Quote:
Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure
Not really. There are a huge number of questions that will apply specifically to VA/MD/DC.
For example: - VirginiaFIRST, Maryland FIRST, and (I think) DC FIRST are all their own 501(c)(3) non-profit corporations. Will they merge into a National Capital Region organization? If so, who will make up the new leadership?
- Western PA (counties west of Harrisburg) is not part of MAR. Will a similar boundary exist for Maryland and Virginia? Teams in these areas are geographically closer to the regional events in Pittsburgh and Knoxville.
|
DC FIRST was "spun off" as its own 501(c)(3) organization in 2012, though I believe the leadership for DC FIRST and VirginiaFIRST are still the same. There is a lot of history and money in the VirginiaFIRST "brand" (it was the second state organization developed to support FIRST but independent from HQ, IIRC). I believe that all 3 organizations currently raise funds for the three regional events together and have done so for at least the last 3 years, while the individual organizations run their own FLL and FTC programs and will likely continue to do so.
As a Virginian involved with VirginiaFIRST, I personally would like to see all 3 stay separate but transition the current competition of the tri-region over to the district system, which would likely result in 8 district events and a championship at VCU. For those who don't know, VCU's Siegel Center is the closest you can get to "grandaddy of them all" for FIRST venues, behind only Eastern Michigan University for oldest active regional locations, once again, if my memory doesn't escape me. In addition, it's not out of the question to see the commonwealth of Virginia grow to a number of teams in the next 5 years where VirginiaFIRST would prefer to structure its own district system structure separate from DC and Maryland, much like Michigan.
Whether teams that are closer to Pittsburgh and Buckeye will allow to opt-out from travelling down to Richmond for a championship every year has not been discussed (probably because those teams unfortunately didn't attend any events where the district system was discussed).
Regardless, Virginia is one of the oldest states to host FIRST Robotics Competitions and yet it continues to struggle mightily with making strides to keep up with its older brother in the Great Lakes area because it exists in this unhappy medium. Now, there are too many teams to support one self-contained in-state event and too few teams and resources to actually hold two worthwhile traditional events. This has resulted in stagnating team counts and numerous veteran teams going the way of the dinosaur. Thanks to economic climate of the last 5 years combined with the decreased emphasis of match-play per team in Virginia (down to 8 matches this year...), VirginiaFIRST has had over 3 dozen teams abandon the program in the last few years because their schools switched to FTC or decided to make marching band, athletics, ESL classes, and ROTC a priority over FRC.
It is a problem both the alumni of VirginiaFIRST and FRC Team 422 are looking into adequately addressing, but a big catalyst for returning teams would be the low cost model coming as soon as it can.