|
Re: Is there too much focus on starting new teams, and not enough on maintianing the
FIRST was particularly guilty of trying to rapidly start lots of new teams a few years ago with the NASA grants and the KPCB grants. These managed to start some teams that were barely hanging on financially and ended up with little or no technical support. I think things have improved since then, however (not that they're perfect).
The real key is to create teams that can be self-sufficient. Teams that have enough strength that they don't rely on outside help simply to make it through the season. This is something we've tried to work on in Rochester and we'll see in the coming if we've succeeded. One of the key factors is to not have team growth be larger than the community mentoring base can handle.
While I believe we should keep teams in FIRST, I think that there are times when a team needs to die. Sometimes there's too much baggage with a team currently (from teachers to mentors to students) that makes it impossible for it to really succeed. In that case, it may be better for the team simply stop competing for a few years so that the factors that were preventing them from participating successfully no longer exist.
Matt
|