Should FIRST expand beyond robotics?

[548swimmer]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

If they do they need to go after a completely different set of people, do not go after the obvious future engineers. They should target the more athletic crowd. Perhaps with competitions involving designing running aids, javelins that fly better, or the like. Show the students that instead of working harder they can work smarter.

This would pull in the same group of future engineers, only the more athletically oriented ones. I am an excellent example of this. I swim for my high school team, rock climb, run, and lift weights. I am also a co-leader of the CAD team. I'm sure there are many students ouit there who are in a similar situation.

I don't totally disagree though. I think that expanding FIRST to a more real-world application would challenge students more. Perhaps each team would have to come up with a better way to accomplish some everyday task. The parts would be done soely in CAD, and then submitted. These parts could be jud ged (sorry, my friend clicked it) on ease of production as well as whether or not they accomplish the task.