Is the international branching of FRC, a good thing?

[TheBoulderite]

Originally Posted by I_AM_Clayton

I don't believe it is necessarily a bad thing but I do believe that one day FIRST will become larger than ever expected and I wonder how FIRST will adapt to it.

In the future, I think the district system will be adopted everywhere and it will evolve. In the future, when more countries have events, I think there will of course be district regions; some being whole countries and others being parts of it. (This would be for the especially large countries like the US, Canada, China, etc.) There of course would be district events and district championships, but I could also see a national championship and international championship happening soon. It would happen as follows:

For the bigger countries like Canada, the US, and China, there would be multiple district regions in the country. At the district championship, the top 20% or so would go on to the national championship, and the top 10% or so would then go on to the international championship.

As for how it's run and controlled, don't worry. I'm certain by then that FIRST will have established their World Command and declared the first day of build season a worldwide holiday.

[PayneTrain]

I think people that have difficulty separating the idea of international expansion of FIRST with any perceived shortcomings of FIRST from their position as a stakeholder are people who take issue with it. I imagine that is an incredibly small community.

There are issues in this world bigger than any one person, company, state/province, or nation can solve! A lot of STEM competitions default to an international scope, and I don't think FIRST and FRC should divert from that. FRC is a competition where economies of scale come in to play (the failed Brazil event, the slow march out in the East, and the fits and false starts to have an event in Europe) whereas the scale of FTC, VRC, FLL, IQ, and their cousins can get a field and parts (and completed robots and their teams) distributed across oceans at a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a cost.

The true power of FIRST and other STEM competitions comes from their ability to foster an inclusive and diverse community of people and the ideas of inclusiveness and diversity are not ones that you can waste time arguing about.

It will be very interesting to see how Manchester handles the evolution of FIRST that they themselves enabled over the last 5 years, into the next 5 years.

[Cothron Theiss]

FIRST has changed my life for the better. I see no reason to deny that opportunity to students that happen to not be from America.

[dtengineering]

I don't think that inviting other nations to play hockey has hurt Canada.

Although it would be nice to get the Stanley Cup back for a year or two. :-)

Jason

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Jacob Bendicksen

FIRST builds bridges, and absolutely should not build walls.

Nominated for spotlight.

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

Nominated for spotlight.

thank you!!

[SpaceBiz]

Originally Posted by TheBoulderite

I could also see a national championship and international championship happening soon. It would happen as follows:

The end of two champs was recently discussed here for those interested
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...d.php?t=149201

[FTC5110]

The question should really have been "Is the international branching of FIRST a good thing?" and the answer is yes.

High costs aside FRC is a bad fit for many countries because it's constrained to a 6 week build season that can align with summer holiday periods and only STEM converts will give up their family/friends time. Every year a small group of us in New Zealand run through the same question; should we start an FRC team this year? The answer always ends up being a pretty solid no. High school students are inspired by FTC & VRC just as much as those involved in FRC and as a mentor having done the analysis many times there is close to zero justification for FRC aside from "bigger is better". With all the changes in FTC there is scope for real engineering approaching that of FRC.

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

A lot of STEM competitions default to an international scope, and I don't think FIRST and FRC should divert from that. FRC is a competition where economies of scale come in to play (the failed Brazil event, the slow march out in the East, and the fits and false starts to have an event in Europe) whereas the scale of FTC, VRC, FLL, IQ, and their cousins can get a field and parts (and completed robots and their teams) distributed across oceans at a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a cost.

Spot on. Growth in FTC, VRC, FLL & IQ outstrips FRC every year and there's a reason for that.

The robots are just vehicles taking kids on a ride to STEMville.