[dtengineering]

The thread title asks "What makes a team a full FIRST team?"

That's a great question, although to be perfectly honest that is a question that is repeatedly addressed in many ways, from the point that the Chairman's Award is the highest award, to the prominence of G.P. as an important characteristic not just for teams, but for individuals.

A great way to address things in more detail would be to discuss positive aspects of teams that you admire. Consider the difference in:

I really admire teams who:
-fully embrace the ideas of coopertition and gracious professionalism
-support FIRST or other STEM activities to the best of their abilities
-attempt to win both robot and non-robot awards
-always stay for award ceremonies and cheer for whoever wins an award

It says the exact same thing as the original post, but in a positive manner. It also avoids attempting to classify some teams as "not being full FRC teams" but rather starts to lay out your version of positive team aspects that you admire, rather than pet peeves.

On the other hand, To say that a team is a "full FIRST team" because they pay $5000, is kind of like saying that an athlete is a professional athlete if they get paid to play a sport. Technically, it is correct, but I'd say that someone like Wayne Gretzky or Derek Jeter more fully embraces the concept of "professional" than some of their equally well-paid colleagues. And I'd also say that the Hall of Fame teams have more fully embraced the spirit and achieved the goals of FIRST than my team did in our best years. We were certainly a "full FIRST team", but we definitely had role models we looked up to when attempting to define what that might mean.

Jason