I coach an FRC team and an FTC team. I'm new to FIRST (and teaching)!
We have a great time running an FRC team in a high school with 86 students in four grades. Are we at a disadvantage? Sure. Do our students get a great experience? Absolutely.
So what do I do with my junior high kids? FLL (4th-8th) where they play with legos or FTC (7-12th) where they compete with high schoolers? FIRST needs to tighten this up. I would like one high school program and one junior high program and one elementary program.
The nearest big city (Midland TX) has seven FTC teams, all in high school. All at much bigger schools than ours. Our junior high FTC team competes against high school teams. Take a look at this photo to see what I mean:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9E...ew?usp=sharing
We would not do this in athletics and should not do it in robotics.
I understand that FTC is more affordable and is a smart choice for lots of high schools. I just think that FIRST needs to admit that they have an expensive high school program and own it. Leave FTC to junior high kids and stop running parallel high school programs.