Imagine that we are living in a perfect world, in which U.S. FIRST has all the money they could ever need. Should teams be allowed to attend more than ONE regional event? Please read below prior to voting.
[Reader] “Andrew, what on earth are you talking about? Of course teams should be able to attend more than one regional! How is this even a question? Have you been getting enough sleep?”
[Me] “To the latter question, the answer is no
; to the former, here is why I think this question should be discussed:
Every additional regional event that a team attends this year costs that team $4,000 for the entry fee, as well as any travel and accommodation expenses. Let us suppose, for simplicity’s sake, that for any team attending an additional regional, the average cost of participating is an even $5,000.
Assuming, now, that had this $5,000 not been spent on participating in an additional regional, that the $5,000 would still be in the team treasury. (That is, the team would be able to spend it however it desired.)
Do you believe that this money could be better spent in the interests of achieving the goals of FIRST (to inspire in young people an interest in engineering and science) if the money was not spent on attending an additional regional event, but on engineering outreach instead?”
[Reader] “Hmmmm. I’ll have to think about this one and post a reply…”
[Me] “Here’s some (statistical) food for thought. Last year, 930 teams attended at least one regional event. Of those teams:
-507 teams went to ONE regional.
-285 teams went to TWO regionals.
-122 teams went to THREE regionals.
-16 teams went to FOUR regionals.
For those of you keeping score at home, this means that over 44% of teams attended more than one regional last year.”
-Andrew
P.S. A search of threads started in previous years concerning this subject has been conducted. The results of that search seemed to indicate that further discussion would be appropriate, particularly concerning the use of money spent on attending additional regionals.