[SteveGPage]

I've read through about 25% of the comments, and finally got to the TL;DR point. I know that Frank and FIRST HQ take what is said here seriously, so to add the aggregation of the previous comments, here are my thoughts.

I kept saying that I was sure this season would eventually win me over, as other seasons have - to some degree, I even came to appreciate Lunacy. This season never did. Granted, it was a unique engineering challenge, and I believe that our students, from that perspective, learned a great deal. But FIRST isn't just about the robots (although, I will come back to that concern in a moment), we did this to change the culture. We want to raise up the next generation of Scientists, Technologists, Engineers and Mathematicians - AKA, STEM. Warehouse demos aren't going to get us there. As I sat in the stands watching what was supposed to be the pentacle of the season, the finals on Einstein - I couldn't get excited about it. I was happy for the teams who were there, but the competition had no excitement. There wasn't that level of tension that previous years had. Visitors, friends, and family members who watched it, only would watch it when my team was playing, because it couldn't hold their attention either. I am worried how many students, mentors - as well as perspective new students and mentors we lost in the last 4 months. I have heard from several who won't be back. That makes me very sad.

I said above that FIRST isn't about the robots, but to change the culture. Just as the finals on Einstein celebrates the achievements on the building of the robot, the Chairman's Award is the celebration on how teams have done changing the culture. I know that the finale was supposed to be where that took place, it's own stage, and as much as there was good intentions to do so - that absolutely did not happen. It felt as if the it was being shoved to the end, when so few were there to celebrate with them. That's just wrong. We, because of our arrangements, had a charter bus to catch and tried to stay as long as we could - hours after the award should have been given, but in the end had to leave before the announcement was made. FIRST should consider itself fortunate that the winning team was still there.

FIRST needs to re-evaluate how things are done, and if they align with their core values and mission. This season didn't feel like it did.