Should Linus Tech Tips get involved with FIRST Robotics?

[jledrick]

Hey Guys,
I am not sure how many other FIRST members there are on this forum, but due to the increase of robotics related videos on LTT wouldn't it be cool if they checked out some FTC or FRC competitions and stuff? 

Taran seems to really be enjoying the small robot stuff. It looks like Taran has been involved the with FIRST LEGO League (FLL) in the past.

 

FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is an international competition organized by FIRST Robotics, for elementary and middle school students (ages 9–14 in the United States and Canada, 9–16 elsewhere).

 

This is the video of Taran taking about FIRST LEGO League. Taran said I hosted one of the yearly FIRST Lego League championship tournaments, and filled the dead air between games with these little lessons about robotics, and interviews and stuff.

 

[Tabs]

I'm not sure I feel strongly enough to say "yes" or "no" to the poll. My answer would be "maybe" - if it doesn't take time from all the regular content the channel(s) do, and it can fit with the teams workflow, then it's definitely an interesting (if niche) topic.

 

I'm not sure how much of an overlap the ltt userbase would have with the robotics centric userbase that would get involved with FIRST, though. If this were to be a thing, I doubt it would be something that got put on the current main channels, and would probably have to be spun off into a separate channel, and that then begs the question of whether the large amount of work/effort to launch a new channel to host this kind of content would be worth it in the long run.

 

In the end, LMG is a business and although I'm sure this would be fun, I'm not sure how much business sense it would make.

[jledrick]

they might put on channel super fun

 

[Enderman]

I think at least taran should check it out, he knows about vex so he probably knows about FRC too.

VEX and those other robotics kits are just toys compared to real robotics, IMO they are big limitations to creativity when you're limited to using only certain parts from one manufacturer in something like VEX.

[jledrick]

just having a video of FRC on LTT would be cool

[trag1c]

My 2 cents on the subject.

 

Taran should check it out but i would say not to get involved with FIRST as its pretty terrible as a competition right now.

 

Too many teams who have entire engineering firms designing the robots from the ground up. The kids don't have an opportunity to actually learn STEM skills from it. Thats not to say that there aren't teams where the kids actually learn valuable skills but trying to compete againsts a professionally designed competition bot is nigh impossible.

 

I personally would like them to advocate VEX or Skills robotics competitions as they're more equal opportunity and as a result the students are the ones who actually learn from the experience. 

 

FIRST would be great as its the biggest scale and the most encompassing but until there are stricter rules on "mentorship" I would say no to involvement of LMG.