3 Year FRC Cycle? - The CON's

[Chris Fultz]

The FIRST booklet in the Popular Mechanics magazine mentions going to a 3 year cycle, where the game would stay the same for 3 seasons, and then a new game announced. With ths cycle, all 4 year students would see 2 games, and most other students would see either 1 or 2 games depending on the cycle.

I can think of many positives and negatives to such a system - what do you think?

This thread is for the NEGATIVES ONLY! A separate thread is for the positives.

EDIT - THIS IS IN THE "RUMOR MILL" BECAUSE IT IS BREIFLY MENTIONED IN THE SUPPLEMENT TO THE PM MAGAZINE. I DO NOT KNOW WHERE THE IDEA CAME FROM OR EVEN IF IT IS BEING CONSIDERED AT FIRST. IT IS AN INTERESTING IDEA, SO I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE GOOD TO SEE WHAT THE CD COMMUNITY THOUGHT.

[cziggy343]

It would level the playing field more. By the time that we got to the third year, teams would have gotten other team's ideas.

HOWEVER: by the third season... the entire robot might be (in theory) another teams. They may not have spent as much time on their own conception of building a robot, and instead waiting until season two or three to just copy the "really good teams"

[Jared Russell]

Huge negative #1 - by year 2 and 3, every single robot will look largely the same. As it is, there is a ton of design convergence between Week 1 Regionals and Championships.

Huge negative #2 - many students (for a variety of reasons) don't get to participate in FRC for all 4 years of high school. Repeating the same game would rob many of these students from the "Oh my god, how are we going to do this" moments that is an important part of the feeling of accomplishment that comes when your robot finally scores a tube/ball/whatever.

There are many, many more negatives (far more, in my opinion, than there are positives)

[SenorZ]

I thought a major component of FIRST was solving a novel problem in a limited amount of time. Using the same game for 3 years is just practicing refinement.

[Alexa Stott]

It definitely takes a lot of the challenge out of it. I think it would also be very discouraging for a student to come onto the team during the second or third year of the cycle. They might come in with new ideas, but be unable to actually implement any of them because the team has already found a winning design. At that point, they just become glorified maintenance workers.

It would also make me less motivated to get a working design during the first year because I would know that I have the next two years to perfect it, rather than just six weeks. A 3-year cycle defeats the purpose of FIRST having a deadline.

It would also just simply get stale. As already pointed out, teams would eventually just start designing essentially the same robot. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I'm usually ready for something new by the time the last off-season events are being played.

[Dancin103]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

The FIRST booklet in the Popular Mechanics magazine mentions going to a 3 year cycle, where the game would stay the same for 3 seasons, and then a new game announced. With ths cycle, all 4 year students would see 2 games, and most other students would see either 1 or 2 games depending on the cycle.

I can think of many positives and negatives to such a system - what do you think?

This thread is for the NEGATIVES ONLY! A separate thread is for the positives.

I'm not a fan of this. I think having students on the team for 4 years experiencing 4 different games is great because they have the opportunity to work with the many different obstacles that are presented over those different games and time period.

Just my $0.02.

Cass

[J@GMFlint]

Originally Posted by Dancin103

I'm not a fan of this. I think having students on the team for 4 years experiencing 4 different games is great because they have the opportunity to work with the many different obstacles that are presented over those different games and time period.

Just my $0.02.

Cass

Agreed!

Also, under a 3 year game cycle, the intensity and focus of the build season would likely be diminished reducing the challenge and benefit of them being exposed to the entire "high speed-high stress-high performance" aspect of the process. Now, we only get one season to get things right & are pressed to do so. Knowing there's a couple more seasons to get better or "copy" concepts... seems likely to dull the edge that can otherwise be developed in the face of the challenge as we do now.

Why even have a "build" season at all after the 1st year?

Would they then limit off-season work, or allow it and become an official year-round activity? It already is for many teams so limiting work could shut some teams down.

What about rookie teams who enter in the 3rd year when everyone could be theoretically already at max. potential. Level playing field?? Not likely.

[OZ_341]

The only motivation for a change like this is $. This is about saving cash through the streamlining of logistics and purchasing.
This has very little to do with the students (or coaches) overall experience.

Despite the fact that my life would get so much easier, I am TOTALLY AGAINST THIS!!!

My question is this...... Are we trying to create a generation of innovators or a legion of kids that are really good at "Benchmarking" (i.e. copying) ideas?

[Michael Corsetto]

I don't want a year-round build season. January through April is enough for me.

[EricH]

I've also posted this in the pros thread...

But this isn't the first time this idea has come up. Back in 2005, the following thread proposed a replayed game: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37726

Of course, it did have a few other proposed tweaks, but we'll assume those are completely forgotten about.

[Alexa Stott]

This is a response to a post in the PRO's thread:

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

One of the main points brought up in the booklet article is the notion of leaving the game alone to promote spectator familiarity.

They don't completely reinvent the rules of popular televised American sports every year, and that is one of the main reasons such sports maintain the public's interest.

A 3 year game cycle would help the public grow attached to and fully understand and appreciate a particular game for a year or two before reinventing it for the next cycle.

But are we willing to sacrifice the benefits of one game per year in order to appeal to the public? People always talk about having FIRST on ESPN and whatnot, but I honestly don't see that being in the future and I don't understand why people want to emphasize it so much. Isn't FIRST about inspiring students to pursue careers in STEM? I understand that there is a lot of pandering to sponsors and sponsors want publicity, but at what cost? Additionally, most of the qualification matches (at least at regionals) are incredibly boring. There are some matches where 3-4 robots don't even move and the other two just sit there driving in circles, maybe scoring one game piece with their poorly implemented arm/claw. Sure, we might be able to get the public interested in the 2nd or 3rd year of the game, but, again, at what cost to the teams? It would also mean that the public would have to deal with a disappointing year every 3 years.

[Jon Stratis]

Personally... I would get bored. Yeah, the first year would be fun and exciting... But as a mentor, what's left for me to do in the second and third years? There's no real design portion left to help the kids with - they have a working robot with a design sitting right in front of them, and if they were smart, they walked around the regionals the previous year and took detailed notes about the best design so they could copy it. There's nothing new and novel for me to be excited about - I'd essentially be there to watch the kids use the machines and make sure they didn't cut off a limb.

[JohnBoucher]

3 years of Regolith?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JohnBoucher

3 years of Regolith?

How many minibot motors can we go through in 3 years?

[Taylor]

I think we've already got this. It's called BotBall.


I think we've already got this. It's called Battlebots.