A Request

[Justus]

Members of the FRC community, hello. I am writing to you as a graduating senior of an FTC team, as someone who has actively participated on an FRC team in ninth grade, and as someone who has enjoyed following the FRC seasons, matches, and discussions online.

I shall be blunt with my request: Please do not view FTC as an inferior and juvenile version of FRC.

I suppose I shall write about the robot-design-aspect of the two programs, as that is what I am most qualified to speak on.

Now, I could compare season lengths. I could compare team sizes. I could compare the number of tasks per yearly challenge. I could compare robot size limits. I could compare existing resources. I could compare autonomous modes. I could compare number of teams. etc. etc.

However, I don't want to turn this into a war over who has the tougher challenge or who has accomplished more. Rather, I want to point something out: regardless of how tough a year's challenge is, what makes it harder or easier is not really the challenge itself; it's the level of the competition. At a tournament, the hardness is not in the task itself, but in how well you do the task relative to other teams. Also, how well do you strategize? How well do you network with other teams?

I think it would be hard to make the case that, on the whole, the smartest, hardest-work-ethic, most capable kids and mentors are all to be found in FRC. Both FTC and FRC have different aspects that will appeal to different people.

Now, if I had to be honest (which I always strive to be) I would say I think (but I'm not sure of this) that if you were to look only at the most premier of all FIRST teams - the top of the top of the top - you would look to some of the elite FRC teams; you would look to those with the storied programs who produce fantastic machines year after year. But I might even push back against that and highlight one of my favorite FTC robots of all time, the Landroids' 2011-2012 machine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNBwfN6BFuw).

So, yeah. Those are some of my thoughts. I write all this in goodwill, as someone who loves FRC. Thanks.

[Oh, and, of course (movie-type-disclaimer), my views don't necessarily represent my team's.]