[2544HCRC]

I've also been involved in car racing. I take a slightly different view. What happens in most racing series is that a few teams start to dominate the field because of resources. Pretty soon all of the other teams start to think "what's the use?" and quit showing up and pouring money down an unfillable hole. So racing groups including SCCA institute a class system. Imagine racing without the class system. You would have far fewer racers. It turns out it's much more fun when you show up and have a shot at winning. If the rules aren't adjusted the field dwindles and dies. I see that in FIRST. Rookie teams are sold one thing and show up to another. My guess is that if the presentation for FIRST went something like you are going to need a team of Engineering mentors, access to a pretty sophisticated shop, and the finances to build 2 robots + in order to be competitive, the field would and will be much much smaller. We did BEST this year as a trial and will probably switch over to FTC and BEST next year. For us as a small team with kids that aren't interested in building a big team and very limited resources, FRC has proven to be just too much. If you have a successful FRC program, great but this entire discussion seems to hit a nerve that most of us feel and that is, robotics is great, the idea is awesome as a tool for teaching kids, but FRC might not be the best fit for many of the teams. It's only fun being a back marker for a little while. Pretty soon the newness wears off and you have to make a decision, do you want to do what it takes to win in the class your in or do you want to find another class that might be a better fit.