A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?

[Seathan93]

As a senior who has spent 4 years on a FIRST team, I was a bit disappointed with FIRST this year. I realize I may not have been a part of the program as long as some mentors, but that doesn't mean I haven't seen FIRST evolve at all.

Here are some of the issues I'm having with FIRST, and I'd like to know who agrees with me, and who doesn't:

FIRST, (ahh...the standard pun) In my opinion, FIRST has become extremely heavy handed with the "real meaning of FIRST." I completely understand, "it's not about the robots," but that doesn't mean you need to state that every five minutes. 4 years ago when I joined the team, everything was about Gracious Professionalism, being professional, competitive, but gracious to others and cooperative. That felt enough for me. The competition was fun, my team was extremely competitive, but after an entire build season preparing for the competition, why shouldn't they be? Yes, the gracious part lacked here and there, nothing major, but in the heat of the competition, the competitive side took over a bit. But that was ok! After the competition, life returned to normal, whether we moved on to the championship, or returned home exhausted after a long season.

Then...there was coopertition. As if Gracious Professionalism weren't enough, FIRST brought out Coopertition (competition and cooperation). Basically everything Gracious Professionalisms embodied, but much more explicit. On top of that, the games were changed to make it such that the robots who scored the highest, did not necessarily rank the highest. I understood the concept, help other teams out, get games where the score is more even, and then everyone wins. But, in the middle of a competition, there are times where even helping another team out, will not change how they play on the field. The rules of the games have even become more strict, since coopertition has come out. I won't get into that now, that's another point, but FIRST has killed some of the innovation by restricting how you can play a game to such an extreme, and red carding anything slightly competitive.

My main point here, is that it's killing the competition. After build season, the competition should be fun, it should be the place where all 6 weeks of hard work can be vented in the competitive spirit. Yes, it should be done in a gracious way, but the competitive side of FIRST shouldn't be removed, that's half of what makes it fun.

I think FIRST needs to back off a bit on the speeches about how it's not about the robots. That's a good way to start off the season, but afterwards, especially at the competetion, after the 8th time they mention how it's not about the robots I'm thinking "I THINK WE GOT IT, IT'S NOT ABOUT THE ROBOTS, LET'S GET ON TO THE COMPETITION!"

I think FIRST needs to bring back some of the competitive aspects of previous competitions. They need to accept, 4, 5 weeks, even further, into the build season, that some teams may have found ways to play the game they hadn't thought of. I agree, if it's a cheap way to win (such as winning by red carding the opponent...which could be removed if the red cards were toned down), then yes that needs to be addressed, but if it's just an alternate way, it's an innovation, that's part of the competition. Teams will formulate ways to defend against it.

SECOND.

Robotics is nerdy. We all know it. Yes, not every person on robotics is your stereotypical nerd, and to be honest, it's a silly stereotype, but you're not attracting anyone to FIRST by claiming you're not nerdy. Everyone knows robotics is nerdy. It's just part of life. Yes, I get the "change the culture," but you're not going to change it by being in denial.

For the first time in my 4 years on FIRST, during the first week of build season, I was almost ashamed to be associated with the program. I think we all know what I'm talking about, and if you don't, then thankfully you probably didn't see the video. The splash page on usfirst, with a video of robotics footage overlay-ed by Will.I.Am's 2 sentence quote from kick off played over and over again.

Now, I appreciate what FIRST was trying to accomplish, but to be honest, that was by far the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen. I think I died a bit inside when I saw that video.

If you want to change the culture, great, but you're going about it wrong. Stop trying to deny that robotics is nerdy. We all know it is, and, presumably, we're all fine with it, I know I really couldn't care less. It really does not spell self confidence, something that FIRST needs if you want to attract people to FIRST, to deny that it's nerdy. Hell, even mentioning that it's nerdy, even if you say you're not, comes across as nerdy.

Combining parts one and two for a moment I'd like to say, the "true message of FIRST" is great. It is fantastic, and it's good to know it's there. That being said, it's a great message for sponsors, mentors, and parents. You're not going to get students interested in robotics (especially if you want it to be taken as seriously as a sport) by constantly saying the message of FIRST and by making the competitions less competitive.

THIRD.

The games. I loved breakaway. Not so much the game, I would give my favorite game of my 4 years to Overdrive, but because of the philosophy behind it. It was getting robotics to be more spectator friendly. I agree that LOGOMOTION was somewhat spectator friendly, the more logos, and the more lights on the minibot towers, the more points, but it was seriously lacking.

I felt there was something seriously wrong with FIRST this year when I learned we were being awarded points to put up shameless advertising for FIRST, and the more we advertised the more we were awarded. Something about that just felt wrong from the very outset. Mix in with that the politics about FTC (by the way, the minibot aspect of the game was the only bit I got excited about at kick off) and all that, led to a very wrong gut feeling. In fact, going back to the rules bit, they did everything in their power to make the advertising as streamlined as possible, putting in a 30pt penalty for pinning, and making defense hard to accomplish without a red card.


In summation, in case you didn't want to read that block of text, or my ideas were a bit too spread out.

1. The "true" message of FIRST is great, but it does not need to be repeated 200000 times.
2. Go back to more competition, you're beginning to lack in the competitive part of coopertition.
3. Enough of the shameless advertising. FIRST is not about the robots, great, but it's not about the politics either, nor is it about FIRST, it's about the future and inspiring our generation, and the next one.
4. Robotics is nerdy. The sooner that is accepted, and embraced, the sooner FIRST can confidently attract others to the program. Nothing says "nerds, beware" like a sign saying "hehehe, it's not nerdy"
5. You were on a good track with the "spectator friendly" game breakaway, continue on that track.

Those are my opinions, feel free to disagree with me, or agree. I hope I'm not the only one who has noticed these aspects.

-Ian