FIRST 50 years ago / 50 years from now.

[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.

[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).

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Originally Posted by 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).

I'd definitely be interested in a NASCAR autonomous division. Maybe allow code changes during pit stops to change strategies or driving styles.

[logank013]

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

I'd definitely be interested in a NASCAR autonomous division. Maybe allow code changes during pit stops to change strategies or driving styles.

NASCAR Pit Stop in that division in 2066:
Battery Fill *check*
New Tires *check*
Damage Repaired *check*
New Code deployed *check*

[jajabinx124]

Originally Posted by marshall

Championships for everyone!

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