[coldfusion1279]

I think you might find that in an area with no current FIRST teams that you will have difficulty "fielding" a team (of course that depends on population density)...

What I mean is, why even be selective? The more people the team has, the more ideas you get, the better your robot will turn out (if victory and glory is what your after).

I come from a team that had 10 active members in our rookie year (only up to 14 active, with 6 or 7 that contribute to strategy/building). We physically don't have the man-power to apply for things like the Chairman's award since the work load gets to be too large for the students (especially with students who do other activities).

The idea of becoming a business-like team is a very neat idea, don't get me wrong. But part of the reason that companies don't hire people is because they don't have the resources (money and space). People expect to get paid for their ideas in industry, but in FIRST, it doesn't work that way. All students want to do is learn about pneumatics and programming, and have some fun. If you had 800 applicants for the team, then you need to do some downsizing, but in general 60 people with a very gifted 20 people will outperform just those 20 gifted people.

And especially if its the only team in the area, why deny students the opportunity to get involved in something so spectacular?

If you give me a really good answer I will 100% support you in your venture, I would even offer to help (if I wasn't on the east coast) cause it sounds like an interesting idea.