[Ryan F.]

And now we’re back to the good old debate over funding. The big problem here is that there are really two classes of first teams in this department. Those who easily have it, and those who barely get it. So here’s my opinions from someone on a team who doesn’t readily have loads of $$.

First stresses teams being self sufficient organizations, almost your own mini-business. This is where I have a big problem with the price increases. Why?...I’ve asked…is the price being increased so much. People have nicely responded and offered me financial reports and such, but nowhere have I ever found a dollar for dollar breakdown that justifies a need for 1000 extra dollars.

First is our supplier. If you were running a business, and your supplier all of a sudden said that they are increasing your fees by 20%, you wouldn’t just blindly accept that. Your first reaction here would be to demand evidence of why these supplies cost more now. What you would expect in return would be the exact cost of what you were receiving, such as our kit of parts+regional. In order for FIRST to increase the prices such as they are, they need to justify it by showing the cost of the kit+ the realistic cost to them of one team at a regional. Its bad business not to be giving us anything like this, and business in the real world that did this would lose their contracts. The reason they FIRST will never is that they are a total monopoly. No-one else has anything like this, and that is completely understandable. FIRST must respect that, and act responsibly.

Then we get back to the problem between some teams having lots of money, and others having none. In my belief, FIRST could have worked out this price increase a lot better than they did. Many teams, like us, barely have the money to do one regional and build our robot, yet you see other teams that seem to have more money than they know what to do with. I think it would have made a lot more sense for them to increase the cost of a second regional by 1000. This would shift the extra financial burden to those who can handle it. You have teams saying 1000 isn’t much to raise, when that would have been 1/7 of our teams total $ this year.

People need to remember that money is a big part of FIRST, and that tons of money isn’t readily available to everyone. It’s one of those inevitable things we must accept, but there are many better ways it could be dealt with.