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Originally Posted by KenWittlief
If we want the forest to grow, to have a tree at every HS in the US, at any point in our lifetime, then we need to address these issues.
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"Those issues" will not help those trees be any healthier. Teams don't fold because they arn't winning. Teams usually fold because of management, funding, and commitment reasons. Whether they are regional champions or last place makes no difference. 64 won the most awards any team has ever won in a single season, including a trip all the way to EINSTIEN FINALS in 2005, yet didn't return in 2006. 16 won the CHAIRMAN'S AWARD and didn't return the next year (but have since come back).
If you truly beleive that in order to help Team A survive, you must inhibit Team B, then you are sadly mistaken.
Ken, the FIRST Robotics Competition isn't a competition about who can "work the hardest" or drive the best. It is about who can build the best robot.
The FIRST program as a whole isn't about winning at all. It is about inspiring the next generation of engineers, scientists, mathematicians, programmers, etc. In many cases, students on these under-funded, under-mentored teams can be just as inspired as the rest of us. When 116 does poorly, we try and learn from it and keep it from repeating.
Another example from 116. In 2003, we had an animation team of 3 students. The year before (2002), they had produced something that, well, didn't exactly sweep anyone off their feet. Each of them had to bring their own computers to work on it. No mentors, no expensive, fancy add-on software, no real training. They worked their butts off for 6 weeks. Their end result was an animation that finished in the top 3 at every regional it was entered in (which was 5 by the 2003 AVA rules...even though we only went to 2), including winning the Lonestar Regional Autodesk Award for Visualization. One of those students is now at MIT, and another interned with the Dept. of Defense helping animate combat simulations.
And building off of Andy's comment. Many years ago, Dave Miller, a mentor working with a certain NASA team decided that he didn't like something with FIRST. At that time, it had no programming aspect at all. What did he do? Found BotBall. He founded a robotics competition that suited his style and what he felt should and needed to be accomplished by it.