[Jaine Perotti]

Chris -

I both agree and disagree with you on several points. I will try to make it brief (which is not my usual fashion ).

I believe that the ideals of FIRST have done anything but change. When the founders of FIRST were just beginning to dream about designing a robotics competition, they all had the same ideas in mind - inspire and educate young people to be more aware of science and technology fields. I believe that this is still the most fundamental goal that has guided FIRST to be where it is today. I don't see any evidence of these core values eroding - I believe that FIRST is doing its job when it comes to promoting this ideal. At the rate FIRST is growing, more and more students are being enabled to view science and technology in a positive light. More and more are learning things that they have never even dreamed of knowing before. FIRST is inspiring more and more students to become engineers and scientists - students who would otherwise never have been given the opportunity to explore those careers (I know I am one of them).

However, I do see that the issues that you have brought up are becoming more and more of a source of frustration for many FIRST teams. I don't think you meant that the "ideals" of FIRST are changing, so much as you meant that the "methods of growth" FIRST is encouraging teams to use are dis-satisfactory to certain team "types". The "type" of team I think you are talking about is the underfunded, under mentored team which strives to break even at the end of each season. This type of team is much different from say, the "type" of team which has many mentors, a strong corporate sponsorship, and a surplus amount of money at the end of each season. I think that I tend to agree with you that the ones who are struggling to break even DO in fact have a disadvantage to the teams with bountiful resources. Looking at the way my team is now (we are the "type" which struggles every year for money), I see that it is virtually impossible to go around funding new teams (although we can offer mentorship) or initiating the sort of change which requires a large amount of dedicated and knowledgeable individuals. We are certainly not devoid of those types of motivated people - in fact, I would say that we have a very high ratio of those who are willing to throw their heart and soul into FIRST compared to those who have different priorities. However, our problem is that relative to the size of the team (which is quite small), that high ratio means that there are still very few of them. Because we have so few people, it is hard for us to, for example, start 10 lego teams per year.

I do think that you have a valid point by bringing up this frustration. It is indeed very hard for small, rural type teams to bring in enough revenue to merely pay for registration fees, let alone begin trying to make broad culture change by initiating new community programs. By no means am I saying it is impossible - take a look at team 103's excellent rural support resources. However, I recognize what you are saying when you mention that there is a problem. I think that FIRST needs to make its program more economical to different demographic areas. If FIRST can make the program more economical, then I believe it will be able to do its job even better; reach the areas that need FIRST the most (poverty-ridden areas), and allow existing teams to expend more money on the culture-change part of the FIRST program. I don't know how exactly FIRST should go about doing this - in fact, I don't have the slightest inkling. However, I do believe that unless FIRST changes something about the economic accessibility of the program, the founders' dream of "a FIRST team in every high school" will not be able to become a reality. As it has been reported already, there are currently not enough resources to support a large amount of FIRST teams in a small geographic area. The FIRST program is a "money-guzzler", as wonderful as it is, and in order for the program to spread, I agree that there needs to be reform in the areas of funding.

However, I just want to add one thing...

When you say that the large, corporate teams tend to "stamp out" the smaller ones, I would like to disagree. As I have already stated, my team is a very small team. <begin-slightly-shameless-but-hopefully-inspiring-plug> However, even though we too have been underfunded, rural, and small, we have managed to see great successes in our five years of participation. Last year, we won the UTC New England Regional, which is well attended by older, veteran teams, and we were close finalists at the New Jersey Regional. We won the Delphi's "Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award" at BOTH regionals - and we only have the help of one engineer. In Atlanta, we were undefeated in qualifying rounds, set the record of the highest score for the season, 230 points (along with team 45 and 1272, a rookie), and managed to be division finalists (losing to the alliance which eventually went on to win the whole thing). We did incredibly well for having the "small team" disadvantages that you describe! </end slightly-shameless-plug> I believe that your team can do it too. Take any group of individuals, no matter how small, and motivate them ... and you can go on to do great things. Take a group of people and transform them into a team, and you can overcome many of the toughest obstacles. As other have mentioned, in order to become one of the "greats", you must first build a solid foundation of team work and support. This is not easy, and it can take years and years to achieve. But once you do it, the sky is truly the limit.

Good luck,

-- Jaine

...and oops, that wasn't exactly brief...