FIRST in the era of COVID-19

FIRST General Forum
1

As we all know the season for many is over (for some before it even started). I don’t know about everyone else but my favorite part of FIRST competitions is not the robots but rather the community. I am hear broken that I am not going to be able to see some of my friends and make new ones. I think the worst part right now is the rookie teams that are not going to experience the hook that is the FIRST community.

I want to try to get the conversation started on ways that we can help the FIRST community grow and hopefully continue to thrive in these unfortunate time? How can we bring the rookie teams into our community so that they stay for what will hopefully be an amazing 2021?

4 Likes
2

Lots of off-season events

9 Likes
3

Lots and lots. That as well as teams competing in postponed events could make for a busy fall.

4

With no bag day wouldn’t postponed events stay regular season events no matter when they take place?

5

Or not, I could see some pnw off-season events getting morphed into the postponed ones as venues can be hard to come by.

1 Like
6

I’m most concerned for rookie teams and underfunded teams. This is going to be extremely difficult for them to deal with. I wonder if FIRST could pull something similar to the commemorative coin act and get congressional or state funding to support rookie teams (please don’t turn this into a political debate). FIRST has corporate sponsors too, but they will be going through a rough financial period so I’m not sure if that is viable.

2 Likes
7

Yes I expect we won’t see any off seasons in the PNW this year. Most of them happen at the time when the make up events will need to occur and they can’t happen if the fields are being used for a district event. In addition those off season locations are being asked to see if they could hold a district event in place of their off season event, if one of more of the existing venues won’t be available due to other obligations.

8

Our team is going to try and use our robot for outreach initiatives (demonstrations etc) and really throw ourselves into helping FTC and FLL teams within and without our school (we’re starting an FLL postseason for the school, for instance) instead of hoping and wishing for some way to continue the 2020 season.

In any case, I think most off-season events (minus official postponements) will have to be organised by the community and not FIRST. I don’t think they have the resources/manpower to plan and execute the 2021 season whilst also finishing up the 2020 season.

9

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.