[billbo911]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Based on my conversations with many folks during the season, there is a very large and (temporarily?) quiet component of the full FIRST community that has exactly the same concern. If this is indeed ever revealed to be the plan, I hope that EVERYONE impacted by such a decision will let the FIRST Board Of Directors know loudly and clearly what they think. **

Although the cRIO may have been donated, the rest of the new control system wasn't. We still had to pay for all the other parts, such as the speed controllers, power distribution boards, digital sidecars, breakout boards, cameras, routers, drivers stations, etc.). And for all those components that were custom-designed for the FRC competition, there was the cost of the development and production set-up for those items. Only a portion of the development costs were donated by the suppliers - the remainder had to be recovered from our registration fees.

-dave

** Because it will be the Board, not the FIRST staff, that will make this decision. Right now, the Board is seriously disconnected from the teams in FIRST. They don't understand how "small" costs like these really impact this community. There is little direct, personal understanding of the impact of their decisions on the teams. During the recent combined Board Of Directors / Executive Advisory Board meeting in Atlanta, the question was asked "how many of you work directly with a team and have experience as a mentor?" Out of the entire room of people, only one hand went up. I think that is a huge problem.



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Originally Posted by AdamHeard

All right, how do we communicate with them?



Not sure how unreasonable it is, but setting up a program where each of them spends at least a weekend with a team might be a good experience.

Weekend??? Try two to three weeks, or more. (I know that would be unrealistic to expect, but it would really give a good feel for reality.)

Adam, this is a fantastic idea!!! My concern is that the Board Of Directors / Executive Advisory Board would spend that time with many of the big name, well established, fully funded teams. That is well and good, but by no means represents the vast majority of the FIRST community. If we want them to see the full impact of making decisions, they need to observe the full range of teams that exist in FIRST. From the teams that are able to build two fully functional robots per year (one practice, one competition) to the teams that can barley get the KOP bot built and running in six weeks.