Eliminating "Start Build Day"

[Jon Stratis]

Eric - I had thought about moving kickoff all the way up to Champs... But I don't like it for four reasons.

First, you have that impulse for graduating seniors to start the robot and then go to college and not see the project through all the way. I don't know about the rest of you, but having one of the people that knows whats going on disappear like that mid-project can be devastating, on both sides!

Second, you have the incoming rookies that have no time to get trained - which means their rookie year they get to basically watch a robot get built, then trained in during whatever gaps they can to be able to build the following year. Sure, you might say "well, they still get 3 years of building!"... but I know schools that run 10-12 already, where no one is on the team for more than 3 years, and schools that run a JV program using FTC or another program, again limiting how long people are on the FRC team.

Third, while teams do go year-round, the lower intensity of the summer/fall allows students to pursue other interests. As much as we all love FRC, it really is important to be a well-rounded individual and the off-season gives kids that opportunity. I can't even begin to count the number of students my team would lose if they had to pick between the team and soccer, softball, volleyball, cross country, swimming... even as it is, we lose some very promising students to winter sports (we had one freshman try the team out in the fall but ultimately not join due to conflicts with competitive skiing... and she already had a patent for a device she designed to help with arthritis, and that device was going through clinical trials, too!).

Fourth, it's not all about the robot. Many teams just don't have the numbers to be able to pursue outreach while building a robot - it's one or the other. The off-season provides a time for so much outreach to happen, I would hate to give that up.

Personally, I would rather push competition back to after AP tests than move kickoff forward. That gives you more time with the robot, and with a lot of competitions happening after school lets out you take kids out of class less. There is the problem with some schools limiting graduating senior involvement that would have to be addressed though... Is anyone on here at a school like that? I'd love to see us bring that to a school administration as a hypothetical to see how we could work around it best.