[Jon K.]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Karthik and I were having a discussion over which sponsor fields the most succussful teams perennially. It basically came down to 4 major sponsors with real claims for it.
GM: 65, 66, 67, 68, 1114, 1503 (70 and 494 are also sponsored by Chrysler, so we decided to leave them out)

NASA (only "NASA Base" teams, including all NASA grant teams would be unfair): 116, 118, 122, 233, 254, 330, 364, 368

Delphi: 45, 47, 48, 703, 868

UTC: 173-180


Which do you think can field the strongest line up?

Note: I said "most successful" not "best" for those of you who don't like to label FIRST teams as the "best".

While I find it interesting that you bring up the UTC block as I like to call it, you are missing team 181 in there, and also a lot of UTC teams that have been up and coming in recent years, although haven't neccessarily gained as much attention. I must say though that you really can't judge a program based off of sponsors, as some teams only get money from a sponsor, and others get an engineering support staff devoted to the program. Also to single out any one sponsor in FIRST as being most successful based on wins is foolish as most wins in a competition are based a lot on luck, and a lot on strategy. I agree with Ken, as well as that I feel that any sponsor of any FIRST team deserves recognition because they realize what an amazing program FIRST is.