Quote:
Originally Posted by buchanan
This whole thread is a political discussion. If a petition to government action ain't political, nothing is. If CD has a policy against such, it should go bye-bye.
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Glad to see you understand.
Just to be clear, I've never been behind the idea of aimlessly throwing money-bombs at FIRST. In the past two years, Virginia (the state in which 1086 and 422 operate) has netted +2 FRC teams, but has had 9 rookies register. That means we lost seven teams that last competed in 2011 or 2012. One of the teams was the RAS at Virginia and the Highest Rookie Seed on Galileo. I have actually sat in a room with people and I just kept asking the questions "What are we doing wrong? Why aren't we doing enough?" Because it is obvious we are not doing enough. Virginia veterans are not doing enough to support rookie teams. The Mid-Atlantic does not set exemplary examples you see in the Midwest, Northeast, Michigan, California, Texas, New England, and Canada, and it's something that needs to be fixed even though I have neither the time nor physical availability or training to help. I'm just throwing that out there. I shot off a bunch of emails to rookies last year, only heard back from two, and both said they were fine. Only 1 still exists. Whether it be at a global, regional, or state board, or team, we are doing something wrong and throwing money at the problem is not going to fix it, that much I know.
We try to plant trees in the desert. There may be enough money to throw together for a rookie KOP and registration fee, but there are improper human resources, improper or incomplete preparation or training, and a host of other things. Granted, nothing can prepare you for a rookie FRC season, but in trying to spread the gospel of FIRST, we try to sell a product some school districts and communities can't buy yet for a variety of reasons.
FIRST is important to us. It's important to me. When we start teams that just aren't ready to exist yet, they will fail, and when the time comes for a team to GROW there instead of just come into existence at the fling of some veteran team's wand and a trickle of cash, it won't happen. Why would the community want to get burned again by robotics?
The whole organization is doubtlessly on the precipice of a huge boom. The students who participated in the beginning of the modern era of FRC are now employed, settling down, and may be looking to mentor a team (and 1114 and 2056 can tell you what FIRST alumni-mentors can do to a program). The American economy is starting to actually perk back up. The organizational infrastructure of FIRST is shifting the competition structure to prepare and enable us for this. This isn't a time to push for inorganic and possibly disruptive or destructive growth.
That's all, I guess.