College Level FIRST

[ZZII 527]

Originally Posted by lynca

Although, the majority of these competitions can't hold a candle to FIRST's size, excitement and overall organization.

I'll agree with you on that point. I have yet to find anything in college that compares to FIRST. It's hard to keep that level of excitement when you get into the college-level details of engineering. (A fault of the colleges more than anything else; their educational system is obsolete when compared to FIRST.) Let me stop before I begin to rant...

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Budda648

When did anyone mention college students stop mentoring high school students? I believe it was stated that it would be nice to not have the two competitions coincide with FRC, only compliment. I certainly wouldn't stop mentoring 648... however, I am going to be stepping away from 648 more and moving into the FVC scene more...

On another note: Some people don't look forward to dealing with immature high school students that don't hardly listen to people of authority and/or higher experience levels. I know this is my major drawback of being a mentor of 648. However, it doesn't really deter me too much because I get more out of mentoring than I do not mentoring.. if that makes any sense at all.


EDIT: After reading Brandon's post a second time, I could have been totally mistaken. Please, tell me if I am.

I think you missed what i was saying...i was trying to point out that one can participate in other competitions AND still come back and mentor FIRST high schoolers.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

I think you missed what i was saying...i was trying to point out that one can participate in other competitions AND still come back and mentor FIRST high schoolers.

Okay, thanks. I had second guessed myself after reading your post again. That was the same point I just tried to make.

[Scott Morgan]

Originally Posted by Budda648

I agree totally... I'll be helping with building a DARPA Urban Challenge vehicle over the summer, but that's definitely not going to reach the level of excitement I had when I was a student in FIRST. Besides, everything is autonomous, I like complete control.

The problem that I see with DARPA, is that it seems to be mostly focused on electronics and programing, which doesn't leave much room for a mechanical guy like me, and there are no arms, I like to build arms.

[Cartwright]

I think College FIRST would be awesome, the level of difficulty would be higher, but their ideas could really make highschoolers gather strong ideas from there superiors other than the mentors.

[Bob]

I drove my teams robot for two years and yes those where the good old days. Back before bumpers and when robot would collide everyone could hear it. Anyways after I graduated from high school I became the coach. It was hard to pass on the driving but I got over it. Now I have been on the floor team for six years and I am graduating from college. This might not seem like a big deal but it will be if and when my job hunt takes me away from my team. If that happens I don't know what I am going to do.

[Martinez]

If you want to continue with FIRST in college, I suggest you either:
Continue as a mentor at your current team.
Go to a College Sponsored team like Clarkson University (229)
Or build your own.

[ZachKahn]

My team interviewed regional coordinator Jim Beck and asked him about a College First. He hinted that they are in the process of making it. You can see the interview for yourself at youtube.com/mortorqtv in episode 4 almost halfway through.

I would love to continue participating in FIRST once I graduate high school. If FIRST does not offer a college level competition I am going to mentor a team and volunteer at a regional. I think FIRST at the college level could provide more role models for high school students and create more enthusiastic mentors. Not all engineering majors had the opportunity to participate in FIRST when they were in high school. All the different colleges in a university could work together to make one robot.

Being from Southern California, I would love for USC to get involved if the competition is taken to the next level. I'm already a huge Trojan fan. Fight On!

[mizscience]

I agree that College FIRST isn't necessarily the solution to letting college students/mentors a chance to "relive" their glory days, but what about at the off-season events? There are more than plenty of them throughout the world, so why not have one particular "Alumni Match" set aside, maybe during lunch or right after, that allows the college kids a crack at the controls? The truth is most college students and mentors never truly get to "try out" the robot during season, with drivers needing training and being at competition and such. This would give them the chance to be the one running the robot for once without the need to start a whole new competition that would potentially draw mentors away from FRC.

Just an idea...

[tckma]

I'm going to put in my 2c here. Actually, it's more like $7.50.

When I first heard of FIRST, I had been out of college and in the so-called "real world" for a year. So even if there was a College FIRST, it wasn't an option for me. Sure, FIRST existed when I was in high school (1993-1996), but it was so small back then and largely in New Hampshire, so being a high school student on Long Island, I had little chance of hearing about it. If I had, I certainly would have participated, although my parents likely would have protested the long, late nights during the build season.

I was interested in getting involved as a mentor, but I didn't end up finding a way to do so until a year later, when I broke my leg skiing. The person who was driving me to and from work every day explained that his son was on a rookie team. I mentioned that I was interested, and asked if they needed more engineers to help. When he said "yes," I jumped -- as much as I could do so with a broken leg -- at the chance to join up. I remember ambling into my very first FIRST team meeting on crutches, hearing about what we had to do in six weeks, and thinking "my ($deity), these kids will never do that!" But they did! And so it goes, every year. I look forward to it every year, and at work I always make sure to publicize why I'm not at work for certain Thursdays and Fridays in March and April -- and to try to infect as many people as I can in my life with the FIRST bug.

Mentoring has been a great experience for me, and though I've had to change teams twice due to moving, I've always stuck with it. FIRST has been, unequivocally, the single most rewarding activity I have EVER had the pleasure of being a part of.

I'm a software guy. I've had my hands dirty in robot code several times. Heck, I've even spent some time on a drill press, but not as much. I love letting the students figure out how to do things, but there are times when I'd like to get involved with actually building the robot instead of just tightening a screw or two or writing a few lines of code here and there! I'd also love to learn the mechanical stuff so I don't feel like an idiot when I get near the robot chassis.

This year was frustrating (in a GOOD way!) for me in that we had a really awesome student writing our code... He inherently knew how to do EVERYthing. I think I wrote ONE switch/case statement block this year and that was it.

I love mentoring. I love going down to regionals and to Atlanta with my team. I love helping out other teams when I can. I don't love babysitting the few students on teams who will invariably not respect authority and do various things that are not very GP-ish. However, that is but a small fraction of the "job" of being a FIRST mentor, and is far outweighed by everything else I get from the program.

Would it be nice to have a college-level and/or adult-level FIRST-like competition? Sure. I'd join up in an instant, mainly because I didn't have the opportunity when I was in high school, and the kids have so much fun (while preparing for work and life) doing it. But if there were a college- or adult-level FIRST-like competiton, we might have fewer mentors for the high school FIRST teams. And quite frankly, I do not have nearly as much time as I would like to spend on FIRST as it is!

An adult-level competition is something I often dream about, but I understand that such is not my place in FIRST.

[MGoelz]

I definitely agree that FIRST isn't meant to invade colleges with the idea of the college students competing. I think the whole point is to spark interest in the younger generations. Hopefully, by the time you are in college, you have had the opportunity (or many opportunities) to be involved and inspired through FIRST.
At this point you enter the mentor stage. We need college mentors: people who have (or have not) been through the program and can still bring ideas to the table, but instead of doing all the work themselves, get the chance to teach younger ones the skills you have acquired.
I don't know if it is true for all, but for me anyway, I learn and understand something better after I'm put in a position where I have to teach it to others. I think that this is what FIRST wanted. A succession of students, to mentors, to coaches, that will inevitably keep FIRST running at its best.

[Qbranch]

Hey forgive me for being practical but...

you'd probably name it First College Competition... FCC... think its a little ambiguous, eh?

-q

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by mizscience

I agree that College FIRST isn't necessarily the solution to letting college students/mentors a chance to "relive" their glory days, but what about at the off-season events? There are more than plenty of them throughout the world, so why not have one particular "Alumni Match" set aside, maybe during lunch or right after, that allows the college kids a crack at the controls? The truth is most college students and mentors never truly get to "try out" the robot during season, with drivers needing training and being at competition and such. This would give them the chance to be the one running the robot for once without the need to start a whole new competition that would potentially draw mentors away from FRC.

Just an idea...

We did the exact thing last year at the beantown blitz....it made things very interesting.

[Masterfork]

i think they should do it but change it a little bit make it much harder cut the biuld time by like a week have a harder game. you know raise the bar. this would help First become something that normal people at home would watch on tv as if it was a huge event like football possibly because it would be like the world series of robotics i guess you could say. i love to drive and all but i love the competition and the people you meet and people who share the same interests and to raising the challenge even more would make it so much more competitive and employ new creative ideas. But what they could do is focus the game on something thats is wrong with the world which many of them do but they need to have the drive First does.

[Protronie]

Let me speak on this...

If my school had a FIRST team I'm sure I would have taken a greater interest in school instead of taking the GED route and jumping into the working world so soon. I never even heard of FIRST till just last year and that was by accident.
Mind you I 'm not crying over the choices I've made, and all in all I think I've done alright.
Currently I'm working with some folks trying to get a robotics team together to help kids with parents in prison. Whats known as "at risk" kids. With over two million men and women currently locked up you'd be shocked at how many children there are at risk.
Give them something to be interested in at school and maybe keep them from making the same mistakes I did.
An adult or college level FIRST might be interesting for them that still want to play with the robots but FIRST is about the kids...about helping them to be the best adults they can be. To take away from that mission would be a major mistake even a Protronie like I might not be able to fix.

Okay I'll get off the soapbox now...