Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

Are you suggesting that GM's sponsorship is the primary reason for the district competition model to exist? I can't quite figure out what you're trying to say here. For Dean's vision of explosive growth in FRC to be possible, we're definitely going to need a lot more competition events, and I'd say spreading the district idea to additional regions is the only concept likely to work right now. There's a lot of logistical headache involved in figuring out what districts would be reasonable, of course.

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

Alan,
I do not draw the conclusion you got at all from Mr. Pockets. I don't see how you got to his suggestion that GM funding drying up is THE PRIMARY reason for FIM. I think a lot of people are in agreement that the district model would benefit FIRST and FIRSTs individual teams greatly. Like you said though, there are a lot of logistical headaches involved in figuring out which "districts" will come to fruition.

Brando

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

This is the part that implies that the success of GM is intertwined with the success of the District model.

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

well i would say it IS intertwined in some way shape or form...however i don't get from that statement "the rebuild of GM is the reason that FIM will continue." I think a lot of people view FIM as a very succesful program and the future of FIRST.

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

I didn't mean to make it so confusing. My point was that a very large number of Michigan teams got money from GM. They will no longer be getting, or at least not be getting as much money from GM as a result of their chapter 11 bankruptcy. As a result a great number of teams in Michigan will likely be stretched for cash in the coming year while they adapt to the change.

The FIM setup reduced the cost of events for the teams in Michigan. For example, with district events normally only an hour or two away teams save immense amounts of money on travel, lodging (or more correctly not needing lodging).

Without GM funding a good number of teams will not have as much money as they are accustomed to. In such a condition it would make no sense for them to discontinue the district system. The district system saved the teams involved a lot of money and it wouldn't be logical of them to cancel that in a time when a lot of teams will be short on cash. It wouldn't be good timing at all.

I didn't mean to imply that GM was the driving force behind FIM. I only meant that their departure would make it a bad time to stop the district system (and I'm not implying that it should be stopped at all, I think that it was a success as well).

Hopefully I didn't slaughter that point too ^_^

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

You raise a good point but as far as we know GM has not come out and said they will no longer be supporting this program. Delphi continues to sponsor many teams and support this program despite having been in Chapter 11 for the last several years. I have not seen any reports from FIRST or GM that they would be discontinuing (or even cutting back) support for teams. (If I am mistaken someone please correct me, as always)

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

I didn't realize that. The impression that I got from our team meetings was that we would no longer be getting money from GM. I may have misinterpreted that information however. If that is the case then my point is kind of null and void.

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

Hardly null and void, teams SHOULD diversify their funding sources and look for places to trim fat, this is just good management.

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

Oh! I think I misread your point completely the first time. You said the model "won't go anywhere." That can describe two totally different things. I read it as meaning it was a failed experiment and will not be used again (because it depends on GM's support), while you probably meant it will not disappear (because teams with less funding from GM would want cheaper events).

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

Huh, I never would have caught the double meaning.

Let's go eat Grandpa.:yikes:

Be careful. Punctuation can be a killer....

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

Actually, it would mean that most of us would have to cut back on how many events we go to per year.

For Example:
(im just picking the first teams that come to mind)

217 went to: 5 events (1 Regional, Nationals, State Championships, and 2 districts
67 went to: 5 events (3 districts, State Championships, and Nationals)
68 (us) went to: 5 events (3 districts, State Championships, and Nationals)
247 went to: 5 events (3 districts, State Championships, and Nationals)

the cost for the 5 events totaled around 5K for 2 districts, $200 for another, 4K for State Championships, and 5K for Nationals...

that is $14,200 in registration fees folks... that does not cover hotel, food, or travel...

we can cut back, it was fun with each of those teams averaging around 85 matches in the season; we may not like it but that is a lot of cash that most of us can't afford...

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

That's a good point...but I don't quite understand how that correlates to my point.

If it is regarding the costs of regionals and districts I found a bit of information here: http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=454. You are right that teams might have to cut back on spending, but that doesn't mean that it would make sense for FIM to cancel the district system, which provides two districts plus an extra competition (states) for the same price as two regionals.

So I don't really understand where we disagree.

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

Is that it? :p
We paid 19k in registration fees each year the past two years. The cost of attending 5 events for 14,200 is worth it for you folks, and I cant see how those teams would stop what they were doing regardless.

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

http://jalopnik.com/5299918/lexus-po...quality-survey

Some big surprises in the Quality game this year. IQS is an intial quality metric that JD Powers reports on. This is one of the best measures of build quality, and design quality (many of the quality metrics are design issues). while the luxury brands are still on average better than the everyman cars, please note the extremely small delta on the volume guys. Honda 99, Toyota 101, Ford 102, Chevrolet 103..... All of these better than the industry average of 108.

(these are issues per 100 cars or PP100).

Re: GM and its impact on FIRST
 

Probably falling a bit too far off the original topic here, but the NYTimes published an interesting interactive map depicting where our various North American vehicles' major parts are sourced from and where they are final assembled.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...-plants-4.html