[Klamath Mom]

In a nutshell:

Districts are great for students (playing two districts, more rounds played and 6 hrs of robot work in between districts)

Districts are a financial nightmare for the team in general. Of course, I am speaking from the experience of a rural team with no major corporate sponsorship (we have no corporations in our town). We rely on grants, school district and parents to fund the program. This, of course, will have to change.

Our program went from $9,000 a year total (travel, fees, food, shirts) to over $18,000 this year. I have talked to FIRST headquarters and they call it 'growing pains'. Wonder if FIRST is weeding rural teams out???? Or will corporate teams be the only ones to survive?