This is Frank Merrick, Director of FRC writing. FIRST recently announced a change to Championship. Starting in 2017, there will be two FIRST Championship events held in two different cities. We are very interested in understanding your reaction to this announcement and learning what experiences are important to you and your team at the FIRST Championship.
This survey should take about 5-10 minutes of your time. Anyone over the age of 13 on your team can answer the survey and we encourage you to forward this to your team members and mentors. The more responses we receive, the more accurate our survey will be.
We truly appreciate you taking the time to provide us with your feedback. If you have any questions about this survey, you may contact team support at [email protected]
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Frank Merrick Director, FIRST ® Robotics Competition
I wonder if they’ll have any results in time for the championship meeting.
I just took the survey, most of the questions seem to be leading to a predefined result of the experience being more important than the actual competition. They only have a couple that actually ask about being around the best teams.
I disagree. All of the elements they asked us to rate were quite distinct. They can’t ask “how important is determining a world champion” three times.
I’m glad FIRST is actively seeking feedback. This makes me optimistic about our chances of coming to some sort of agreement between the FRC community and FIRST.
You get to rate 1-10 about 20 different elements of Championships, then pick your top 5. Meeting celebrities did not make my top 5, but you can put it there if you want!
There are certainly more questions they could have asked about seeing the best teams.
There were no/very few questions asking for things like
How important is it that you see teams from the other side of the country?
How important is it that you see Woodie Flower Award winners and other leading mentors?
How important is it that you play with the most competitive teams?
How important is it that you make new relationships with teams on the other side of the country?
How important is it that you can learn from all of the most competitive teams?
Instead many of their questions are about the venue. How important is a fancy stadium? How important is it that there are a bunch of teams? How important is a large scale event? How important is the surrounding area?
Notice how those two groups of questions ask very different things.
Definitely important questions that should have been included, considering some complaints and easy solutions are based on these topics.
How important is it that you see Woodie Flower Award winners and other leading mentors?
How important is it that you play with the most competitive teams?
How important is it that you can learn from all of the most competitive teams?
I feel like
-Seeing and competing with the teams with the best robots in FRC
-Seeing and meeting top teams, like prior Chairman’s Award winners (Hall of Fame teams)
-Participating in a competition that identifies the best teams playing the game
All are identical topics to the questions you asked, or similar enough that you are adding redundant data points at best and confusing survey takers at worst.
Instead many of their questions are about the venue. How important is a fancy stadium? How important is it that there are a bunch of teams? How important is a large scale event? How important is the surrounding area?
I would say it/s a 50/50 between the competition and the periphery of the competition. The thing about surveys is that you’re free to rate things like “seeing celebrities” at a 1 with impunity if that is your opinion. Some people may think playing in arena like the Georgia Dome or EJDome are imoprtant experiences, and that can be ok!
One thing I included in the survey is something along the lines of this: “I don’t want to think we are at best customers, and at worst pawns. We’re partners.” Everyone should try to look at everything though that lens, inlcuding Manchester.
My thoughts exactly. Two events is obviously a done deal and set in stone, however, there’s a way that 2 events can actually work if they just listen to our feedback. Hopefully, enough people speak up that they’ll be unable to ignore it or write it off as just a vocal minority.
I’m kind of disappointed there was no field for “any other ideas for making 2 venues work?”. I was looking for a place to endorse the “World Champs” and “World Festival” compromise, but then the survey was over :o
I think the survey should have preceded the announcement. Folks it is a done deal contract have been signed and all they can do now is tweek any input on what to do at the two championships.
I keep hearing “First, the sport of the mind” from Dean and Woodie so set the events up like sports do. Yes it is great to involve more kids but do not dilute a championship. They should have looked at something like this:
District event
State event
Regional event
National event
World Event
Even maybe a US national event and a International event followed by a World event. Look how Little League Baseball does the Little League World series.
Can somebody explain to travel cost are going to be reduce for a team from Israel, Turkey or Australia have their travel reduced by the proposed cities?
They have expanded Worlds this year by 250 teams and diluted the event in my mind as far as competition of quality robots, yes more kids involved. Is this a money issue maybe, lets see how we can get more money by adding teams more events?
Kids like to win at high levels of competition in sports, debate clubs, music competitions, programming competitions, computer games and even in FRC Robotics believe it or not. First needs to understand this and if they do not the need to see reality when watching an event.
This is a bad decision and bad timing for the survey.
Here’s a question I would have liked to see:
In the years 2017+, it will be much easier for us to select the size of championships because the district model will be much more widespread. Assuming another level of competition is not added, what percentage of FRC teams do you believe should qualify for championships in the years 2017-2020?
I think that many of the problems people have with the championsplit relate back to this question. FIRST seems to believe that 25% of teams should attend championships. I personally think this is far too high, I would like it much more if it were 8-10% for 2017-2020.
I agree this survey is very late, but better than never. A quick tally should be possible before next Thursday.
Perhaps a comparable survey will be sent to volunteers? The results from such a survey would be fairly predictable, though: volunteers would not favor two events, meeting familiar individuals and teams is very important, external attractions are not very important and travel expenses are a significant factor.