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Originally Posted by JVN
We talked about the HEXBUG fundraiser with some judges. One judge was interested but the other judge said: "HEXBUGs are just a part of that VEX thing. Don't be impressed." It is frustrating that our students are forced to hear about stuff like this. Politics is the nature of business, but it sucks when it affects the kids.
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This attitude on the part of FIRST is disgusting. I'm getting very tired of hearing these types of stories. Why aren't more people calling FIRST out on this? It's rank hypocrisy. FIRST says their mission statement is "
To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders." The VEX program accomplishes those goals. As does BEST. And Botball. And TSA. And probably a lot of other programs that I'm not familiar with. If that mission statement truly reflects FIRST's goals, then they should embrace any other program that is helping to accomplish those same goals. At the very least they could knock off the passive-aggressive thing they have going on where they take regular jabs at VEX.
If you ask me, this type of behavior on behalf of FIRST shows that the concept of Gracious Professionalism means nothing to them. I suppose you might expect this type of behavior out of some organizations, but FIRST pretends that they are better than that. Clearly they're not. Maybe it's about time that people who are sick of this crappy behavior from FIRST to start collecting up these types of stories where FIRST actively tries to harm other STEM-related projects and feed them to the politicians and CEOs who donate to FIRST. Maybe they'll agree with me that if FIRST is spending even one second trying to "compete" with VEX or other STEM programs then they are failing at their mission and that perhaps their money would be better used somewhere else.
Ironically, at this point, I think VEX and the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation are doing a much better job at FIRST's goal than FIRST is. If you visit the website of the RECF, on the
front page they have links to all of their "competitors", even including FIRST. That's true Gracious Professionalism there if you ask me. It seems that they actually believe in the mission that FIRST only pays lip service to, and they back it up by linking to numerous other STEM programs right on their home page.
I'd love to ask Dean Kamen and Bill Miller and any others at FIRST HQ this question: would your grandmother be proud knowing that a judge representing
your organization told an FRC student sharing their excitement about their fundraising proram, "
HEXBUGs are just a part of that VEX thing. Don't be impressed."? And don't try to tell me that this was just a rogue judge who went off-script. It's not; I've heard first-hand statements from people at FIRST HQ that prove to me that this is an organization-wide problem.
These repeated negative comments about other programs coming from FIRST have me wondering why I support FIRST at all. I've already backed off on my involvement on FRC 111 in part because of this behavior. Now I'm questioning why I spend a bunch of my free time making the FRC Spyder app that helps support FIRST. I have absolutely no idea how IFI continues to be such a big FIRST supporter given the terrible public treatment they and VEX and RECF receive each year. Maybe things are more friendly behind the scenes but on the surface it looks to me like an abusive relationship. And for those who don't remember, Dean actually gave IFI the Founder's Award a number of years back! Can you believe that? Maybe he'll be dissing on Boeing 5 years from now if they dare to sponsor some non-FIRST STEM program too.