The Growing Gap in FIRST & on CD, and Our Responsibility to Fix It

FIRST General Forum
#21

Oh, you need to learn how CD was started and you need to learn about the team(s) now. :slight_smile: You will be amazed, that’s for sure.

Take time to read through CD as Jay suggested in his original post. You can do that by reading one of the quotes at the top of the page and clicking on the page icon in it. That will lead you to the thread that the quote is taken from. Spend time reading CD threads and absorbing the wisdom, knowledge, humor, and community that lifts off the pages. I’ve never failed to be inspired when doing so.

And… you make an excellent point.

Jane

#22

That’s the problem - third night in a row on CD after midniht when I have to get up early for work, but I look forward to learning more about it, but not tonight.

#23

In the words of JVN, “Design is an iterative process”.

As is perfection.

We as a community, both here on CD and in FIRST must strive for perfection. This doesn’t mean winning every regional, as it is in our human nature to be competitive, it means constantly improving. Making sure that for every result, there is a certain cognition and open attempt at self improvement.

It isn’t teaching people that FIRST means ‘Coopertition’ or ‘Gracious Professionalism’, I believe it should be instead that FIRST means the pursuit of perfection through iteration of not only yourself, but your peers. Those things must be taught, true, but it is the constant reflection on the true nature of those phrases and their applications that truly teaches a person how to be better. In the end, that is our aim, is it not? To make ourselves and those around us better. Because it really is true: the better the parts, the more perfect the whole.

I have faith in the ideal of persistence, tempered by the recognition that perfection is a process, and I try to apply this to myself and those around me (when convenient :wink: ).

Of course, all this spewing from a 17 year old aside.

#24

There are so many great points on this thread, and yet I feel it will go mostly unnoticed by most of the community. I myself am usually more of a casual observer, ever more so since I graduated in 2008, but I feel compelled to share my observations going back to when I started in FIRST in 2005 as a Freshman.

I too have noticed a rather large downfall, if you will, from the CD and FIRST communities, in the way teams are treated on the Forums. When I started in FIRST I honestly did not know what on earth I was doing, but I was guided by a wise man, my Team Leader/Teacher to consult CD about anything I was unsure about. To let me learn from the community whether what I was doing was correct or not. I must say that I was reluctant to have to spend the time and effort to research my idea, I just wanted a straight up answer not caring at how I got it. This conditioned me to seek the knowledge and not just expect an answer, much like teaching someone to fish instead of fishing for them. Not only did I receive the knowledge of the community but I gained the drive, the initiative that I needed to continue with the team.

As someone said before me, it seems that current society has evolved to the point where very few students are finding the initiative to overcome the obstacles facing a rookie team. They just expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. It seems that we as mentors have failed the community, we have failed to instill the drive that keeps teams moving forward. The amount of negativity on the forms is outstanding, if I were a new student now I would be scared to post anything on here. I feel that it boils down to a lack of respect for everyone’s ideas, and actions.

What has happened to being civil even at the silliest ideas? What has happened to accepting the game for what it is and discussing the best strategy to accomplish it, instead of complaining about it and discussing how we should change it. What has happened to the portal containing mostly threads about real engineering and programing problems, not just empty threads about nothing important. What happened to staying to the end of the day on Saturday, to cheering on the teams in the Eliminations and to celebrate the team who is awarded the Chairman’s award, and their extra-ordinary accomplishment. It pains me to see teams leave before the chairman’s award is given out, even at nationals.

If FIRST is going to succeed in its goals, then we need to help it. We need to take this community back in time to a place where no-one is ashamed to ask a question, or post a picture of a mechanism they designed. To help instill that drive back in to society that respects the elder more experience mentors and to a place where the chairman’s award is once again the most revered award in FIRST. This post is probably to long and mostly a bit of a rant, but I feel compelled to speak out.

Thanks,
Jonathan

#25

Certainly these are all factors which contribute to the sustainability success of the team. Without them it is nearly impossible to keep the team going. My point was that when teams are registering for FRC and seeking grants, there is no way to verify whether those success factors are in place or not. Even if part of the registration process was to ask, “Do you have mentors? Do you have parent support? Are there enthusiastic student leaders?” - there’s still no way to monitor it.

When a team does not have things like that, it is imperitive for a mentoring team to teach the team these values, and help them to attain them. Existing teams sharing their expertise is one of the best ways to do this. Teams have to step up and help. I wouldn’t want to see a rule making it mandatory, not allowing a new team to register without a sponsoring veteran team.

#26

With respect only to the matter of helping ensure the viability of new FRC teams, and not in response to any particular post in this thread…

Perhaps a decentralization is in order?
Maybe FIRST has reached critical mass and it’s time to think in terms of establishing regional counsels – composed of members from multiple veteran teams.
They would (and should) have no specific authority over individual teams.
Just a willingness and ability to help rookie teams understand and embody the guiding principles of FIRST while also helping them survive and thrive as a competing entity?.

This seems more sustainable than individual veterans striking out alone and unsupported.
While the willingness of any one person to take on that burden is laudable, it just might not be realistic. The demands on that one person’s time might easily become too much.

I don’t view it as a tragedy that teams fail – some must.
I would view as a tragedy (just about) any effort to make it more difficult than it already is for new teams to form.
I believe being denied the opportunity to fail is far more disappointing than failure itself – because an opportunity to fail is equally an opportunity to succeed.

#27

Don, this point really spoke to me.

Due to the nature of our team’s structure, we were like this up until a few years ago. We knew of the existence of other teams in our area, and they knew of us but there was never any sort of communication or sharing between any of us. We had a narrow minded idea of what FIRST really was, and many of us, myself included, though that it was just a robotics competition. We always seemed to be one of those “nobody” teams at every competition we went to because of this.

After a while, there was a shift in thinking. As we grew through High School we began to learn more and more about what FIRST was all about. The biggest asset to us was Chief Delphi. Some of us spent hours reading posts and talking to people and learning . This change was reflected in our Robots, but more importantly in the bonds we built with other teams.

In retrospect, I realize the reason we didn’t know what FIRST was, was because we didn’t have anyone to teach us. Our mentors didn’t really put much worth in networking and meeting teams and getting out in the community and learning new things. I think the best way for us as a community to move forward is to make sure that we teach each team what FIRST is all about.

#28

I have sooo many thoughts on this thread… and agree with a lot of points here. While I don’t disagree with some of the issues, I want to offer a completely different perspective.

Look at FIRST from 30,000 Feet. The number of teams is growing, the number of students coming out of the programs is growing, the number of students entering engineering/STEM field is increasing! That certainly sounds like success to me.

If you pile some of the observations here together, FIRST may be looking at it more in a way that we teach our students. So many students today are AFRAID to fail. What I like about most FIRST teams & mentors, is that they try to show the kids that it is OK to fail. The guy who made the Dyson failed what, 500 times? Edison supposedly failed making the lightbulb hundreds of times as well. In order to have amazing success, you are very very likely to fail first. Maybe Dean has considered this. Maybe it is part of FIRST’s plan. Before we can get a FIRST team in every school, we will hit failures along the way. And while it would be great to have a success rate of 95%, its not realistic. And we have seen that some teams that fail go away and come back. Some teams that begin to fail merge. Others have different stories.

We helped a city school rookie team last year, and really gave it our all. I spent hours a week on the phone with their mentor, we met with them 4 times a week (they came to our place, we went to theirs), their kids had a great time. Unfortunately, they didnt make it back this year, but a student & parent that came to help/shadow during that time went off to start another rookie team that is alive and well and I believe has all the drivers to succeed. So out of one “failure” came success. Its really hard to measure things by just looking at team numbers.

The big picture and the GOAL of FIRST is to inspire students. And my answer to the question of are we meeting our goals is YES.

Is CD Cranky at times? yes. Should all of us do everything we can to help teams sustain? Of course. But are there some times where is ok to fail? Yup. Could all of this have been considered by FIRST? Of course.

I’m not saying things are necessarily perfect the way they are, but sometimes it helps to look at things from a different perspective.

#29

Good thought. I would only add, ‘and explore the possibilities, together.’ :slight_smile:

By teaching, we learn. By sharing, we grow. By exploring, we discover. Individual teams can do that and have done that since the beginning of FRC. There have been teams (MOE comes to mind), that have learned how to share early on and have had a huge impact.

We are seeing a remarkable occurrence with Team IFI working with each other. They began learning to share their resources and talent a while back. Now we are seeing the products of that sharing and exploration - and are consistently wowed.

When teams only think about the robot, they are not open to other opportunities. When teams don’t understand the importance of the build and competition with the robot, then they aren’t getting the full picture. The FRC program is a smart program. The only other program that I like as much if not more, is FLL - and for all the reasons that I love FRC: for the value and opportunities that abound for people to learn to work together and develop in areas of math, science, technology, outreach, self-worth, self-esteem, community recognition and support. It’s endless. But… if we only think about the robot or … we don’t do everything we can to build a robust team and compete well - then we are cheating ourselves, our teams, our communities, and the opportunities become limited and sometimes disappear.

Sustainability is no small thing. Achieving a consistent level of sustainability is no small thing. A community of teams achieving consistent sustainability is no small thing. A region of teams achieving consistent sustainability is no small thing.

Jane

#30

Could not agree more. Its a GAME! Lets have fun, take everything with a grain of salt and learn from it!

#31

So many students today are AFRAID to fail !!

I love this video

#32

Reading, studying, absorbing, understanding, and being totally blown away by posts and sometimes even - whole threads - is something that is good during times of stress, down times (holidays), a lazy weekend morning, or a sick day when pillows and quilts make it better. That is a good time to use the quotes to help you gain a sense of something good that you are a part of and that you are contributing to.

I just looked in the quotes and noticed for the first time, that they’ve put the page icon next to each of the quotes there. I don’t know if that is a new addition or not, but it makes it so easy for you to browse, study, read.

Another favorite thing that I’ve learned to do is pick out a couple of my favorite usernames who have inspired me or made me think or dig deeper. I look for more of their posts. By doing so, I have found gold, pure gold.

A cup of tea or hot chocolate goes well with delving into the wisdom of CD and helping your self grow.

Jane

#33

This has been there for a little while now. I will definitely second Jane’s recommendation to spend some free time just wandering through the depths of CD. There is a lot of knowledge and insight contained in the posts on this forum and the spotlights are great doorway to that content.

#34

Jay,

You are certainly not alone in your thoughts and feelings. The more the community grows, they more we bring in folks from “mainstream” society who, quite frankly, carry with them the very pathologies and mentalities that we are supposed to be addressing and changing in our culture through FIRST.

As exhausting as this sounds, I think it’s a matter of educating. In some cases over and over and over and over again … being pleasantly persistent.

I’ve been concerned about these growing trends for a few years now and have posted similar ideas elsewhere. Some of it may be pertinent reading, so here’s two for starters (I know I’ve spouted more about this stuff elsewhere, but can’t find it all right now):


We need LOTS of folks to step up and educate. I believe FIRST is well past finding many more of those “early adopters” who intuitively “get it” - most of the Andy Baker’s on the planet have already been beaten out of the bushes. The new folks coming in now to run teams frequently need much more education (let’s face it. TRULY trusting in GP and Coopertition is no easy thing given what we’re led to believe most of our lives in American culture).

there’s work to be done … namaste

#35

Thanks for the advice. For now keeping up with the current threads is keeping me busy but I am sure I will do a lot of browsing once the competitions are over. We will be in Boston tomorrow and who knows after that. I am sure that CD will help with the withdrawals that are coming when this season is over.

And sorry for straying from this thread’s topic.

#36

Rich is better at saying it subtly, my more blunt way to cut to the chase is:
Congratulations! You have been successful! You got what you wished for! Now get to work.

In other words, “The coffee break is over, it’s time to get back on your heads”.

Blake
PS: Google the last sentence if you don’t recognize it.

#37

I think it all goes back to what Dean has been saying, “We get what we celebrate.” As long as one of the main rubrics for Chairman’s is how many FRC, FTC & FLL programs a team starts this trend will continue. Sometimes I wonder how much mentoring really went into a team started this way and how much of it was, “Hey, here’s this thing called FRC and its really cool and here’s some money, have fun and we’ll see you at the regional.” I know that the majority of teams only know why a CA team won by the introduction at the awards ceremony. How can we expect to have teams not go out in droves and start teams without the proper guidance and support when all they hear is starting teams = Chairman’s?

I was excited when the kickoff speeches were finally geared towards sustainability. I was less than impressed that the tone didn’t seem to make it past Saturday afternoon.

Some thought provoking questions:

  1. Do you know the name and contact information for your regional director?
  2. Do you know the name and contact information for any team within a hour of your location?
  3. Can you point out the adult leader for each team at your local regional?
  4. Do you know at least two people on your local regional planning committee that aren’t your regional director?

I don’t think that FIRST is going to get better with a top down solution alone, it is going to take a grass roots effort to strengthen teams. That starts by teams getting off their “islands”, self imposed or otherwise.

#38

I have to agree with there seeming to be a lack of focus upon the core principles of FIRST, especially with GP. I am currently in my forth year in FIRST, and am a founding member of my team. In our infancy, T.A.T. was a team which tried to promote FIRST as an educational experience where students could come in and learn to appreciate how to use science and technology to solve a problem. In our first two years (somehow) we won first and second place at VCU, respectively. In our third year, we fell apart. There has been much debate amongst our team as to why we were not able to perform at our best for lunacy, and why we did so badly. It has taken me this long to finally realize that its because we, as a team, forgot about the true purpose of FIRST.
Now, in this forth year, we are still struggling with what it means to be a part of FIRST. I was one of the candidates selected by my team for the Dean Kamen Award, and one of the things I was asked by the individuals writing the essay was to “define Gracious Professionalism”. I responded:

The entire idea behind the concept of gracious professionalism is to promote the idea that a team doesn’t have to win the competition, and be the number one team to win FIRST. Gracious professionalism is, effectively, the means to prove to everyone that all the participants in FIRST are winners in their own right, and that you don’t need to build the best performing robot to be a winner.

It has taken me 4 years to have it sink in, but FIRST is not about being first at competition, it isn’t about winning. FIRST glorifies the fact that by having completed the build season, and by showing up at competition, you have already won. I am currently faced with the task of getting this point across to the rest of my team.
The thing that I find most ironic about this whole thing, though, is that in the opening video to kickoff last year, there was a quote being said, I believe by Dean, that “FIRST is much more than just building robots”… I don’t know how many other teams are willing to admit to the fact that they have lost sight of what FIRST is about, but I will firmly state that I prefer FIRST as it is meant to be, focusing on inspiring students to be creative, and to approach a difficult problem using their innovation, as well as the resources technology provides for us today; while at the same time being conscious of everyone else around us, and being willing to help everyone else get to the point of being able to accomplish this difficult task.

I feel that some of this may not come through as I had intended it. If you would like to make comments on this, or if you would like to offer advice, I am open to suggestions and criticism - I would ask that you PM me over posting to this thread, though. I am still learning what FIRST is, but I feel that it is my duty as a highly involved student on my team to try to remind my team what we should be focusing on.

Rob.

#39

Another Rant, it’s a little harsh

Just to bring this topic back to light because of something mentioned during Kickoff, here’s a quick pop-quiz for all you FIRST-a-holics.

How many teams are actively participating in LOGOMOTION, 4 years later?

Answer: Just over 2000

In what year did FRC reach it’s 2000th team?

Answer: 2007

How many rookies are there for the 2011 season?

Answer: Approximately 400

For those of you stumped on the point of this, 1/5 of all teams competing this season are rookies!!! STOP the unchecked growth and look towards sustainability for a change.

If you want to put an FRC team in every American high school, more power to you. If you think that it’s going to happen in the next 10 years, you’re simply being ignorant. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see this program expand. But at what cost are we expanding? Just because school X has FRC team 3### for 1-2 years doesn’t count as putting a team in that school.

It seems that by trying to reach Dean’s goal as quickly as possible we’re really just leaving students behind.

#40

It’s my personal opinion that we are not reaching Dean’s goal as quickly as we should be. If you look at FIRST as an investible business it actually looks fairly poor. The # of teams added every year is fairly static, and in an organization that should benefit from social growth rates, it doesn’t.

I think you feel a close connection to FIRST and I do to, but it was a game of numbers. I think there is a small percentage of people who will be impacted by first, and I don’t believe that the # of teams has any impact on that %. I actually love to see FIRST separating itself from an agenda, realizing that the less of an agenda it has, the greater impact it will have. Some schools will embrace FIRST, and some won’t, but by getting a team into a school for a year or two, you give them the chance.

If FIRST was to check its growth as you are implying it would fall into the chasm(see moore’s book crossing the chasm). Right now you see first trying to expand from the early adopters to the early majority. It knows that it will have to abandon some of the early adopters and innovators in order to achieve the goals it wants.

I believe you feel the way you do about FIRST because it had an impact on you, but again it think it was just a #s game and you were one of the few. Growth will allow for more cases like you. I feel that a lot of people get caught up in the religion of FIRST because of the impact it had on them, and believe that’s the right impact. I disagree and argue that we should approach FIRST with open eyes and let it have any impact it can, rather than a strong specific impact on a few. The marketing, business, and legal lessons that can be learned from FIRST can shape individuals just as much as the STEM.