This seems like it hasn’t been updated in a decade. I thought, “hmmm, ok, let me look around some more.” So I did. And sure enough, on the top of that very page in bold lettering (idk how I didn’t see that before) the WPI Think Tank was mentioned, saying that they were migrating everything to that.
So I clicked on the Think Tank link and…Error 404.
I tried Googling stuff about the WPI Resource Page and Think Tank, and…nothing.
So could anyone satisfy my curiosity and tell me what happened to these two sites? I know there are tons of other FRC resources out there so I am not asking for those, but I am just curious as to why these WPI sponsored sites, which was ultimately the birthplace of FIRST, have been neglected.
I don’t know the details of what happened to them but I can tell you what I know about how they came about.
Think Tank was collaboration between students at WPI and FIRST where WPI developed it. I was working at WPI at the time and the project was given to me to develop. Think Tank was meant to be a social media/wiki type site where everyone could create articles and upload resources to be used by other teams and rated for its quality. I know I had a few articles in there based on presentations I used to give at Rookie Kickoff when they used to do that.
What I think happened is everyone who maintained it has since left WPI and the web team at WPI as changed enough times that they probably aren’t even aware of the site.
Oh boy, this is a throwback. For anyone who’s familiar with the WPI undergraduate projects every student must complete…Think Tank was my IQP.
The idea was decent, but we ran into a lot of roadblocks trying to co-develop it with FIRST, and also being a group of college students driving this as an academic project which didn’t really promote any longevity. The beta test and ultimate “release” fell flat, did not deliver on what it was supposed to do and, as Nick noted, the website was not maintained. Most of what we were attempting to accomplish has been more recently (and much more successfully) achieved by The Compass Alliance.
If you want to read the complete details of the concept, implementation and future recommendations as written by college juniors in 2008, you can find it here.
Wow, that is so interesting! I actually recently looked at WPIs website for a while during my college search as a rising senior so I know all about the IQP and MQP.
