FIRST 50 years ago / 50 years from now.

[tjf]

I was talking to some of 1257's students about science fiction literature and thought that, FIRST is a type of science fiction. 50 years ago this type of thing could only have been fiction and yet it is. If you were to explain to someone in 1966, 3 years before the moon landing, that teenagers would have the capability do build machines complicated as the work done at NASA, with some equation overlap?

"Teenagers building complicated machinations to compete objectively against others of their kind for a coveted globally-recognized title, as their teams sponsors, each with their own goals and motivations watch from the sidelines. Who shall prevail?"

And on the other side is a question. Where do you think FIRST (and FRC specifically) will be in 50 years? Every home and school? Spanning the solar system? Objectively or wildly fantasy, where will FIRST and Competitive Robotics be?

[bobbysq]

Hover game.

[TheBoulderite]

50 years from now, the FRC will still be waiting and hoping for a water game. That's my prediction.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by TheBoulderite

50 years from now, the FRC will still be waiting and hoping for a water game. That's my prediction.

I hope FIRST never does a water game. The meme is a part of FIRST; don't they dare take that away from us.

[Aboudy Dairi]

Originally Posted by dodar

I hope FIRST never does a water game. The meme is a part of FIRST; don't they dare take that away from us.

It would be like Leo winning an oscar all over again

[Lil' Lavery]

I hope that 50 years from now, FIRST is no longer required.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I hope that 50 years from now, FIRST is no longer required.

In fifty years we can replay Lunacy.

On the Moon.

[FrankJ]

The Google sponsored teams will be totally AI. CD will be discussing the merits of human only competitions to get humans back in STEM.

The mentor vs student built robots discussion will expand to mentor vs student vs robot built robots.

On a more serious note, hopefully the need for programs to encourage women to enter STEM fields will be a foreign concept.

[Whatever]

Team 31416 will have a really fun PI pun for their team name.

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by Whatever

Team 31416 will have a really fun PI pun for their team name.

Hopefully we will have gone base 16 by then and have 6E23.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by rtfgnow

Hopefully we will have gone base 16 by then and have 6E23.

Avogadrobots will become the new standard that teams will set themselves to.

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by tjf

And on the other side is a question. Where do you think FIRST (and FRC specifically) will be in 50 years? Every home and school? Spanning the solar system? Objectively or wildly fantasy, where will FIRST and Competitive Robotics be?

I don't think FRC will ever be in every school. FTC/VEX/FLL probably, but FRC is just not scalable to that size.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by ASD20

I don't think FRC will ever be in every school. FTC/VEX/FLL probably, but FRC is just not scalable to that size.

FiM begs to differ.

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

FiM begs to differ.

Edit: Scalable well.

According to the District Ranking Website there were 411 teams in MI this year and according to this website, there are about 1500 high schools in MI. I do not know how many high schools are actually covered by those teams (my guess is a good bit more than 400, but quite a bit less than 1500), but it appears to me that MI still has a while to go before it has FRC in every school. I may be incorrect, but the data seems to be reputable.

Even now, the # of teams has reached a point where it appears that more MI teams will qualify for 2Champs this year than DCMPs (source: somewhere in the 2CMPs thread). I can not speak to the impact that team density has had on sponsor and mentor availability right now, but I imagine that there is a point where teams are dense enough to saturate the sponsorship and mentor pools (I have no idea where this point is and I don't think anyone does). I think FRC still has quite a while to go before this issues start to exist, but if we are talking 50-100% of high schools, I think we will start to see some major problems with sustainability.

[Roboshant]

Originally Posted by ASD20

Edit: Scalable well.

According to the District Ranking Website there were 411 teams in MI this year and according to this website, there are about 1500 high schools in MI. I do not know how many high schools are actually covered by those teams (my guess is a good bit more than 400, but quite a bit less than 1500), but it appears to me that MI still has a while to go before it has FRC in every school. I may be incorrect, but the data seems to be reputable.

Even now, the # of teams has reached a point where it appears that more MI teams will qualify for 2Champs this year than DCMPs (source: somewhere in the 2CMPs thread). I can not speak to the impact that team density has had on sponsor and mentor availability right now, but I imagine that there is a point where teams are dense enough to saturate the sponsorship and mentor pools (I have no idea where this point is and I don't think anyone does). I think FRC still has quite a while to go before this issues start to exist, but if we are talking 50-100% of high schools, I think we will start to see some major problems with sustainability.

iirc Every high school in Oakland county has access to a FRC team. Some teams (like 226,68) are partnerships with 2 high schools.