Quote:
Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery
It would be great if FIRST had the same funding, publicity, and support as the athletic teams, but I don't think FIRST should usurp their place entirely. Sure, there are lessons in FIRST that are much harder to get, if possible at all, from sports. But sports have value in our society too.
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To say that any society that funds athletic programs over FIRST needs to reorganize their priorities is a dramatic view.
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When the University of Helsinki is the one who come up with a 50% increased success rate for curing brain cancer by using electromagnetic waves even though some US universities spent twice as much money on it, or when it's 3 non-US universities that use nanocarbon tubes and flourescent jelly from Jellyfish in order to study how the preliminary stages of cancer attack T-cells in the body, or when ... well perhaps nothing's wrong, nevermind.
The sad truth is inherent in what you're saying: sports, entertainment, and recycling money to make more money still reign supreme over science and technology. The point is that FIRST needs to make sure they do more to encourage teams to have an extended business plan rather than "start xyz teams by next year". If it takes convincing a school that they need to take away a little funding from sports to fund a FRC team then so be it -- maybe that's a small part of the reason for Dean's shift in homework assignments in 2007. Science and Technology NEEDS that support, publicity, and funding. There's nothing dramatic about it.