After reading the the thread on open build and several other threads about how to improve First it is more evident then ever FRC needs real competition. Competition would
Drive down costs for teams
Make friendly build rules
Improve the quality of awards handed out.
Monopolies are never a good thing. I love First but think an open market approach would solve many of the issues we see posted here on C.D.
These aren’t issues. They are people complaining because teams are better then them.
All these complaining threads and changing FIRST threads need to stop.
/thread
To clarify, are you positing that FIRST needs to have more competition among teams, suppliers, other robotics competitions, or some other type of competition?
I think he’s saying that FIRST needs direct competition from another robotics competition, because right now, there really is no direct competitor to FRC.
If FIRST really wants to expand and improve changes need to be made.
This is not a thread complaining that FIRST is unfair.
The OP is from a past world champion, I don’t think they would ever complain about teams being better than them.
Competition is never a bad thing, lack of competition leads to complacency. Nobody wants FIRST to be complacent or stagnant. FIRST continues to change and has changed over the years, and its a good thing. Having teams express feelings on ways they feel FIRST can change for the better is not complaining, it’s constructive criticism.
Ummm…maybe. One thing I will say, though, is that the off-season events are a really good, lower cost way to get a lot more out of your season. And that, in and of itself, helps to drive down the cost, in that it gets FIRST thinking about alternatives (districts) to the mondo-big regional events.
FIRST and the vendors do need to keep thinking up better ways to give teams better return on the investment that each year represents.
FIRST also needs to get better information from those who are not in FRC. Many organizations have dropped out of FRC due to time or money cost, or looked at the barriers to FRC success, and have said, no thanks. FRC needs to determine a better path to transition these organizations into FRC, or else FRC growth will be stunted.
AKA, competition between STEM programs is mostly counterproductive. The goal isn’t to be the better program among programs, but to reach out to students and get them excited for science, technology, engineering and math.
Granted there is and will be some competition if another program is as good as or better than FIRST, but in the end the goal of my mentoring shouldn’t be to promote FIRST, but promote STEM based learning though a program like FIRST.
Oh, so FIRST is good enough as it is? :rolleyes:
FIRST is effective as a tool for a certain set of problems. What OP is saying is that we need other tools to address other problems. My problem is a screw, yours is a nail… do you use the same tool?
Yes, but I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with this. The point of programs competing against FRC is that we believe it’ll make FRC --and potentially the other program–better at reaching and inspiring students, a goal they share. They needn’t be better than each other, just better than they were. VEX and FTC positively push each other some at least for us at the local level (I’m not condoning FIRST’s treatment of IFI). VEX IQ and FLL are shaping up for the same. Heck, we all benefitted from some of the reputable competition between two respected pillars of the FRC community this year: AM and IFI/VEXpro.
The point is, competition isn’t about mentors promoting their program rather than inspiring students. I’d seriously hesitate to bring it to the mentor level at all. What competition can do is lower prices and increase service across the board, which is something (particularly lower registration fees) that could really help FIRST and its competition reach collectively more students.
If you’re on my team, why not? 
I don’t think competition would be the best solution. FIRST is already trying to improve, and over the last couple of years (don’t know about before) has taken our input to improve itself on a daily basis.
Competition in the market causes lower prices and more attractive advertizing, not necessarily impovement of the firm and/or product. I think that IF FIRST changes because of competition, the change would be more towards making the competition more attractive to spectators through games that are more fun to watch, which are not necessarily more educational to play. I think this competition, if it will be heavy and a threat to FIRST’s spread (which is kind-of the definition of competition in marketing), might cause FIRST to lose focus on what matters to FIRST most: inspiring students to persure a career in STEM.
Just a few thuoghts:
I believe that VEX is starting to really compete with FIRST on some STEM related competition aspects. Talking to team mentors that have gone from FRC to VRC it makes sense in a few areas mainly money. One mentor told me that he can run 7-12 VRC teams for the price of one FRC team over a three year time span. VRC is also more easy and less expensive to run from an event stand point compared to an FRC regional. Now VEX has taken the game and upped the diffcuilty of it due to VEX Iq. Now the games are becoming more challenging and high school targeted. I’m not trying to bash FRC because the fact is that FRC is still the only competition in which students get to work side by side with professionals to build a 120 lb machine. The problem is that unless the cost to the teams go down or a full district model is put in place many teams will seriously consider going to VRC instead of FRC. I’m not saying FRC will fall to the way side but it will be hurt from it. Also I have a question for all of you more expirenced people out there. Will VEX Iq. challenge FLL or is FLL established enough that the cost difference wont hurt it too bad?
IQ vs FLL is going to interesting to watch, with FLL being the firmly entrenched 800 lb gorilla. Convincing people to move away from the product they already have experience with is never an easy task.
If anything you are going to see school divisions pick and choose the programs they support due to previous investments in products and perceived return on their investments.
Example: Our school division which is just over 80,000 students now has FLL in most (all?) elementary schools, VRC in most (all?) middle and high schools, FTC in a number of high schools, and three FRC teams.
Educator’s note: That is total division wide enrollment which includes over 60 elementary schools, 16 middle schools and two traditional schools, as well as 11 high schools,
I think FIRST faces enough challenges without outside competition. In my city, we have five fewer FRC teams than we did in 2005. The difficulties faced by every single FRC team provide, IMHO, plenty of competition. Every single FRC team has to constantly compete against the outside world for the funding and support we need to survive. I’m confident that FIRST understands that if it is not constantly improving itself, it will not last long.
Aloha,
From what we have seen over the past years is that VEX is a wonderful starting program that allows basic programming and building skills to develop. These skills help the students to transition into FRC. Our program was started with the low cost underwater ROV competitions and then added the VEX program and then Botball. It was after our successes in these programs that we were approached to start a FIRST team.
I like the fact that the programs have different seasons which allow the robotics program to run thought the school year. There is little overlap and competition for resources.
I am saddened that the Vex and FRC world championships coincide this next year. This makes for some tuff decisions on which to attend if you are lucky enough to attend both. In my mind there would be no question which to go to.
There is NOTHING like a FRC world championships. It is by far the most student inspiring event we have ever attended. The amount of stories that the students bring back from ROV, Botball, and the VEX world championships is NOTHING compared to the amount from the FRC world championship ….
Back on to the topic.
Would another program competing with FRC be a good thing?
Many areas have a hard enough time supporting the existing FRC teams.
Having another program compete for students as well as sponsorship would, in the end, hurt everyone.
If a company has to decide on which to support, most sponsors will make the decision based on costs. If it is going to cost the company less to sponsor a non FRC team then it is a good business decision to do so and will still look good to the community. If they have a set budget of outreach sponsorships, then they could now support two non FRC teams for the same amount and it then it looks even better to the community to do so.
Would this cause FRC to make changes to be more competitive? Sure but at what costs?
Cheaper quality and fewer KOP items? Less scholarships available as participation drops? Smaller venues and less commercialism (making it Loud)?
Are monopolies a good thing? Sometimes…Do monopolies they still exist? Yup…
Are you old enough to remember the telephone system in America prior to the monopoly break up?…….
My service has never been quite the same 
An open market approach will solve some problems but will just cause others.
I’ll ask the tough, sensitive question because its going to come up sooner than later, IMO. It already is to some extent with the overlapping of 2 major World Championships in 2014 which affects many including us directly.
What happens if VEX views this as the other way around? What happens if in the future, there is no need to transition at all? Hard choices which will force real competition.
Which means there are about 100 students a year no longer exposed to STEM. If there were a viable competitor to FRC it may provide an opportunity that currently doesn’t exist for those students.
I think FIRST and sponsors should start not just focusing on inner city teams but other underpriviledged teams that live in areas that don’t feature many willing or even engineering companies. There is a lot of scientist and engineer potential that is missed through that.
I don’t want to sound rude, but please go understand what the definition of what a monopoly is. FIRST isn’t a monopoly. It is an open market and they are putting up no barriers to entry, that is they are not preventing anyone from stepping and competing. There are other competitions that compete with FIRST and they are open to anyone.
FIRST doesn’t make money, they get their bills paid. And they run the organization financially responsibly which means they keep a proper amount of reserves for operations.
If FIRST were making money, plenty of investors would be starting competitions to try to get a piece of that action.
To seriously impact the current cost structure would require a fundamental restructuring of the whole program. That restructure might be offensive to other people. That is one of the factors driving the district model. More plays, lower cost, less show, more high school gym, but that is another argument for another thread.
The real issue here is Value.
Anytime we are talking about cost, we also need to be talking about value.
Cost and Value are two distinctly different entities.
If you can persuade your community of the value of FIRST, then there is a chance the cost issue will resolve itself with increased funding.
I don’t see how this relates to any of the issues he mentioned.
Amen. When I worked at Linens 'n Things, we had a large portion of product that we called “Value Merchandise”. For five years, to the chagrin of my manager, I called it what it was: “cheap crap” – there was no value in it; most of it wasn’t worth the pittance it cost.
Value means a high-quality product at a price worth paying. FRC is an excellent product, but I think that the cost is prohibitive for many. If we can maintain the quality but lower the cost, I think that would be one of the greatest changes FIRST could make.
Please file under “easier said than done”.