Sorry if the topic of this post is something that has been brought up before. It’s just been weighing heavily on my mind and I’d like to get some input on it.
I was a member of FRC Team 316 for all four years of high school. I spent my junior and senior years as team captain, and really got into it. I learned so much through my time in FIRST; it was the most fun I’ve ever had, and it made a huge impact on my life.
I’ve been at Grove City College for two months now, studying electrical engineering. It’s been great so far, but as time goes on I’m realizing more and more how much I miss FRC. I looked into a few engineering groups we have on campus. We have a Baja SAE team as well as an ASME Human Powered Vehicle Challenge team, but both of these are more geared towards mechanical engineering students. Unfortunately we don’t seem to have any equivalent programs for electrical engineers (apart from independent research and senior capstone projects), so I’ve been looking around to try and find a college level robotics competition. I was surprised that there doesn’t seem to be much out there. I know FIRST piloted the CARD program back in 2011, but I can’t find any information on it more current than 2013.
I’m still connected to my old team, but since my school is 6 1/2 hours away from home I’m limited in my involvement. The nearest FRC team is about 1/2 hour away, but I don’t have a car so mentoring isn’t really an option. I plan to volunteer when I can, but I still miss the level of involvement that I used to have. One step I would like to take is forming a FIRST Alumni association on campus, as I know we have a decent number of alums here.
I know classes will get more difficult, and more opportunities will come with time, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to do more now. Am I just being impatient? Are there any good programs like FRC for the college level that I should look into? Am I just looking in the wrong places? Is CARD even still a thing? College is a time for branching out, trying new things and growing as a person. I’ve gotten involved with some non-engineering organizations as a change of pace, but I still want something to fill the void that FRC left in my life. I’ll probably speak to my academic adviser about this, but I wanted to see what the CD community thought as I’m sure I’m not the first one to struggle with this.
Part of the difference between FIRST and any college programs is that FIRST’s goal is to get people involved in STEM, whereas all college programs that I’ve seen assume that by the time you are in college, you are either STEM or not. I’ve heard that the solar car competition (http://americansolarchallenge.org/) is much like FIRST in terms of the type of work and teams.
At my college a couple friends and I started a BattleBots team. There is a college-specific BattleBots league (as well as the regular league) that has a couple competitions across the country. It isn’t the same as FRC, but it’s pretty darn close.
If your up for the challenge, AUVSI puts out a good variety of autonomous competitions. From autonomous land to air, there is pretty much a competition for whatever you are interested in. They are quite a bit more difficult than FIRST as university level should be but if you are willing to put in the work, it is definitely worth competing. Here is a list of a lot of the popular competitions:
I am doing formula SAE. Though it’s not robotics, it is similar in the sense that you have to make a car and program sensors and optimize things. And I go and cost visit my old team whenever I can
I was in your exact position when I arrived at North Dakota State University. I missed FIRST and needed something to fill the void it left. None of the collegiate engineering challenges offered by NDSU seem to satisfy said void. I think my favorite part about FIRST was that it offered a completely new challenge every year. With each new challenge came a new opportunity to be creative on a large scale (meaning robot’s are dramatically different from year to year). With programs like SAE and others, the challenge is similar if not the same year in and year out. The ability to be creative on a large scale diminishes (especially as an incoming freshman working amongst a group of people who have been working on the project for years). Since no clubs existed that satisfied me, I decided to form a new club.
Essentially this new club consists of 2 different parts. A FIRST related part and an engineering challenge part. The FIRST related part includes volunteering at local regionals/districts (since all clubs at NDSU require a certain number of volunteer hours from members, it works out well), creating demonstrations of certain mechanical and electrical functions, making presentations to teams and high schools in the area about how these functions work. If things go the right way then our club will also be attempting to build a robot in 3 days for demonstration purposes. The engineering challenge part of our club essentially offers a think-tank like group to assist people on their senior projects. This part of our group also takes on ideas from people and tries to make them a reality. For example a member of our club thought it would be cool to build a quadcopter with an infrared sensor on it. This quadcopter could be used by farmers to check on their cattle to see if they are ready to calf.
The great thing about this club concept for me is that it allows an individual to stay connected to FIRST while still growing their knowledge and taking on real-world problems at the same time. If anybody want to know more about my club or needs tips on how to start one themselves PM me.
Maybe starting a club in the mold of this one will substitute your want for FIRST?
Surprised no one has brought up Design Build Fly yet! I was on DBF for a couple years in college when not involved in FIRST mentoring.
DBF is a university-level competition to design an RC aircraft to accomplish specific objectives. It has a pretty regulated set of requirements (like FIRST).
Also, consider the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition, sponsored by ESRA. Some teams use this competition to design a rocket capable of reaching 100k+ feet http://www.soundingrocket.org/
A lot of teams in this one like to use older FRC hardware, and the size has been similar. The basic game is the same year-to-year, but the exact requirements vary to change things up. Better keep your electronics sealed, though…
Was going to mention the same competition. It’s certainly very FRC-similar, closest I’ve seen of any college activity. However, it’s different enough to let you apply FRC knowledge, but still be really interesting. UM’s team has 4 FRC alumni, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Personally, I think the competition would get a bit boring after a team’s 3rd or 4th year, as the design changes less and less. For now, I’m on a “rookie team,” so we’re going through some struggles (really similar to FRC rookies, honestly).
I wouldn’t know about that–'long about year 3 or 4 for my team, the rules changed to the point where our previous design(s), which were very similar to each other (and I think built from each other), had to be thrown out due to some silly little change in maximum mass, or was it maximum starting volume. Incidentally, that was two years (3 competition cycles) ago, with the competition mining LUNAR simulant instead of MARTIAN simulant. The characteristics of each are rather different.
Just some nasty little minor tweaks can really shred established designs. Watching the reaction to SAE Aero Design eliminating carbon fiber and similar materials from their Regular Class was quite entertaining, even as a competitor. Just one minor little change to the rules, that was it for rule changes for that class for that year. One minor little change… (OK, until the competition committee realized that they’d forgotten to make an exception for COTS props and engine mounts.)
Like I said, I’m on a rookie team, so I’m speaking from intuition and prediction. I’d bet you’re right. Either way, I think you’d agree there probably isn’t a more similar college program to FRC.
I feel like I have to jump in now because GOFIRST was mentioned
GOFIRST currently competes in several competitions, including IGVC (Independent Ground Vehicle Competition) and the Autonomous Snowplow competition. In the past we’ve also competed in CARD (Collegiate Aerial Robotics Demonstration) and an underwater robotics competition. Every year we explore new competitions or projects to compete in or build during that school year.
However, building a robot is really only half of a “FIRST experience” as many would say-- we also mentor many area teams and volunteer at local FIRST competitions at all levels, as well as hosting several offseason events to help teach teams about both basic and advanced/developing robotics knowledge.
GOFIRST also has a group at Dunwoody College of Technology and is in talks to form groups at a few other Midwestern universities.
If you’re just interested in building cool things, there are plenty of engineering competitions out there that have been mentioned in this thread. If you’re interested in also doing things on the outreach/ “Broader FIRST” side of things, starting or joining a FIRST support organization, mentoring a team, or volunteering at events are all options. Do try to keep in mind that there’s a much broader aspect of life than just FIRST-- get involved with other student organizations and activities.
If you (or anyone reading this) are interested in starting a FIRST support organization like GOFIRST or PurdueFIRST, send me a PM and I can get you in contact with our president and help with any questions you might have.
IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, hosts a robotics competition in region 5. I am not sure about the other regions…This year it is an autonomous maze solving robot. It is much more…programming intensive, for lack of a better word, than most of FRC in my opinion. No external sensors are allowed. You are free to design your robot however you’d like, but it really comes down to how good of an algorithm you write analyse the maze and solve it.
Some other things that colleges have, that others mentioned, are design teams. I don’t know much about them, but I know there is a solar car competition, human-powered vehicle, and Mars Rover.
If you don’t find anything that you find interesting, look into getting into research/working at a lab at for university.
I second the IEEE suggestion since you are studying electrical engineering. Here in region 3 (southeastern US), we have a college robotics contest at our regional conference. Consider joining the IEEE and then if there is a competition in your region, lobby to start one. Ours is nowhere near as elaborate as first, but it is good. Along with the robotics competition, we also have other competitions such as programming, ethics, website, t-shirt, etc.
Can you link to information for this please? I am really having a tough time envisioning what an ethics competition would be like, so I am curious to learn more about this.
I attended three different IEEE Region 5 robotics events back from 2004-2007.
The game rules and competition were typically created by each host university of the event. A new game designer every year meant that the game rules would wildly vary from year to year. Like many other early stage robotics competitions, complications in rules and complex field setup made the competition frustrating at times.
Hopefully that has changed in more recent IEEE competitions.
VEX has both progressed way beyond the typical pitfalls of game design. Some would argue that VEX games have progressed way beyond FRC game designs… (but let’s save that topic for another thread)
If you are considering a competition in college, I still highly recommend VEX-U.
(OK, until the competition committee realized that they’d forgotten to make an exception for 