[nicholsjj]

I will add a bit on SkillsUSA as I have been involved with it way longer than FIRST (my father has been his school's main SkillsUSA advisor 14 of the last 17 years). I think the first main question was how do they keep so safe with little supervision. Each contest has a penalty in it to where if you violate a major industry safety rule you lose 10% of your overall score and if you do it twice you are disqualified from the competition. The second part is yes Skills is wayyy more individualized than FIRST as far as competition goes. Many Skills Chapters do have their own social events, but their is more emphasis on the individual. As a note here the school chapter I was a part of had around 500 members to now the one I am leading has around 20 members. For the GP side of things Skills places a big focus on community service. Each year at nationals I was able to go and do a major community project such as building a house or building a community garden. The biggest similarity between the two programs are the tie ins with industry. CAT, Lowes, Snap-on, Stanley, and Milwaukee tools are the major sponsors with many other big time donors for Skills and I have personally seen CEOs of these companies walk up to students at the end of nationals and offer them major employment opportunities along with a full ride scholarship on the spot. I think many of you undervalue the level of competition as the high end students at nationals are unreal. Most of the time the construction competition winner in which the students build a miniature house in 2 days is usually decided by the hammer marks in the wood because everything else is perfect. Every competition has a knowledge exam worth points as well. Some sates competitions such as Texas, California, and Michigan (wow how similar to FIRST) come down to even this much as well. The final competition aspect that I like more for Skills over FRC/FTC is that the students compete by themselves with no coach/teacher interaction. The reason for this is that all student and adult competitors are required to be from vocational programs in which they are trained daily on instead of how any student can be a part of FIRST. As for size Skills had more students than VEX did at Louisville both times I have gone so I would say it would also be bigger than FIRST as well as far as just a large event Skills Nationals vs. FIRST worlds, but Skills Worlds is a smaller competition. I would say both FIRST and Skills do a fantastic job at accomplishing their mission to empower and Inspire students in their fields. Without both I know I wouldn't be a robotics/technology educator right now. I agree with MoMo you really can't compare the two equally like you can with VEX/FIRST.