[MentorDanK]

First of all I really like the First organization and competition format. They stand for a the right stuff. I don't want to be too judgemental until I hear more about the new fomat. BUT,

I agree with the concerns of additional costs and time requirements of students that are already taxed with school work. We had a constant problem getting students to build meetings because of other commitments. Many just don't have the time to commit to an FRC type format.

In a time of school budgets that are being reduced the cost of the new new format will discourage schools from getting involved. Also in our area many students are being put into portable class rooms with no access to any special power tools. That was one of the attactive features of the Vex format. We had 2 teams design and build there robots using minimal power tools, in a portable class room.

For several years the company that sponsors my FTC teams sponsored an FRC team. Because of the expense, the dificulty of getting a facility with the proper tool, space requirements and mulitple schools to form a single team with enough students, the teams would work for a year or two and then folded. Another problem they had was attracting teachers to sponsor the teams. We only have one teacher willing to stay after school and put in the hours required.
Now the company sponsors 4 teams from 2 schools and was planning on expanding to 1-2 more schools next year. With the added expense of the new format they may only have funding for 1 team for each of the existing 2 schools. I'm sure that our sponsors will step back and take a hard look at supporting the Vex run competition. Its just sounds like more bang for the buck.

Something that I have not seen any comments about was team size. In the new format will the team size still be restricted to 10. I would hope that it would increase to 20 because the tasks will be more involved.

I think that the improvements in sensor and gears would be nice, but I'm not sure they will be worth the cost.