Is FIRST about Robot?

[Ed Law]

Let me clarify the intent of my question. Should we try to build the best robot that the team's resources allow to compete the best we can? Or is on field performance not important so we should not focus on the robot too much?

This has nothing to do with how much adult involvement there is so please don't go there.

[Hitchhiker 42]

I'd say that we definetly should try to build the best robot we can. That is the way, after all, you learn the many skills in FRC. Without trying to build the best robot we can, why are we here?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

Let me clarify the intent of my question. Should we try to build the best robot that the team's resources allow to compete the best we can? Or is on field performance not important so we should not focus on the robot too much?

This has nothing to do with how much adult involvement there is so please don't go there.

Striving for excellence is a part of every good team. But assuming that excellence means winning competitions is a very bad assumption. Just take a look at the record for the 2015 Championship Chairman's Award winners, team 597. I think we would all say they pursued excellence and achieved it on the biggest stage in FIRST, without ever winning an event.

Every team is going to have a different mix of involvement, mentorship, funding, and resources, and the key really is for every team to identify the goals that will best impact their students and community, and then pursue those goals.

[mathking]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Striving for excellence is a part of every good team. But assuming that excellence means winning competitions is a very bad assumption. Just take a look at the record for the 2015 Championship Chairman's Award winners, team 597. I think we would all say they pursued excellence and achieved it on the biggest stage in FIRST, without ever winning an event.

Every team is going to have a different mix of involvement, mentorship, funding, and resources, and the key really is for every team to identify the goals that will best impact their students and community, and then pursue those goals.

Thanks Jon. This is really what I want to say. I absolutely think that teams should strive to put the best robot they can on the field and do their best to win. But just as absolutely for me you should not judge your success and failure in this venture by whether or not you win. Winning is fun. But if winning is the standard for success then most teams are failing at most competitions. For my part, when people say "FIRST isn't really about the robot" what they really mean is that FIRST isn't about winning competitions with the robot.

I keep coming at this question as a coach. Someone who coaches FRC as well as Track and Field and Cross Country. In my other sports we definitely try to win. But we don't always win. We judge our success largely on whether most of the kids have a positive experience and get better (faster, farther, higher). In FRC we judge our success mostly on whether kids keep coming back, say they enjoy the experience, learn new skills, and then go on to pursue careers in STEM fields.

We absolutely strive to build the best robot we can. But that is a means to an end, not the end.

[gblake]

Ed,

Earlier today, I had a devil of a time with my Internet connection but I was able make some progress. I spent the time my connection was up, going over my recent posts to look for any place where I might have written the ideas you describe. There seem to be some "disconnects".

I still plan to write a reply that covers my take on the fundamental, philosophical topic, if you will; but first let's try to reconnect the disconnects.

Originally Posted by Ed Law

You said in the other thread that "The on-the-field performance of teams/robots is not the central focus of the FRC program described on FIRST's website, nor is it the thread tying together the many descriptions offered by FRC's founders and current leaders." Let's examine that more closely.
This is a link to a quote from Dean Kamen and is on the FIRST website. http://www.firstinspires.org/sites/d...an-quote_1.png

He said FIRST is more than robots. I think most people agree. He never said FIRST is not about robots. The program is FIRST Robotics Competition, not FIRST Robotics Science Fair and Exhibition.

Mission
The mission of FIRST is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting Mentor-based programs that build science, engineering, and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

Methodology
Engage kids in kindergarten through high school in exciting, Mentor-based, research and robotics programs that help them become science and technology leaders, as well as well-rounded contributors to society.

I highlighted what I think are key words. As the lead engineering mentor of my previous team, what was I supposed to do? Do you not want me to teach my kids all the engineering skills they need to make their robot more successful on the field? Should I only teach them but tell them not to implement it because FIRST is not all about robots? Should I not teach them how to make their robot work as they have dreamed it would? Should they not have a robot they would get excited about because it performed well on the field? I am confused.

No sweat - I can unconfuse you about how I feel about that part of things. Within the last week, in this post 346, I wrote this "... you feed the STEM hunger of eager/inspired students, and you feed them as much as you and they can handle - because it's fun."

Originally Posted by Ed Law

Blake, why does on the field success and off the field success have to be exclusive. ...

Again, within the last week, in the same post 346, I tried to explain my point of view with these sentences,
"When planning club/team activities, whenever we reached the point of having to choose/recommend how we are going to spend our chunks of scarce time, I try[sic] to think hard about whether I/we should invest those hours and energy into making an OK robot better, or into introducing new people to STEM opportunities.

Those two things certainly aren't 100% mutually-exclusive, but they aren't 100% identical either; and the clock is a merciless taskmaster."

So I agree with you, good robots and the other parts of being an FRC team aren't exclusive.

Where I suspect we might disagree is the subject of whether build a best-possible robot is the primary mission of an FRC team, and/or on whether FRC teams need to build a best-possible robot in order to accomplish their primary mission.

Originally Posted by Ed Law

Blake, I hope you will stop advocating that one is more important than the other. I think they are both important. I wanted my students to have the total FIRST experience and not just the robot. It does not have to be exclusive. It just takes more work. Doing one and saying the other is not important is an excuse and a disservice to the students you are trying to inspire.

Everywhere I searched (so far) for any place I might have accidentally written that an FRC team's annual robot isn't important, I came up empty. I'm glad that I didn't accidentally write that in any of the places I looked so far. Can you point to any place (so that I can fix it)?

With that in mind, I think we agree that being a well-rounded and good FRC team easily includes, and certainly doesn't exclude building good robots.

Where you and I (and others who would encourage both of us) probably diverge is on whether "best-possible robot" is the enemy of "good-enough robot".

Along those lines, I have written things like this comment about what I would suggest is a good way to evaluate the success of a FIRST team. "... introducing students to enough positive STEM experiences to open their eyes to the possibility that they might enjoy a STEM career. To do that you don't even need to have competitions. You might choose to use competitions, but they aren't required." (in the PS of this post 214).

Also, in this post 5, I wrote this *opinion* about how I would look at things, if I were FIRST HQ, "I think that the the on-the-field performance exhibited by the teams that are already doing well (in that part of FIRST), is good enough. I don't mean to say that better performance would be harmful; but if I'm right, I do mean that across the globe, for the teams that aren't struggling, improving the on-the-field part of FRC should not be pulling time, attention, and other resources away from the other parts of FRC.".

Another way to say it would be that I (and Mathking, and JWeston, and Jon Stratis, and ...) believe that FIRST intends for the teams' robots to be a means, not an end.

Does the above close up those disconnects?

I don't think I'm writing anything now or before that is substantially different from what Mathking, JWeston, Kressley, Stratis, and others have written here and elsewhere. I suppose write I it more often than them - and thereby make myself a lightning rod - but I don't think that I'm out of synch with them or the many others who share the "means, an not an end" viewpoint.

Blake

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

Let me clarify the intent of my question. Should we try to build the best robot that the team's resources allow to compete the best we can? Or is on field performance not important so we should not focus on the robot too much?

This has nothing to do with how much adult involvement there is so please don't go there.

Bottom Line: What will inspire your students the most?

In our case, we raise and spend enough money to make two robots, give the students as much leadership as they can handle, and are satisfied if we can meet all of the game challenges squarely. Your Mileage May Vary.

[Knufire]

It's pretty obvious that this and many related questions (such as the Stop Build day thread) divide people into two camps. I've always thought of these two camps in different terms than people have mentioned here. We all, more or less, agree that the mission of FIRST is the I: inspiration. However, we tend to divide on whether to prioritize what I would call "micro-inspiration" or macro-inspiration".

Micro-inspiration is inspiration on a small scale (i.e. individual students). People who prioritize micro-inspiration are focused on a per-student basis. These people for the most part have leaned away from prioritizing competitive success as they believe, at a certain point, the resources required to gain more success on the field could be better utilized in other parts of the team's organization that would yield better returns on inspiring the individual students on their team. Someone posted in one of the Stop Stop Build threads about how they polled their local teams, and nearly all of the professional educators wanted to retain the Stop Build day. This did not surprise me, teachers are obviously going to prioritize micro-inspiration as this is their career and their passion.

Macro-inspiration, on the other hand, is inspiration at a larger scale. This is caused by programs that go out and inspire entire communities or large groups of people across the country. Initiatives such as getting robots on Meet the Fosters or Degrassi, televised events such as VEX Worlds on ESPN or the MSC production and Robozone. Things that cause a pretty significant portion of people in a metropolitan area such as Detroit to at least be aware that interscholastic robotics exists and is a thriving program that they have the option to join. However, if you solely focus on these large-scale initiatives, you forget the heart of the program; the students.

These two are NOT independent. Macro-inspiration depends on micro-inspiration. You cannot inspire communities without inspiring individual people. In addition, you cannot build an organization that could inspire a community unless the members of that organization are inspired themselves to work towards making that difference.

Personally, I think FRC is a pretty poor choice for micro-inspiration. Not because it isn't effective at this, but because the resources required are huge compared to alternative programs. I'm sure people will post individual counterexamples to this, but I believe that for most organizations, you could take the resources required to inspire 30 kids with FRC and inspire more with FTC or VEX. At the same time, I think it is much harder to get marco-inspiration with FTC or VEX, simply because of the scale of the robots. VEX is putting tons of effort into this, evident by getting a spot on ESPN recently, but I'll dare to say that I'm worried they could be getting close to their potential in this regard. It's just easier to impress the general community when you have large robots move with fluid and grace, performing actions that humans couldn't possibly do.

Personally, I think the people who keep trying to change FRC to be more micro-inspiration friendly are just trying to use the wrong tool for the job, and are trying to modify the tool for a purpose it is not suited for.

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

6. If the overall vision were to be, "Let's make FRC the elite program only for the top end" then I'd be willing to scrap most of my thinking for 1-5 above. Of course, to do that, then FULLY embracing, pushing, and supporting intermediate programs (regardless of logo) like VRC and FTC as the way to engage and create MOST of those future graduates we are trying to create has to be part of the plan.

I agree with this completely. Google Rich's name, and I think you'll quickly find that he is probably one of the most qualified people to speak on this issue. If you read the rest of the post from which this quote came (which you can get to by clicking on the little blue and white arrow), you can see that him and I probably have differing opinions on this issue (which I fully expect due to his background as an educator), but he acknowledges the viewpoint I hold. The scenario where nearly everyone is happy is when FRC is the elite flagship program that spreads the word and generates macro-inspiration, with FTC/VEX/VEX IQ/FLL teams that follow up and provide micro-inspiration to a much, much larger number of students. These two aspects TOGETHER is what will create a successful robotics inspiration organization.

[Fusion_Clint]

It is about the robot!

The robot is what we use to trick the kids into learning skills they will use the rest of their lives and the community into funding the program.

This simplest way to understand this is to think about what your team (if you have one) does for public displays.

Does your team display graphs of ACT scores, graduation rates, or how many students go to college?

Or, do you display your robots and then tell the people drawn to it about the success of your program?

We have never been asked to set up a presentation detailing how much we raised a students ACT score or improved the graduation rate. They usually ask for a robot instead, and we tell them about our program in the mean time.

[mathking]

Knufire, I think the micro/macro description you give is good. I have told people more than once that the scale, size, speed, etc... for FRC is better at that kind of inspiration than other robotics competitions. If I read your post correctly, you aren't saying that it bad for micro inspiration, just inefficient because of cost. I think that depends on the size of your team. We have two FTC teams now. To serve the number of kids we have on our FRC team we would need seven or eight more. And it would cost more than FRC. And there would be many fewer relationships built amongst our team members, both students and mentors.

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by mathking

If I read your post correctly, you aren't saying that it bad for micro inspiration, just inefficient because of cost. I think that depends on the size of your team. We have two FTC teams now. To serve the number of kids we have on our FRC team we would need seven or eight more. And it would cost more than FRC. And there would be many fewer relationships built amongst our team members, both students and mentors.

Yup, that is exactly the point I was trying to convey. And cost does not just mean monetary cost, but any other resource (time, capital, etc) that goes into running the FRC team as well. Depending on the amount and type of these resources at your disposal, different programs or combinations of programs might be the ideal scenario for you.

I just think the important thing to realize is to not just look at FRC in a vacuum. So many of these debates about the direction and future in FRC go nowhere solely because none of the people arguing want the same thing out of this program. A one-size-fits-all program simply cannot exist. In my opinion, FRC should go towards where it has an inherent advantage (macro-inspiration) over other programs. This direction (which specifics on is not really in the scope of this thread) might reduce FRC's ability for micro-inspiration, but I see this as an acceptable trade-off because there are several other programs that still excel in this area.

[gblake]

Knufire,

I think you might be thinking too narrowly about how just how powerfully an FRC team can perform that micro-outreach.

Using microcontrollers like Arduinos and Intel Edisons, plus all the inexpensive bells and whistles gadgets (including FTC and VEX parts) you can buy to go with them, an FRC team can connect with school clubs, school classes, scouting groups, public events, etc; and give students and adults a fun, hands-on taste of STEM. If they hustle, maybe they can connect with 25 to 50% of their young(er) peers; demystifying STEM for them.

Along the way they can point out that while their bigger robot is a more complicated machine, any single piece of it is no more complicated than the small microcontroller-based gadgetry the audience is learning to build/use.

Annually the team can also build a new FRC bot and enjoy competing with it.

My point is that FRC teams can have the best of both worlds, and aren't stuck in any one swimlane, or locked into any one method of accomplishing their goal(s). Sure, FRC robots and competitions are expensive, but FRC's not about the robot (and competitions). It's about outreach and culture change, and it uses robots and competitions (and Arduinos, and ...), along with other fun/exciting tools, to get the job done.

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by gblake

I think you might be thinking too narrowly about how just how powerfully an FRC team can perform that micro-outreach.

My argument had nothing to do with the people participating in the competition and telling them what they should or shouldn't do.

All I stated was that FRC robots require lots of resources to make, are good for macro-level inspiration, but might not be as efficient in terms of micro-inspiration per resource than other programs. You suggested the same, use other programs and materials...

Arduinos and Intel Edisons, plus all the inexpensive bells and whistles gadgets (including FTC and VEX parts)

...to generate micro-inspiration.

If we agree that FRC and these other programs have separate roles in this strategy, then lets not try to make FRC just like all these other competitions. Let it become something that is good at macro-inspiration and let the other programs and materials be used for micro-inspiration.

[waialua359]

FIRST has its mission, its strategic goals, and a competition vehicle in getting students (and mentors, volunteer, teachers, etc. also) there.

Our school community has its own vision and mission, which has changed over the years since we started participating in FIRST. There are some parts of it that is similar to FIRST, and some parts that are different.
What binds us to FIRST is our participation in the FRC competition and following the logistics and rules associated with the competition.

As a program, we have the freedom to pick and choose how we want FRC to help us meet our own goals and objectives. We get to decide how to inspire our own students. For some, the FRC competition is building the best robot they can as their primary objective. Wanting to stop the stop build day because of that reason should be respected by others as their own prerogative.

There are teams that do a lot of STEM-related outreach events that has nothing to do with FIRST.
Shouldnt teams get to decide what and how they use FIRST as their vehicle for inspiring their own students?

In the end, I wonder what the survey hopes to accomplish.
Is it to see what the majority of teams want?
Will FIRST make changes to the stop build day based on their own philosophical changes, if any, given the survey feedback?

[marshall]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Shouldnt teams get to decide what and how they use FIRST as their vehicle for inspiring their own students?

As a team that is routinely faced with the task of integrating FRC students who come from other FRC teams we have to deal with a lot of "my old team did it this way" or "my old team didn't do XYZ". Throw in some well-intentioned but often misguided attempts by their former mentors to impart their own wisdom and it can lead to fun situations.

As teams, I think it would be good to be more accepting of the culture of other teams. Every team is different. Just a thought.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Knufire

My argument had nothing to do with the people participating in the competition and telling them what they should or shouldn't do.

All I stated was that FRC robots require lots of resources to make, are good for macro-level inspiration, but might not be as efficient in terms of micro-inspiration per resource than other programs. You suggested the same, use other programs and materials... ...to generate micro-inspiration.

If we agree that FRC and these other programs have separate roles in this strategy, then lets not try to make FRC just like all these other competitions. Let it become something that is good at macro-inspiration and let the other programs and materials be used for micro-inspiration.

OK - I think I see what you are getting at.

Sounds like you are describing the possibility of a radical shift in the reason for creating an FRC team (largely removing the parts that currently emphasize grass roots action). It's not implausible, and I can imagine a future in which FIRST decides to push FRC in a direction like that, but when I look into my very murky crystal ball, the probability seems awfully low for at least another decade.

Blake

PS: I don't think what I described was an attempt to make FRC into anything. I thought I was describing current FRC, implemented well. If what I described sounded different, that wasn't my purpose.