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Originally Posted by SteveGPage
* To those who think it isn't fair that FIRST is competing with Vex. Why would you even think FIRST cares about what Vex is doing. Do you think McDonalds cares about Wendys when it builds a store right next door? Maybe it isn't politics - but classical business decisions. Capitalism at work. Now we get to teach how supply and demand works, maybe talk about what happens in a monopoly, how some countries place tarifs on others, etc...
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Steve -- I think the problem here is that none of these after-school competition engineering programs have "dominant market share and destruction of our competitors" in their mission statements. One way or another, all of these programs (FRC, VRC, BEST, Botball, TSA, Skills, etc.) have a mission statement that comes down to "showing young people that science and technology is fun, and that you can go on to college and a career in the field." Once the mission statement becomes, "Build the cash reserves and dominate the market" they've already lost track of their purpose.
I work for the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, the folks that run the VEX Robotics Competition, and it bugs me when a school chooses not to be part of our program. At some point, though, you need to suck it up, realize that more than 90% of all middle and high schools don't have ANY engineering/science challenge, and remember that a successful program in a school is a win for all of us.