Championships: Competition vs. Inspiration

[ehfeinberg]

There has been much chatter lately about the role of Championships. Whether as Cory puts it,

Originally Posted by Cory

Is championships a magical rainbow and unicorn filled experience ... Or is championships the venue for showing off the absolutely best robots?

The answer to this question is how we want to accomplish the goals of FIRST.

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

Do we want to accomplish this by making Championships a place where we bring the highest level of competition from across the world to make the most intense game that the general population would want to watch? Or do we want to bring teams which would not normally attend Championships, and the sole act of playing with/against high caliber robots is enough to inspire these kids to pursue future STEM fields?

FIRST seems to have picked the path of inspiration, by the sole act of creating a 400 team Championship, and it works. I have friends on teams who attended Championships not because they fielded amazing robots, but because they got lucky and qualified in other ways. They have said that the single event of attending has changed their lives.

With all the talk that "Championships should be based on robot merit only," or "RAS EI/CA should not give you a golden ticket to Championships" I thought I would try and explain that more competitive Championships is not the only correct way to spread the message of FIRST.

Although it is fine to disagree with FIRST's stance on Championships, I would prefer if people weren't bashful of people with the opposite opinion. If you would really like to calmly discuss which philosophy is the 'better' choice, I would prefer you do it here to not clutter up other threads with off topic responses.

Thank you for remaining civilized.