[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Uriah

I agree. After we won Rookie All Star it was a lot easier to get sponser support. With the extra sponsership we started a new team, who also won Rookie All Star. Now mind you, neither #3381 nor #4531 has ever finished in the top 15% of teams.

I can testify that winning Rookie All-Star is not an instant ticket to money and sponsors; we're still struggling for monetary support at 4464 and it most certainly isn't for lack of effort.

Originally Posted by Racer26

I really, truly believe that FRC does a pretty good job of being able to transcend socioeconomic status of its participants, and that in 99% of cases, the result a team has is directly proportional to the effort they put in, and has little-to-nothing to do with the socioeconomic status of the teams members OR its geographical area.

I think this is really, incredibly naive; I believe this about as much as I believe FIRST cures cancer or rescues cute kittens. Socioeconomic disadvantage is a deep-rooted social problem that no high-school program is going to completely (or even mostly) transcend.