[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by AndrewPospeshil

Thanks to 1640 for the video!

I'm glad that this meeting happened - it shows that FIRST is open to input from teams. The meeting seemed relatively unproductive - expected. Emotions are high, and the kind of people who would miss part of the day to attend are probably the more passionate ones about the issues at hand. A few (very, very rambling) thoughts:

• The whole concern with Detroit as a venue is understandable but imo an overreaction. FIRST would not send thousands upon thousands of kids to a city if they believed it would be unsafe. Not to mention the city is demoing and rebuilding a huge portion of the area between downtown and midtown in the coming years, so I have confidence the city will not be as horrible as some seem to think it will be. If STL was good enough for FIRST's standards (which it had to be, evidently), then Detroit should be too.
• The "0 alumni on the FIRST board" statement was pretty jarring to read/hear but I guess it makes sense. Let's figure someone has to be around, oh 30 years old to have the business experience required to be on the first board (just a rough estimate from a high schooler who doesn't know what he's talking about). That means that they would've competed from roughly 2000-2003. FIRST was a vastly different place back then. Even if they had wanted to hire young alumni onto their board, they would not be as reflective of today's FIRST community as alumni who have competed much more recently.
• I think the main thing that a lot of people are still forgetting is that not every team has the same goal. Some just want to build a robot, compete at a regional (or 2 districts), and go home then learn from their experiences. Some teams want to win Einstein. There's nothing wrong with either. But FIRST is faced with an interesting dilemma: who do they lean towards? It's become obvious that they can't really cater to both kinds of teams - the program is just way too large. So do they create a model that helps mid- to low-level teams get a taste of the CMP experience? Or do they create a more exclusionary but ultimately more exciting model that pushes veteran powerhouses farther? This model also has the benefit of being more exciting for outsiders, but is less sustainable.
• Which brings me to my next thought: team sustainability. After the 2CMP announcement, many veteran teams, members, and mentors were outraged. Some claimed that they would just leave FIRST as they saw that the program was just no longer desirable to them. However, the much less often heard story is the rookie teams who don't have the resources or more importantly the drive to continue for subsequent years. They didn't advance to any level of competition above the minimum, so a lot of people would just give up. Now there are rookie teams who would use this only as motivation to get better and make DCMP or CMP, but I couldn't tell you how many rookies fall into either category. FIRST kind of needs to decide which group they think is more advantageous to aid - the established veterans, who are the cornerstones of their communities, role models for rookies, and even mentors? Or do they support rookie teams looking for just a taste of victory, who might never win Einstein but just want to travel outside their state and see robots from all across the world?

I wonder at exactly what level this decision was made. Did it really go to the executive board? Or was it made at a level a little more tuned-in to FIRST teams?