Ideas to move in the direction of making FIRST competitions 'fair'

[Wetzel]

I would like to see something that promotes most of the students on a team talking with other teams about the process of building the robot. Talking about how they came up with their ideas. How they found their money.

Some of this is contained in the Chairmans Award submission. Most of this type of information is given to the judges, but I want teams to talk about this with students/mentors/teachers/parents/people just visiting their nephew on Saturday/ on other teams too. I loved being a judge at IRI because most teams jumped at the chance to tell me all about their team and robot. The enthusiasm was amazing.

I've heard a lot of presumptions about how teams win. Rather than assuming, I want the how of their win to be questioned. Not in a "you shouldn't do it that way" but in a "How can I learn from them" way. What are the benefits of the way they did it? What are the negatives? How compatible is that with how we want our team to run?

Sometimes people need a little encouragement to meet new people to share and interact. I'm not sure how that could be accomplished, but I'm sure someone has an idea.

This doesn't necessarily directly address the issue of 'fairness' with regards to winning the robot competition, but I think helps with inspiring teams that don't often, or ever, win the competition.


Wetzel