Is FIRST a Sport

[pwilczynski]

Originally Posted by spadercool

why would FIRST not be a sport

The following are characteristics of a sport off of Wikipedia

* Target-In FIRST, many of the games (notice that FIRST calls them games, not sports) involve targets. Indeed, there are few that don't, with Stack Attack being the only one that I could think of recently, thought some of the earlier ones do not have targets.

* Display-Like in gymnastics or bodybuilding, the robot generally is made to look as polished as possible to make it seem better than those that are not as polished. Teams decorate their robots with paint and colors to make them have a better display.

* Strength-There is a lot of strength involved in FIRST robotics. The robots have at different times been required to pull goals back and forth, do chin-ups on the bar and even this year throw balls at a large distance.

* Combat-Of course FIRST has a combat characteristic; it involves teams fighting one another. Robots smash, tip, and occasionally ram other opponents.

* Court-The court in FIRST is always clearly defined, with alliance stations, goals, and other GAME elements clearly defined. There are even penalties for being at certain places in the court at different times.

* Team-Finally, FIRST has incredible team dynamics. Robots have to work together on each side in order to compete successfully. Some choose to play defensively and others choose to go onto offence.


From all of the above many might argue that FIRST should be a sport. All of these dynamics are present. However, there is one key difference. All of these things occur through the robot. Not including the human players, all of the human team members are quite passive when compared to the robots they control. Thus, this makes a case that FIRST would indeed be a sport if the people were required to do the work. However, because it is the robots who are playing the game, FIRST is not a sport.

**I also do not think that NASCAR is a sport in the conventional sense.