[Justin]

Originally Posted by KathieK

Vex is being utilized in geographical areas that cannot financially support an FRC team. And in schools and by groups that don't want to commit to the FRC program. And by others as a bridge between the FLL and FRC programs. .

Let me be clear that I don't question the positive impact of VEX on its own. I also think it is great what Team 40 was able to do with their Mini-FRC efforts I checked that out in Hartford and it looked great.

I think that the issue of regions/etc/not being able to support FRC teams is something that needs to be looked at very closely from the FRC side. I have felt for some time that FIRST/Dean/etc. are not putting as much focus/resources/effort into creating teams that can go the long haul. For example this year we have a Boston regional for the first time, okay good. If one starts to look at the make up of this regional we see a roughly 50/50 mix of rookies and veterans. I know that there was a foundation that gave a bunch of money to start several rookie teams in the Boston area. Now some might say any new teams are a good thing but that doesn't tell the whole story. It seems that each year we witness some new grant from some new foundation/organization/company/agency that has recently discovered FIRST I can think of 3 different ones and I'm sure there are many more. Too often the cycle here is 20 new teams pop up as a result of a new regional or grants from a new sponsor however often these grants are limited to 1 maybe 2 years. Frequently when the grant money goes away so do the teams this is a shame in my opinion. I think it would be good for the FIRST community to think about how we to get the focus back on creating teams that can go the long haul.

Justin