I am involved in the First Robotics Competition (FRC) program that is for 9th - 12th graders. I have been very interested in doing VRC because it seems like there are many advantages and simplicity that comes with building a smaller, cheaper robot. The local FIRST people are touting First Technical Challenge (FTC) as a good bridge between FLL and FRC, effectively saying that FTC interest declines after 9th grade because they want to do more.
If you are in a school that only has VRC, do you see interest declining among the 10th - 12th graders? Or do you see continued interest because there is no other option available?
If you are in a school that has VRC and FRC, do you see interest declining among the 10th - 12th graders for VRC?
In my sophomore year, 10th grade, 2008, my FRC team decided that it would be fun to start a smaller FTC Team (Back then, FTC still used VEX). I lead that team through our groundbreaking year, and we were awed by the solutions that the teams presented at competition.
The following year, FTC changed platforms and my team followed to the FTC you see today. The kit was frustrating, undertested, and underdeveleoped. We spent one competition season before we kicked the can and came back over to VRC.
I am now a graduating senior, and my team just did our first VRC. We had five teams compete with students ranging from 9-12, and differing interest levels. I see no reason for FTC to have a “leg up” on VRC. Our students are just as prepared, if not more prepared, for the FRC season after our VRC season.
Of course FIRST is going to condone their program. FTC seems logical, but that is further from the truth. IMO, VEX has done a better job of creating a kit that allows students to flex their brains, and create more innovative solutions.
Here in New Zealand we only have VRC. Originally we were going to do FRC but then realised the money that would be needed to send big robots to Atlanta so we came to VRC. I’m fairly certain that every other New Zealand team would agree with me that we thoroughly enjoy VRC.
Regarding your question, in my school we also do FLL (First Lego League) for the year 7-8s (grade 6-7). After that we have the year 9-10s (grade 8-9) who make a VRC robot and the year 11-13s (grade 10-12) with two of their own robots. However, the majority of our VRC team is year 13 (grade 12) (including me :(). Our main problem is getting interest in the younger ages - in no way at all do we have declining interest in the older ages.
Hope that helps and might see you at Worlds some time if you begin VRC
I’m quite a bit older than 12th grade - And I can’t wait until mentor scrimmages start getting added to typical tournaments.
An analogy that recently popped into my head is that in a comparision between FRC and VRC, it can be helpful to think of VRC as similar to chess. You aren’t custom-crafting your playing pieces (robots), you are instead seeing how cleverly you can make use of the playing pieces you (and everyone else) have. You have to out-play your opponents using those pieces, not by creating and using new pieces.
That chess-style battle-of-wits can be a very interesting challenge at any age. FTC is similar to VRC in this regard; but FTC seems to be heading in the direction of becoming a mini-FRC.
VRC might evolve in that direction too (allowing lots of custom-crafted or non-Vex off-the-shelf parts); but I’m hoping that it doesn’t.
I know the analogy is a bit strained but I hope it makes sense to you.
We have had VRC (FVC/FTC when Vex was still under FIRST) high school team for 4 years, and every student who has stayed a full season has stayed until senior year (5 of 10 students involved for 4 years). The students haven’t gotten bored yet and we are not even close to saturation on the learning curve. Every year there’s more to learn than we have time for. Four years of high school (or 6, if you start in 7th grade) is not nearly enough time to master all or even most of the concepts that could be explored.
The fact that the Vex system is relatively new, that new parts have been released every year, and that the game changes significantly every year forces new ways of thinking. I’ve been involved with coaching/judging Science Olympiad since 1998 and see more or less the same airplanes and wheeled vehicles every year. Not so with Vex robots!
Our team once had the opportunity to join an FRC team about 1/2 hour away, but the students opted not to join because they felt they would have more opportunity to actually build the robot with Vex, and at much lower cost. Because we don’t have the full spectrum of members (advanced mentorship, CAD, media, fundraising) that are needed for an FRC team, Vex has been a good choice for us.
What’s nice about VEX is that it also usually happens during the fall. Our team started doing VEX and FRC at the same time (back during bridge battle) and used VEX as a starter to gain engineering knowledge that could help with FRC. The team continues to do both as VEX does help with FRC and provides students with a robotics program that can last year round. Now that VEX happens throughout the whole year, students who do VEX may not be able to do as much with FRC, if they concentrate on spring regionals or the World Competition.
If a team likes doing FRC, but doesn’t have the resources to support a powerful off season of FRC engineering, VEX is really good to continue to have students continue on practicing engineering skills to prepare for the FRC season, or just to become a better VEX team.
Also, our school doesn’t see any drop in interest because some people like VEX and others like FRC. If you split and create 2 teams, some might go to FRC, but if the VEX and FRC teams are the same, then everyone should stay interested and enjoy both.
FRC 1294 by any chance? Their team nickname is Top Gun.
FTC interest might lag after 9th grade, but that’s simply not true for VRC, which has gone from fewer than 400 teams two years ago to 2,600 registered teams in 2009-2010. The fastest growing part of VRC is the college competition, which had more than 90 teams last season. My experience is that older students get MORE interested in VRC, not less.
We run a VRC-only program with more than 60 members. Approximately half are seniors. There was a meeting last fall to ask students if they were interested in starting an FRC team. I think fewer than 10 will actually make the move. I like to think that our students stay through senior year because they think VRC (and our club) are fun and exciting, not there is nothing else to do.
I was an FRC mentor for two years, and still volunteer with the Seattle regional when I can. The robotics volunteers (including both VRC and FIRST) are some of the nicest people on earth. I try to spend as much time as possible with them.
Drop me an email at [email protected] if you’d like to learn more about starting a VRC team at your school.
I’ve noticed that as our club has gotten more popular (at our high school), interest has increased noticeably. When we started our club for VRC, with Elevation, we only had 5 members. For Cleansweep, we had 20 members, and we now have almost 40 people interested in joining (across all grades) for next year.
Admittedly, we don’t have an FRC team, but I’d like to think that most people aren’t doing it because they have nothing better to do…
Well I’ve never done FRC, but my school is going to next school year.
In middle school though, we did BotBall. And when VRC came into the picture, a lot of people didnt really wanna have much to do with BotBall anymore. I mean, they did it, but not like the years before. I think that that was due to being very successful in my 8th grade season.
I am a freshman now and my schools robotics team made 3 years old this past year. I wasnt in it (due to some personal issues my friends and I made our own team, and working out of my friends house for about a month and making it to finals for 3 competitions and topping the team we left i think is pretty decent) but I will be next year. I talk to the members though and none of them seem really compelled to want more. Most of their team are juniors and they are very happy doing only VRC. The only reason theyre starting a FRC team is because someone got them a grant. I think that this was due to them being… challenged during the first few years.
So honestly, it depends on how well a team does. If a team is used to winning, then they’ll want to challenge themselves and try to compete in something harder because they might feel very confident about what they do. But for a team who just goes for the hell of it and doesnt really care about winning… well they dont care. Theyll just do whatever goes their way.
Here is a postscript to my earlier Message - Do both!
For example - Take a look at what FRC Team 40 has been doing every year. Check out the mini-FRC info on their web site http://checkmate40.com/home.shtml
We are a homeschool team that has done FVC/FTC/VRC for 4 years now. We’ve had 7th - 12th graders. VEX has appealed to all of these ages, although some of the younger team members have a shorter attention span. The only year we lost some of our seniors was the year we did FTC with Tetrix. We’ve had one member that did both VRC and FRC this year. Both have their strong points.
- And I can’t wait until mentor scrimmages start getting added to typical tournaments.