[ghostmachine360]

So, I want to thank you all for everything you've said. It's been really helpful to me to improve this teaching, and has given me some new material I would like to write about.

Actually, Mr. Lim, your example of the X Games as an act of counterculture got me to think about one of the reasons that the X Games became a televised event; not only because of the following of skaters & the athletes involved, but the large amount of noticeable "big-light" sponsors that sponsored the skaters. I'm not saying that the sponsors we have now aren't amazing (the engineers and leaders of these select companies and organizations are my heroes), but the X Games has sponsors that connect to kids and teenagers directly now. Maybe one of the next moves now is to bring some of those kinds of sponsors our way.

Examples: Oakley, Mountain Dew, Playstation, adidas, multitudes of beverage and drink companies, Nike, and the list goes on.

I've got the FIRST Studio Beats; might be more boss if there was some Oakley-designed safety glasses to go along with it........

But, seriously, sponsors that can connect us as an organization more to the people we're trying to reach may be a breakthrough point for us. I mean, between Boston Scientific & Nike, which would you use to get kids interested right away?

Also with this, I might add, it's not about the recognition; but the transformation (thanks to Mr. Barker). Majority of the sponsors we have now realize that the students that participate will be joining the workforce in a matter of a few years to a decade. Their participation ensures that students see the opportunities that could be theirs, along with companies they could pursue those opportunities with. Majority of the sponsors that sponsor the X-Games are ones that are only looking for future consumers or future athletes to sponsor. If we can get some of those "big-light" sponsors to look at our students as the future workforce & untapped wells of innovation potential for their companies, we could have access to one of the largest exposure mediums in the modern world of media; brands & reputation. It could be a key to becoming larger and gaining a larger audience to the message of FIRST. And then, we've got the transformation part down when they become a part of it. It could even lead to another exposure source, sports programming networks; they LOVE those kinds of sponsors.

That being said, who wouldn't want their own 5 minutes on PTI on ESPN? (Would love to be a robotics correspondent with Michael & Tony.)