[Cory]

People have been referencing this being a necessary step for FRC to continue growing.

I say why do we want FRC to keep growing?

It's an unrealistic goal for FRC to be in every school in the country. It's not happening; not now, not ever; not even if there's a regional event within 3 blocks of every high school in America.

Why do we want to continue to oversaturate local economies? Most teams are barely staying afloat year to year as it is. Many teams have to drop out after a few years.

It's been my opinion for a very long time that FIRST ought to spend all their effort making their FRC teams as strong as they possibly can, not worrying about being able to claim abc% of of schools in state xyz have FRC teams.

How is the program going to be better off having 3,000 teams, with most of them not having proper resources (mentors, teachers, corporate sponsors, etc), vs 1500 teams that have a strong base to work from.

Prior to dropping VEX, I saw FTC as the most viable platform for having a team in every school in the country. At this point I'd be perfectly happy to see a period of a few years where we see zero rookie teams, and no veteran teams dropping out.

That said, I don't like this idea at all. I don't like change in general, but I've got to say I'm glad it's not CA that's following this model.

I have a couple of main issues with this plan:

1) Regionals will feel more like high school sporting events. They will not be nearly as impressive as they currently are. Which is going to look better to sponsors, potential benefactors, etc: taking them to a high school gym, without all the A/V, and everything else that makes a FIRST event special, or taking them to a professional sporting venue filled with FIRST teams, professional A/V, etc? It'll be like a bunch of offseason events.

Now people may argue IRI, and yes, IRI is better than most regionals--but for a couple key reasons. At IRI you have 72 of the best teams in the country. It could literally be held in a cornfield in the middle of Indiana and nobody would care, because the competition is simply that good. IRI also has amazingly dedicated volunteers, who have been doing this for the better part of a decade. How many of these district events will have planners with this much experience? Not many.

2) Quality/variety of teams. This probably won't be noticed in MI, since MI is home to many of FIRST's best teams, but I can guarantee it will be elsewhere. In states without an abundance of top teams, the competitions will not be very exciting. It's boring watching FRC events without good robots,and without having non-local talent coming in to the historically weaker events, you end up with the same group of teams, and a not very exciting competition. Even if we disregard such situations, one of the best parts of a regional event is getting to meet and play with new teams from all over the country (and Canada, Mexico, Brazil, etc).

Such a situation leaves me with 2 conclusions: either everyone stays home so they can maximize their number of events, or all the powerhouse teams don't play at home, so that they can see some variety, and play with the best of the best. I'm not a fan of either situation.