Thoughts about the future FIRST games

[David55]

I'm sure almost every FIRST participant has had a conversation with someone about FIRST. Whether it's a relative, a friend, a teacher or the guy sitting next to you on the plane, they all want to hear about the robotics competition. The question I usually get asked is: "what does your robot do?"
After giving a short explanation about Aim High and the robot's operation, I get asked: "well, what is it good for?"

Being asked this question several times, I came to think about what we really achieve with these 1200 teams participating in a robotics competition.
I know the main goal of FIRST is to inspire students and attract them to the world of science and technology. For this, obviously, you need a fun and attracting game. As Dean states in many speeches and interviews, FIRST's goal is to make science and technology as appealing as sports are to teenagers. Again, for this, a fun "sports style" game in needed.
But does having a fun game mean that we can't do something productive to society?

Let me give an example: FIRST has been in Israel for only 2 years, but Israeli high schools have been participating in robotics competitions for almost a decade. Many high schools have participated in a contest called Fire Fighting Robot Contest . In this contest, high school students from around the world build a fully autonomous robot that has to find it's way through a model apartment, avoid obstacles and blow out a candle, then return to it's beginning spot. Although this is done on a small scale it is easy to see the real world application that these robots can do. Very innovative designs and mechanisms can later be developed on a bigger scale and help solve the problem of extinguishing fires without dangering fire fighters.
Take a look at the DARPA grand challenge: fully autonomous vehicles have to navigate through the desert while avoiding obstacles and finding the shortest route, using GPS way points. The robots developed for this competition can later be used for various causes: getting humanitarian aid to far and isolated places , bringing military supplies to the battlefield etc.
If we take a look at this year's game, we can see that although there were very creative and innovative solutions, nothing new was discovered (ball shooters and collectors have been around for a while in sports). Most importantly, none of these robots solved any real world problems. Did we succeed in inspiring youth and attracting them to the world of science and technology, probably. But I think that in a competition on this scale (30000+ students) something beyond that is needed.

I am sure many real world problems can be applied to an FRC game. Take a look at FLL: the challenges are fun and at the same time make the students find solutions to real world problems. An FRC game can be fun, and at the same time do something that society can benefit from later on. In such a game, large corporations can later use the solutions teams came up with to help solve real world problems on a global scale. Just be seeing the amazing ideas teams came up with for this year's game, you can only imagine what ideas teams can come up with for solving real problems.

We are a great power. We are a group of 30,000 intelligent and creative minds. Why not use this power to help the world?

I apologize if anyone is bothered or offended by this post. I am not trying to criticize or complain to the GDC or FIRST, but just trying to share my point of view about the future FIRST games. Will this post change the future of FIRST?, probably not. But hopefully it will change, even a little, the way Dave or anyone involved in the game design process think about the future games.
Please share your thoughts about this idea.

David

(moderators, I know this belongs in the game design forum, but I would like it to get more exposure in the general forum)