Imagine: The Next Year's Challenge Unveiled at Championship Closing Ceremonies

[Natchez]

Shhhhhhhhh! I snuck out of the crazy-house for a few minutes to get a hamburger and post this on Chief Delphi. Please don't turn me into the crazy-housekeepers

FIRSTers, you may like this crazy idea if

• Your grades drop or work suffers too much during the build season
• Your children will not talk to you on Valentine's Day because you told them not to talk to strangers
• Six weeks plus a bunch of fix-it windows is not enough time to build your robot
• It is difficult to get the students engaged in engineering education during the fall
• Your team can not attract multi-sport students because FIRST dominates too much time during the spring
• ...

What if during the Championship Closing Ceremonies in April, Dean, Woody, and Dave unveiled next year's game.

For the sake of discussion, let's forget about the culture shock that we would go through with the transition and focus on whether it would be good or bad for the future of FIRST and engineering education in the World. Here are some Pros and Cons to get the discussion rolling.

Pros

• Robot could be built as a classroom activity/curriculum
• Everyone would be watching the FIRST finals and Closing Ceremonies
• More inline with conventional school activities
• Students would not suffer major dips in grades
• No need for the January kickoff
• May be easier to find teachers to support robotics

Cons

• No FIRST off-season
• Too much time to build a 'bot
• Mentors from industry may not be as involved

For personal reasons, I'm not a big fan of something like this but it might have merit to get more students involved in engineering education which would result in a stronger future for America.

Gotta go! They are coming to take me away, take me away, take me away todaaaaaaaayy!

What do you think,
Lucien