Ever Since 2019 or 2020, I feel like the themes for FRC games aren’t as cool as they were in like 2016-18, ever since they did the unified themes between all of the first programs frc themes have been held back, 2019 was fine space is cool enough, and 2020 was technically star wars but also energy still, and then there was this years boring transportation theme, and finally we get to 2023 with an… energy theme. Hopefully they can at least do something cool with it and make it like the matrix (since Lawrence Fishburne did narrate the game reveal) or like future punk. How do you guys feel about the latest themes?
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Low key miss the no/sports theming when I was in high school (soccer, basketball, frisbee etc).
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I just want a climate change themed game called Tropic Tundra.
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In which robots drive on a low-traction “ice” surface and try to sequester carbon dioxide in trailers?
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I suspect they changed their strategy after 2020 to go with less stereotypically nerdy themes (medieval, steampunk, video games, space, literal Star Wars) in order to appeal to a broader demographic. I don’t really mind, though I feel like the themes tended to drive the game design too much for the first two years they tried an overt theme.
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I love the fact that this year didn’t have a weird themed wrapper around it.
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In FIRST Last Hurrah, alliances of three teams each try to keep their robots (and selves) above rising sea levels. Water game confirmed? 
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You’d be a “lunatic” to not like that
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Maybe, I’d hope not though, I don’t think FIRST is that concerned with not seeming “nerdy”
If they aren’t concerned, they should be. The biggest disservice we can do ourselves is branding this program as something for nerds/geeks/gamers/etc.
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The biggest disservice we can do to our participants is allowing them to believe that there’s anything negative about being a nerd.
Most high school athletes will never play professional sports again. Most high school robotics students will find careers in STEM or their field of interest.
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I totally agree that we need to destigmatize all these silly labels like nerd.
That being said, I view FIRST’s mission more as inspiring everyone (jocks, farm kids, artists) to pursue STEM rather than rebranding nerd.
The 2016 & 2017 game themes both re-enforce nerd stereotypes and fail to appeal to broader groups of students
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Wait a minute! You mean Monty Python does not appeal to everyone? (I think “S” deserves at least a yellow card …)
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I mean. I definitely see both sides. I personally had a lot of fun modifying my mascot costumes as a student to match the themes. A steam punk hat in 2017, some more pixelated stuff 2018, a matching space helmet 2019, a Darth Vader sweatshirt 2020. I just thought it was a lot of fun and something I could do to enjoy. Sports themes I feel like I’d have hated. Like the games are cool, but I kind of hate sports. Sports is where I got bullied and was constantly told I’m not good enough. Robotics is where I get away from that, and so I’d rather not have sports shoved back onto me in my home. The current themes are just kind of weird. They’re still kind of nerdyish, but not the kind you can dress up to and create an imagine around. It’s a lot more broad topics than interesting subjects. And while energy and transportation are important, I don’t see how integration them into that theme changes anything. Maybe it makes more sense for FLL with the innovation challenge to find topics which are super important for the future, but for FRC it’s just a wall paper.
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Although I feel that the themes have been repetitive I feel that what matters the most are the games. The games have been decently different and all really interesting recently.
I don’t think that’s what Sam was intending to say. I agree strongly with his sentiment. Consider, what is the real value proposition for FRC?
Compared to other smaller robotics competitions, such as FTC/VEX, etc, it’s exorbitantly expensive and requires almost an order of magnitude more resources. If you want to offer a robotics program for students that are already predisposed to be interested in STEM, you probably don’t need the big flashy pomp of large robots to draw them in.
If you go the education route…the cost per student of FRC still seems extremely high. You certainly learn more skills than the smaller competitions due to the technical complexity, but I can’t help but think that it’s still inefficient compared to a more traditional education approach if that’s your main focus. I certainly learned much more in just a few semesters at an engineering university than I did being on a top level FRC team as a student.
So what makes FRC “worth it”, from the perspective of a program administrator, who has various programs available to them? IMO, it’s the ability to appeal to students who don’t have prior interest or exposure to STEM. I think the scale of FRC robots really just gives the program a higher ceiling for “mass market” appeal compared to other 9-12 robotics programs out there.
It also goes both ways. I’ll admit, this comes from a place of privilege, as 99% of all the students I’ve mentored have gone on to 4-year degrees, but I’ve never seen rigorously teaching hard technical skills as the primary focus of this program. Lots of tips and tricks we learn in FRC are really specific to FRC, and don’t really apply outside of a prototyping environment in the real world. On top of that, as a volunteer mentor…I’m not really sure that I will ever be as effective at teaching these concepts as a proper university professor would be anyway. What I do want my students to get out of the program are the soft skills (working with a team, being part of a large project, identifying problems and breaking them down into manageable chunks, a general mental framework of how to approach challenges, etc). When you think about it, these skills aren’t too different from what youth sports tries to instill in students.
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Well the game we played this year was originally supposed to be a sportsish, themed game with the FTC and FLL games from that season.
Those were supposed to be oversized tennis balls and the Hanger was supposed to be the Monkey bars. But since it was done and we didn’t play it they rebranded it for this year and had the “seams” on the Tennis balls done in color instead of white as originally planned.
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This is a bit of a tangent, but we need to remember that students read these posts.
I think we need to be careful not to use a 4-year degree track as a base measure of success for our teams. Students going into skilled trades should be considered a part of a team’s success story as well.
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Yup! 4 year degree /= automatic success. I have a high school grad from last year who is using his skills with CNC in a machine shop and has over $11K in savings since starting in September. How many 6 month post-college grads have that much in savings and zero debt?
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Absolutely! I added that caveat since my comment about the poor value proposition of hard skill education in FRC vs university might not hold true in other types of environments.
I can easily see a scenario where a team can lean heavily into the CNC machining side of things (696 is an example that comes to mind), which could turn FRC into a program that teaches more valuable, relevant hard skills. I’m just not as familiar with other educational programs targeting that space, and whether FRC would provide a comparable cost-per-student alternative.
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