[generalbrando]

Absolutely yes. However, I'm not in total opposition to you guys who say no. I think that the program is great and it will obviously expand. And if it expands to becoming obselete, then yes it would have achieved its purpose.

What keeps me up at night is the fact that the infastructure to the competition system cannot handle its current load let alone what's coming this season. Like MK pointed out, we're already turning away two thirds of the competitors from the main event which was envisioned to be open to everyone. Of course those who realized that dream knew it wouldn't last forever if FIRST got too big. We'll never be able to have all the teams that want to go to the big event under one roof again. That happened at the 10th aniversary for the last time I believe. So my first point is that there will be major changes in the way the program is run until it's evolved into something that can literally take care of a team from each and every high school in the US and abroad.

Because of that; because the system must expand and add new regionals, and eventually possibly larger regionals like that one thread rumored (involving multiple fields); because most teams will inevitably lose contact with the central FIRST community: I see the spirit of the program taking on either a different one or else a localized one. At rookie regionals we already see that the spirit of FIRST can be somewhat diminished or changed out of lack of experience and such. And by losing contact with the central FIRST community, I mean to make a rather crude hypothetical/analogy (and this goes against everything FIRST is, but this is a possibility that worries me). That analogy is to every sports team in every high school. How often do you hear of them talking to other teams on the other side of the country. Of course they aren't like a FIRST team. It wouldn't help them to get advice from another team. But do you see what I mean? The idea that the whole thing becomes so big that you interact with your local comeptition and don't really worry much about the big community except what comes down from FIRST hq.

Now this isn't what I see as the only way things will happen. I do believe that in some way there is inevitably a lot of change coming in our future. FIRST is unique, so applying any other system to it is really just stupid and I realize that completely. But I still worry about what it will become over the years because it certainly can't remain just as it is. I'll leave the prevention part of the problem to further discussion and add any ideas I can think of later.