[Jack Jones]

The idea that the price increase was necessary and that FIRST is worth it in no way contributes to growing the organization. We can cut costs by eliminating useless kit components and reusing controllers till the cows come home; it would save but a few teams and would have little effect on recruiting more.

What we have here is an egocentric grassroots organization. Each team acting in their own self-interest; very few – you may know the exceptions – working hard toward the common good. What we end up with is a dog-eat-dog existence where the fortunate few align to beat up the rest. Oh there’s the stated ideal of cooperative competition, where we shave points and share parts, but near the end of the day on Saturday we pretty much know who’ll be picking whom. It is, for a large part, scholastic and corporate Darwinism that drives the competition.

Cynical? You bet! Accurate? Not really. I’m sure that most of the sponsors start out with altruistic intentions; I know that the engineers, teachers, parents, and mentors just want to do right by the kids. But as long FIRST continues to grow from the bottom up instead of top down it will soon reach a point where an educator, no matter how dedicated, would have to be nuts to take on teams that survived. It will be then when FIRST gets frozen in time, thereafter to melt slowly away.

So, what the heck does this rant have to do with increasing costs? Everything! The competition cost to the teams should not be going up; it should go down to ZERO. We should not only be out soliciting companies to sponsor our schools, but should also be using our influence on them to sponsor FIRST as a whole. If their intentions are indeed altruistic, then their name and logo on the sponsor board and in the pamphlets will thank them. If the engineers just want to do right by the kids, then instead of two, three, or four of them helping one team, they could share themselves, their facilities, and their resources. (By the way, can you name more than two sponsors of the events? Have you dropped them a line to say how grateful you are?)

I believe that FIRST should come to the epiphany that it cannot continue to exist as it is. However, sudden change would produce sudden chaos, so we would need to evolve a step at a time. A good start would be to recruit enough Regional sponsors so that entry fees go away. Each and every team could then go to at least two, maybe three, which would justify the six weeks of angst they’ve all just endured. A second would be a “mi casa es su casa” approach to the build. That is, replace the exemption of costs when performed by a team member or sponsor with the exemption of costs when performed by any FIRST member or sponsor. That is also, an open door policy toward the community’s teams – kind of like ChiefDelphi.com, but up close and personal.

IMHO, what we really need is a summit, where the movers and shakers in FIRST come together to devise a plan to reorganize toward a utopia where all teams are created as equal as possible and with equal opportunities at the start of each season.

I’ll not hold my breath and turn blue waiting for this to happen. After all, as the Godfather said: “We are not Communists.” What I have done was, and is, to act on my instincts. Last year I lobbied my employer for a considerable chunk of change; we immediately funneled every last cent directly to FIRST regional operations. Our human and material resources went mostly to “our” team, but even then we did our best to share what we had. Seems to me that if enough do likewise we can forego the summit.