New FIRST competition structure in Michigan

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by joeweber

A problem exists. A solution was needed. You can make committees, do studies, talk about it and discuss it. Eventually a decision needs to be made. Does this sound familiar? We do this every year when we build robots. Not every body’s Idea can be used and not all ideas are the best but you eventually have to decide and move forward. These plans were not taken lightly and no matter what plan you make somebody will not be happy. I have not seen a better detailed plan out there yet and this plan may not be the best but I think we all can live with it and trudge though. As with any Idea you must try it to see if it works and fix what don’t. How can you make it work for every team? How can you be fair to every body? How can you make this program work? The answers are not easy!!

The problem is, that at least for the majority of the constituents in the FIRST community, there was no knowledge of "doing studies, talking about it and discussing it". One day an email blast showed up saying this was what they are going to to do, and it caught the majority of people in the FIRST community off guard. Catching people off guard with "surprise" radical changes to a program - even if they may have the best intentions in mind - is never a good public relations strategy.

I don't think anyone here is questioning the need to try to reduce the cost of FRC. The main problem here is that people do not like the lack of openness and transparency of the process used to arrive at this idea.

If there truly was an open and transparent process, there would have been announcements made for everyone in the FIRST community that they were seeking alternative ideas for growing the program, including possible radical changes to the competition structure. Then hold a series of open "town hall" meetings across the country explicitly for this idea, open up a special forum on the FIRST website for those who cannot commute (whether due to work, price of gas, etc), and for all of the "behind-the-scenes" meetings post minutes (including the topics of discussion, the general points of those for and against the ideas, and how the board voted on such measures). Then, take several competing ideas, refine them into workable competition models, and put these ideas on a ballet for every FRC and FTC team from the 2007/08 season to cast a vote.

You know, the stuff that a democracy is supposed to do - listening to all the people with complete transparency of the process, and letting them decide on the ultimate outcome.


On a somewhat related note, a previous post mentioned how the economy in Michigan is not doing that well, and trying to increase sponsorship is difficult. From a mathematical point of view, if you get $50k in new sponsorship money, you can either give $10k to 5 FRC teams of about 20-30 students each, and reach a total of 100-150 students. Or you can give $1k to 50 FTC/Vex teams of 10 students each and reach a total of 500 students.

While in no way am I saying that any existing FRC teams should stop FRC and go to FTC/VRC, what I am saying is that if the ultimate goal is to get a STEM presence in as many new schools as possible, there are cheaper methods than FRC. At this point, we must ask ourselves what is more important? Spreading the "branding" of FRC or spreading STEM in general?