I really like themes for one reason, it does apply to “nerds”/“geeks”. Imo till FRC became a thing these kinds of “typical nerd” kids didn’t have any kind of after-school program that taught things like teamwork, creative problem solving, social skills, or allowed to apply their skills in a productive way.
Don’t me wrong I am happy to have any kid join the team I mentor but few things make me happier as a mentor than see a shy nerdy kid who never been in any kind of club/sport grow up into a leader who is confident in their abilities, because of the opportunity FRC has given them.
Does medieval/gaming theme resonate with these kinds of kids? Maybe, maybe not. But I know sports based (and tote stacking) games do not.
Any attempts at saying 2013 was a game that matched it in strategic complexity are nerfed by the fact 2013 was such a tactically vacant game. Something like the 2016 Newton Match 100 could not have happened in 2013.
W/r/t the theme of the game, I found the 2016 and 2017 themes to really enable the majority party of those that bought into FIRST at the outset to double down on the less desirable qualities of FIRST. To this day, no one has been able to explain to me how the 50+ year old white people dressed to the nines in ren faire garb help us serve underserved communities in America. In contrast, video games are definitely a modern pop-culture stable. While 4 out of 5 American homes have a game console in them, I’ll take a stab through the fog and say the same can’t be said for steampunk enthusiasts.
On top of that, the future of FIRST is in streaming, and the present of streaming is in video games.
Alternatively, some of you might be aware of my tendencies to engorge myself on my own cynicism. You can say whatever you want about the themes! Why? It’s lipstick on a pig; no one is being attracted to join FIRST when they see a sea of dead robots on the field, from the New York City regional all the way to the south half-champs finals. It’s pretty easy to get people interested in FIRST under the idea of it being like video games as a real life sporting event. You know what gets people to connect to FIRST? The same things that get people to connect to sports or theater or cats on the internet: enabling human (or animal) connections by seeing great things happen in an authentic environment.
I agree, in fact when I try to recruit people I try to get them interested in a certain role they may like then mention the theme after they appear to be hooked.
I disagree entirely. Throughout high school I did FRC in addition to Varsity Wrestling. Wrestling practice was 3p-6p, Robotics was 7p-9p. Both were during the winter.
It can be difficult to seriously engage with both a high level Varsity sport and also robotics, especially if the meeting times for both don’t align as nicely as mine did, but it’s certainly not impossible, and I know a ton of people who did both sports and robotics (especially at smaller schools- I know a 3-sport athlete who was captain of one of those sports teams and the robotics team at his small school).
We participate in an organization that creates a game.
The best games tell a story… either video games (Space Invaders, Pacman, Defender, Centipede, GTA) or board games (Risk, Monopoly, Chutes & Ladders, Candyland) the best and long lasting games tell a story. The “theme” is really our story for the year.
I like that we are now getting a back story and imagery for the highly technical task of building a robot.
Even pro sports are about story… that is why NFL Films has been around for so many years, ESPN 30 for 30, and the Hall of Fame(s) are nothing but museums dedicated to telling the stories of the game. People obsess over player/game stats because they represent the story of the game/player.
For all 4 years I did FRC (including 2 as the captain of my team) I was a competitive gymnast competing at a level higher than what you would find at varsity. Gymnastics is an all year sport (besides a singular 1 week break a year in june). I did robotics for a few hours, did gymnastics for some more hours and then came home and did some more robotics. The competitive seasons were both the same which definitely caused some issues but I worked it out.
Not sure why KileSpo essentially quoted my earlier post without attribution.
For all who did FRC and a winter or spring sport, I think you are the exceptions. There will always be exceptions to any broad statement. Notice I said “unlikely” in my original post. I’ve been around the local FRC team for 5 years. In that time about 50 kids have gone through the program, of those 2 participated in a winter or spring sport. Small sample size etc. My point in bringing this up is that FIRST can’t hit all demographics, there are always going to be groups that fall through the cracks and I don’t see marketing FRC to kids interested in sports as a productive use of our time.