[FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

As this thread is starting to (d)evolve into a discussion of the actual possibility of eliminating bag day, I have one main thought on that. Nobody knows. Anyone who speaks with certainty on how the elimination of bag day would impact teams' robots, teams' performance, teams' mental health, teams' sustainability, or FRC as a whole is talking out their behind. At this point there's little more on conjecture. There are a multitude of factors in play, and almost certainly the elimination of bag day would impact different teams very differently. The bottom line is that we simply don't know. That doesn't mean we cannot pursue the change or that the change will be bad, but it does mean there's a lot of uncertainty.

Nobody knows what the long term effects will be of the ending of the single Championship event either but the alleged benefits have been touted by management and its supporters. The fact that accessibility has been increased from 400 FRC teams to 800 FRC teams is a fact that holds as much water as the fact that eliminating bag day can provide up to more than double the hands on time with the machine teams build during the season. Whether or not the sum of unintended consequences in both an already executed decision and the one being surveyed yields a net benefit remains to be seen.

FIRST is an organization made up of many parties of stakeholders that can barely be corralled into certain definitions of "mentors", "teams", "volunteers", "sponsors", "schools", "management", and "STUDENTS". Tickling the sliding scale is an inherently perilous exercise, which is why we rarely see strictly positive responses to any moves made.

When questioning why some people are ready to dive in head first into murky water, remember the organization has already done this many times and will continue to do so.

A good exercise that may be worth pursuing: here is the blog detailing the strategic pillars for FIRST. How does the removal or maintaining of bag day stand on these pillars, and how does it falter on them?