[galewind]

Call me a pessimist, but I really agree with Dave here: with the amount of money that it would cost to send a drive team and two adult mentors to New Zealand, you could instead fund two new rookie teams at nearby schools!

On Friday, I had the opportunity to sit down with some of the Kiwis that were with guests of team 254. They were great people, very enthusiastic, and they were happy to be paired with such a nice team. We chatted, and I wished them the best of success in getting FIRST started in New Zealand. I think it's great that another country is starting to ride the FIRST bandwagon...

...but it's my own opinion that if one of our key missions is to try to bring engineering and inspiration (via access to FIRST) to as many people as possible, there are a lot more efficient ways to do so with the money that we have.

I don't want to redirect your priorities -- if you have your heart set on exploring the world and having your team get to meet wonderful people from across the globe, and affect another country, I think it's a noble idea, and it can change the lives of your students more than just competing in local events.

For me, however, I think that if the goal of our program is to try to change the culture, part of that is being more efficient with our resources. I'm sorry if this sounds like flamebait or hypocritical, especially because we do multiple events ourselves, but when the dollar figures started showing up on the screen, I had thought about what sort of local impact could be made with that money, it just blew my "be quiet and let it go" gasket.