Quote:
Originally Posted by GaryVoshol
And taken to the ridiculous extreme, the counter-argument to that position is that we should cancel FRC entirely until FTC or Vex gets near saturation. After all, that's most cost effective, right?
Either you make a form of FRC available for all-comers, or you are acting in an elite fashion - someone is kept out because they aren't deserving of it yet. Who will make the determination of who can enter?
I don't agree with everything FIRST in Michigan is doing. I have reservations about some aspects of this proposal. But I recognize that we can't stick with business as normal because costs and resources are being stretched to the limits.
Even if these districts can't all be run with a budget of $15,000, they can surely be done much cheaper than regionals. If $500,000 is saved by not holding Detroit and West Michigan as traditional regionals, and 7 districts are run on an average of $20,000 or $40,000 - well, as Mark is wont to say, "That's why we do the math!"
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I am really quite saddened that my entire argument about the economics and financial feasibility of getting FRC into every high school has been essentially
reduced deteriorated into practically a personal "you-are-with-us-or-you-are-against-us" attack of my supposed "elitism".
All I am doing is presenting an opposing view, highlighting any possible glitches that may be on the path forward to expanding FIRST. If no one ever stepped forward in life when they saw a potential flaw in anything, nothing in life would ever succeed. So rather than chime along with an endless series of "Yes! Great Plan! I'm with you 100%! Carry on full steam!", I am pressing issues which I see with this plan to make everyone on the whole think a lot more deeply about this and any potential implications and complications this idea would constitute. Consider it a well-crafted disguise of reverse psychology*.
If I was financially successful in life and had the means, I would give $6k to every high school in the country to start an FRC team, along with a few other charities, like Make a Wish. Without hesitation. But I'm not [yet, hopefully
] at that kind of a position in life, so I give what I can - time and experience - to two FRC teams, several Vex teams, and various times volunteering at FIRST events all over. I estimate that among all of those, I probably spend several hundred hours per year donating my time and efforts to FIRST-related teams and events.
If I didn't care about the program - the mission of FIRST - then I (along with everyone else here) wouldn't do all that, and I certainly wouldn't be here right now.
* But don't take that statement to mean that I will cease to stand by many of my original criticisms of their plan. Things never improve through rubber stamping. And if you don't believe me, I think you and I would see eye to eye on this issue if this quote "Either you make a form of FRC available for all-comers, or you are acting in an elite fashion" was instead worded like this "Either you make a form of FIRST available for all-comers, or you are acting in an elite fashion". It's a bit presumptuous if we (or FIRST) should determine which program a school should participate in; that should be the school's decision based upon the available space, time, resource, faculty, and financial conditions of their school. No one knows what they are capable of more than themselves. The only thing that really matters is that they are involved in some way, and inspiring students.