total value of prizes excluding scholarships for those who win will exceed $30000
-The second highest level of dean's list (today's Dean's list finalists) will receive prizes similar in value to today's winners
-FIRST will have almost achieved its goal of sufficiently achieving recognition of Science and Technology within the US and Canada. Most efforts will now be to achieve this in other less developed countries.
-FIRST will pursue closing the gender imbalance in other countries more than in the US and Canada.
-Almost everyone will know what you are talking about when you reference FIRST as a noun
-IRI or the comparable event 50 years from now will make IRI this year look like childsplay. People will look back at footage from stronghold and think about how simple FRC was back in 2016.

[TheBoulderite]

I'm also predicting that a town a team is from will tune into their regionals and cheer on their team. If the team does well, they will be welcomed home by a victory parade put on by the town.

Imagine the whole city of Cleveland, for example, celebrating 120's championship victory. That would be pretty cool. There may be some intense neighborhood rivalries in the same city, though. (For example, half of San Jose cheers on 254, while the other half cheers on 971.)

I'm also hoping sports bars will tune into regionals, DCMPs, and Champs when they're happening. That'd be fun.

[adciv]

In 2066 to accommodate the changes in gameplay and robots, the fields are now 27 by 54 by 81 meters. Teams will be complaining auto is too short and the 20 second teleop should be eliminated as most robots do nothing on the field due to the mandatory lack of any automation software during this period. The Great California Earthquake of 2045 devastated the California teams and the major nexus of elite teams are now located in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

The Non-Newtonians’ (Team 49033) Gravity Lens has received massive complaints as being cheating and FIRST is considering banning any devices which affect the force of gravity. Prohibiting Morgan Gravitonics devices are also being considered. The rules are being adjusted to prohibit weighing any robots while the equipment is on. About half the teams struggle to accomplish the flying portion of the game and continue to use ground only robots.

Teams chafe at the 32 terabyte/s bandwidth limit as this reduced their holographic HUD robot POV interface. Teams are also clamoring for transitioning from magnesium air batteries to lighter weight higher output Minovsky reactors for powering the robots.

Additive manufacturing techniques have become common and some mentors complain we have lost the basics by not doing things the hard way by CNC. Material Advances in new alloys and composites have forced FIRST to reduce the weight limit to 80lb as otherwise the robots would be too large and too powerful. Teams complain about the limitation of motors that can only output 465 NM at 40k rpm.

[TheBoulderite]

Originally Posted by adciv

The Great California Earthquake of 2045 devastated the California teams and the major nexus of elite teams are now located in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

Dang...That's quite the prediction.

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

CA Districts in 2065, calling it now!

At first, Michael's prediction seemed to be pure pessimism, but then the reason emerged in this thread:

Originally Posted by adciv

The Great California Earthquake of 2045 devastated the California teams and the major nexus of elite teams are now located in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

It took 20 years after the quake of 2045 to establish the infrastructure needed to hold FIRST district events in California.
On the plus side, the split between NoCal and SoCal districts became obvious.

[ThaddeusMaximus]

Maybe not a FIRST-specific thing but something to look forward to in the non-combat competitive robotics scene in general...

If marketing proceeds towards making things big, I'd see things becoming like other sports (FRC becoming almost a feeder of sorts? See: NASCAR, F1)... in more ways than one. (See: Battlebots. Less technical focus, more "ooh something different") Televised events, people not involved directly having heavy investment, larger corporate sponsorship. Formalized leagues with engineers being drafted (IMO, would be rly cool), etc.

Technologically involved mainstream sports are nothing new (NASCAR, F1).

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by ASD20

I don't think FRC will ever be in every school. FTC/VEX/FLL probably, but FRC is just not scalable to that size.

FiM begs to differ.