[Cory]

First off, just because you're going to college now doesn't mean you have to cease involvement with FIRST. That defeats the ideals of FIRST. Every person should give back at least as much as they gained from the program, and hopefully much more.

Yes, there are situations which put teams at a competitive disadvantage, but the competition is the tiniest part of what FIRST is about. Dean has flat out said on numerous occasions that the competition is not fair, and it not meant to be. This is just like real life--it isn't fair, and never will be.

You don't need to have a large budget and throngs of people to build a successful robot, let alone run a successful team (and when I say 'successful team', I mean that the kids are being inspired). Some of the things teams are able to do with very few resources are absolutely amazing.

Like Bill said, there are resources out there. People are willing to help each other, as a result of the ideals of FIRST. Everyone wants to see all the teams at a regional with working robots--even the number one seed. This is one of the reasons that we work with other teams.

Why are we on this website? Because we want to help each other, and make FIRST about the people.