Thread: What do you feel about the growth of FIRST?
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Unread 30-04-2003, 12:13
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Jeff Waegelin Jeff Waegelin is offline
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FRC #0148 (Robowranglers)
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Maybe what is needed is a shift from sponsorship of individual teams to sponsorship of first. I think JosephM is right... as FIRST expands, the focus needs to shift from the corporations to the students. You can't get a 5 or 6-figure sponsorship for every high school in the country. It just won't happen. FIRST needs to work on getting more sponsors for regionals, and for the program as a whole, to reduce the cost of entry for teams. If Dean really wants to have a team in every high school in America, FIRST will need to take steps to make the program accessible to all, not just the long-time veterans with big budgets and secure sponsorships.
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Jeff Waegelin
Mechanical Engineer, Innovation First Labs
Lead Engineer, Team 148 - The Robowranglers
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