[Andy Baker]

Many people are reacting quickly to this decision by FIRST and FIRST's Board of Directors. I would guess that it was a tough decision for them to make.

Let's look at the facts in this situation:

1. FIRST will not leave Disney. FIRST has never posed this as an option, and this has always been non-negotiable.

2. FIRST has a 40% growth rate. IF they were going to let Nationals expand this year, then they would've had to limit it within the next year or two. Limiting nationals in some way was bound to happen.

3. FIRST has discussed the option of limiting Nationals for the past two years. They limited it slightly this past year, but not much. This could've happened last year.

4. FIRST did a good job this year of polling us for opinions. They came to our turf for the FIRST Forums, so more of us could weigh in. They watch these popular forums on Chief's site to get the opinions of what people think, as they wade through the numerous posts.

5. Travel to Nationals is and always will be very costly. Students really need to look at this from their sponsors' and parents' viewpoints. Teams do alot of fundraising (including ours) in order to go to Nationals... to go to Walt Disney World. Many teams spend between $15-$25k on travel alone to Nationals.

Looking at these facts, I suggest these changes of opinions:

FIRST knows that there will be backlash to this opinion. This was a tough decision for them to make. Let's look at who made this decision... the Board of Directors. These are people who make multi-million dollar decisions weekly. Maybe I'm gullible... maybe I have too much blind faith... but I would guess that they made this decision for good reasons.

We really gotta not focus on Nationals so much. Many people look forward to Nationals as a time to visit friends on other teams, and to check out everyone's robot. Everyone can still do this... this is a free event that is open to the public. If your team doesn't qualify, you can still go and enjoy the event. This sounds a bit crass... but it is the situation that we have to deal with now.

The fact that many of you are saying that you are "shocked" and "floored" is suprising. If you are shocked, then you have not been listening to FIRST for the past two years. They have been saying that we need to focus more on Regionals and they cannot handle expanding Nationals. This is not new information.

Think of this... rookie teams who are learning about FIRST and beginning to understand the competition structure are ALWAYS suprised that the National Championship was previously open to all teams. One of a rookie team's first question is always... "how do we qualify for Nationals?"

My main point is this: FIRST had to limit Nationals. We gotta deal with it.

What we may have a chance to change is how teams qualify for Nationals... please, let's discuss this, as opposed to simply ranting about the fact that Nationals was limited.

We have been constructive before... we can do it again. Don't be destructive. I would bet money that FIRST's qualification rules are not carved in stone... but the fact that they will limit nationals is here to stay.

I'll start: I would be willing to give up the rule about giving automatic qualification to the 28 original teams. This is simply my opinon. I can see a rule that gives an auto-birth to all teams who have been in it every year, but not to all of the original 28 teams. (oops, I changed my mind on this... see the post below).

Andy B.