
First Robotics Competition: An International High-School Robotics Competition - j-james
https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc
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frenchie4111
I was on a fairly serious First Robotics team in high school. Nothing else
during my pre-professional years prepared me as well for what it would be like
to run/work on a team to solve challenging problems. I really appreciate that
it was a space where adults treated me like one, and taught my how to execute
on that level way before my peers.

~~~
nomadluap
I was pleasantly surprised when I started my first R&D job after university.
It's just like a FIRST team but everything is bigger including the robots.

I don't think anything else in school has prepared me for the real world more
than my FIRST team. If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be to
join the team in my freshman year instead of senior year.

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cowmix
I'm not sure why this was posted now but my kid is involved with this and it
is a great org.

I was excited for him to get involved for many reasons but one of which I've
been a pretty big fan of Dean Kamen (he co-founded First). However, over the
past few years I've learned Dean is kind of a douche and the real star of
First is (well, now was) Woody Flowers. He's a great example to all the kids
and his philosophy of "graciousness professional" is no bullshit. It is a
great way to roll out tech / STEM to kids.

~~~
jeremymcanally
Dean's a douche? I haven't experienced that having met him several times (even
being to his house for a supplier thing when I worked at a company that gave
FIRST a ton of stuff). But I guess I could see how folks might form that
opinion since he's definitely no Woodie Flowers in terms of social skills. :)

~~~
cowmix
I regret using that word. The few times I saw him speak he was either a)
obviously drunk b) hyping up the military like no one's business or c) just
kind of bragging about whatever. It was shocking. Then I saw Woody speak a few
times and it was like magic.

When my kid first got into First I keep asking him about Dean (again, I was a
fan) and he was like, "no one cares about him."

~~~
willis936
My dad worked at DeKa for a few years. There are a collection of things, such
as compulsory gifts that employees need to work on in their personal time for
Dean, that make me think “douche” is an acceptable descriptor. However, I
helped start an FRC team over a decade ago and my family is still active in
mentoring. It’s a great program with great results.

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SeanLuke
It's worth mentioning KIPR BotBall.

There are three major STEM promoters in the guise of a robotics competition:
Offerings from FIRST, competitions sponsored by Vex, and KIPR BotBall. FIRST
is the most well known at this point, thanks to excellent promotion by Dean
Kamen. And Vex is great. But I think Botball has long thought been
historically the best of the three, if the goal is to inspire, teach, and
enable students who otherwise wouldn't have had an such opportunity.

BotBall is a shoestring nonprofit which was out very early doing competitions
using Lego, motors and sensors, and MIT Handyboards: essentially a middle-
school and high-school version of MIT's 6270 class. Botball competitions pit
one robot against another and the robots are fully autonomous. Once the lights
go on, the robots are completely on their own. Botball doesn't do
teleoperation at all. This forces students to think of robots as complete
systems of mechanical, electrical, sensory, and computational elements. I
think this is good.

But BotBall has a critical additional big plus: it is very cheap. BotBall is a
shoestring nonprofit and costs very little for schools to get started, and
they work hard to allow schools to reuse most of their kits the next year even
as the competition changes, so the rewnewal cost is extremely low. This means
that BotBall is a very good choice for Title-1 and other disadvantaged
schools, as well as non-school entities. One problem I've seen with some STEM
ventures is their high cost, which is then offset by corporate sponsorship for
schools. And there are a lot of problems with that model, often resulting in
bias in selection of schools, or in kids' educational experience getting
sidelined in the name of corporate success. BotBall is not only cheap for
schools, but it's so cheap that corporate, private, or academic sponsors can
jump in without a need to win at all costs. I myself have funded several
Title-1 schools several times as a (mediocre) line item in NSF robotics and AI
grants I've received, and highly recommend it.

~~~
LukeShu
Note that FIRST has several competitions; FRC is the flagship, but FTC is
lower-cost, reaching many teams that can't afford to participate in FRC. (I'm
not knowledgeable enough to directly compare the expenses of being in FTC vs
BotBall).

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bargl
When this whole mess is behind us, find a local team and volunteer. It's been
one of the best things I've done for my personal sanity and gives me a sense
of a side project. I don't even have to do all the work.

If you only build websites don't worry you'll find a place on a team. Don't
sell yourself short, if you like kids and mentoring it's a great experience.

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acomjean
I had a friend that worked on FIRST two teams (one after another..). The
enthusiasm level was high, but from what he described it didn't seem super
great at teaching as the mentors ended up doing a lot of the work, Especially
on the software side. We compared notes, as I was volunteering at the time for
science olymipiad.

I went to the FIRST competition and it was fun. Maybe I'm wrong and those who
participated got more out of it than I suspect.

edit: It some people got more out of than my friend indicated. Maybe better
structured teams than his..

~~~
bargl
This is very much not true on my team.

I lead the programmers but I don't do the work for them. If I do have to do
work, I do it with them. It's very much their system and if they don't want to
work on it then it'll be broken.

It depends on the team, the mentors, and the students. I'm sure other mentors
and other teams do this, and I'm sure there are other teams and other mentors
who help the students less and make them do more work.

~~~
JCharante
It definetely 100% depends on the team. I've seen other teams where their
scouting software was custom written entirely by one of their mentors (and I
know this because I overheard them say they couldn't do xyz because their
mentor was busy with another commitment and couldn't do it until the next
weekend). [Developing scouting software is a great excuse to learn to deploy
backend systems, develop native and web apps].

With my former team software was always student-led. We had a mentor show us
the ropes with git and and he'll work on helping people who are stuck. I think
you can evaluate a team based off how they do at an event off the field. If
they can still make changes to their codebase or robot then they're fine, but
if they say "Mr./Ms. ____ isn't here so we can't deploy any changes" then
that's really concerning.

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jaredandrews
I have been hoping to find a multiplayer coding game to play with my FIRST
students during this time. Googling "multiplayer coding game" yields many
results, but none of the ones I have tried so far have been satisfactory.
Ideally it would be more of a sandbox than a game, with little robots you can
control.

Would appreciate any recommendations.

~~~
nomadluap
Minecraft with the OpenComputers[1] mod might fit your requirements. It adds
computers and robots into Minecraft that are programmable with Lua.

[1]: [https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-
mods/opencomputers](https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-
mods/opencomputers)

~~~
sudosysgen
ComputerCraft works well too, and there are a lot of interesting extensions.

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howenterprisey
Did it in middle school through high school (FLL & FRC), and started
volunteering freshman year in college. Incredibly fun experience throughout. I
highly recommend mentoring and/or volunteering - the energy at a FIRST
competition is really unique.

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wyxuan
It's what had to be done, but it's a real shame it got cancelled this year.
Although, since it's all bots anyway I wonder how it would be if all the teams
sent just their robots and competed.

~~~
zamadatix
Most of what the teams do at a competition isn't actually on the playing field
but for what is done there it's largely run by human operators in real time
from control computers connected over Wi-Fi so you can't really send the bots
without sending the team.

~~~
LukeShu
A related anecdote: I seem to recall a team from another country (Israel?) not
being able to attend the world championships, but they were able to send their
robot, and coordinated with another team to have that team operate the robot.

But yeah, a match is 2.5 minutes; and only in the first 15 seconds is the
robot is entirely autonomous, for the remainder of a match there's a 2-person
drive team (plus maybe a coach standing behind them) operating it over WiFi,
and also a human player that is able to interact with the field from the
sidelines. Nevermind all the activity in the pits, repairing and adjusting the
robot.

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billylo
It's rewarding for mentors to see teenagers develop their passion for
engineering in these competitions. Here is a thank you video that described
the journey of a few of our programmers from team610.com

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yCuPoC-Z70](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yCuPoC-Z70)

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mrfusion
I always feel left out that there’s not a robotics competition for adults.

~~~
calaphos
There is the RoboCup [1], most participants are (post)graduate students or
alumni. The competition is more focused on the academic aspect with a
conference in the end.

[1]: [https://www.robocup.org/](https://www.robocup.org/)

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Teknoman117
I never had the opportunity to compete in FRC, the schools I attended were
never willing to back a team or let a team try to fundraise. But I volunteered
every year as a kid. Great memories.

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zamadatix
I was in FIRST from 3rd grade (there was no JFLL when I started) through 12th
grade. I got my first job through a connection I gained in the program and it
definitely helped kick me years ahead in being prepared for real world
projects. Was a good barrel of fun as well. I'd highly recommend any parents
check it out, it has a lot even for those not technically inclined (business
and marketing skills are big parts of being a successful team in the later
years as well as a lot of charity work through all of it).

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wizardforhire
I’ve judged my home state’s regionals for the last ten years. One of the most
rewarding things I do every year. If you get the opportunity to do so I highly
encourage you to!

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baylessj
I've only ever been involved in Vex Robotics, but I've always had a ton of
respect for the FIRST competitions. Robotics is the reason I'm a software
engineer now and taught me more about succeeding in engineering than any other
of my life experiences so far. Couldn't recommend it enough.

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0xff00ffee
Why do all the highschool kids get cool competitions?

We need robotics competitions for 50+ year-old engineers.

Just sayin'. :)

~~~
pacoWebConsult
I've been itching to develop a FIRST-like bot on my own (mostly envisioning an
electric go-kart I can also hook other things onto) since I graduated high
school, but the biggest barrier has always been the hardware and electronics
cost. I haven't done enough research but no other robot controllers seem to
have the same plug-and-play ease-of-use that the FIRST platforms do.

~~~
0xff00ffee
FWIW: i've got a basement full of half- and fully-built projects with parts
from this place:

[https://www.servocity.com/actobotics](https://www.servocity.com/actobotics)

Granted, its not like Intel is allowing me to use there metal deposition
printers, but there's a lot of good stuff there. I think they know me by name
at this point.

Same with this place:

[https://www.robotshop.com/en/robot-
parts.html](https://www.robotshop.com/en/robot-parts.html)

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bazzert
Fantastic organization. My son is on a team that qualified from the MA state
finals but sadly (and understandably) 'Worlds' was cancelled.

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lachlan-sneff
I was in FIRST in high-school. It was a great experience and we were on the
alliance that won the Detroit competition in 2018, so that made it even
better.

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ajayyy
What team? We were on that alliance too.

~~~
lachlan-sneff
I was the president of 4027 at the time.

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ajayyy
I was on 2708

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nexuist
1991 checking in! I was in college by 2018 but I was at St. Louis Worlds 2016
+ 2017. FIRST was the highlight of my high school experience.

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inamberclad
Milling parts in FRC meetings were some of my best high school experiences.
Taught me how much I loved building complex things.

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djmips
I'm curious why Java was chosen as the language of First Robotics? Why not use
Racket for example.

~~~
gurustave
The Official Supported languages, since 2005 are LabVIEW, Java, and C++. There
are also unofficial languages available including Python, Go, Rust and I'm
sure a couple more (generally these run on top of the JRE). This is mainly due
to the current controller for the FRC Competition being a National Instruments
RoboRIO controller.

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auscompgeek
For those not in the know, the NI roboRIO is a Xilinx Z-7020 (ARM Cortex-A9
SoC with FPGA) and runs GNU/Linux. As long as your language can target ARMv7
Linux and can call into C libraries, it'll run on the roboRIO.

