Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Trzaskos
*****Another Rant, it's a little harsh*****
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For those of you stumped on the point of this, 1/5 of all teams competing this season are rookies!!!!! STOP the unchecked growth and look towards sustainability for a change.
If you want to put an FRC team in every American high school, more power to you. If you think that it's going to happen in the next 10 years, you're simply being ignorant. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see this program expand. But at what cost are we expanding? Just because school X has FRC team 3### for 1-2 years doesn't count as putting a team in that school.
It seems that by trying to reach Dean's goal as quickly as possible we're really just leaving students behind.
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I agree with this to an extent. I think its much easier to sustain a team rather than create a new one. Sponsors, teachers, school administration, mentors... at least one of these groups of people would be constant. if your creating a new rookie team, there is a chance your starting from scratch, with no experience from any of the four resources listed above.
You have new groups of students every four years. Just like in College Football. how is Ohio State able to sustain their program and continue to grow while a school like the University of South Florida isn't? (No offense to any fans of the USF Bulls). your going to inspire the same amount of kids in the short and long term. But if you fail to sustain a team and rather create a new team. your discouraging the current students on the veteran team. Take it from me, I've been on two teams that have folded. I was in the very small minority that actually decided to go work with another team.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Line
I think teams have a bit of a different opinion on what exactly defines sustainability.
While I've argued against unchecked growth in the past, I've also questioned my beliefs on the issue and come up with some questions that I can't satisfactorily answer.
I think people need to ask themselves: do I believe it's FIRST's responsibility to partially finance teams? In general I'd argue pretty heavily against it. However, when most people say that FIRST needs to help teams be more sustainable, they mean that FIRST needs to either support the teams financially or to lower the entry costs (which amount to the same thing).
That is the crux of the argument for me right now. FIRST offers enough incentives to join the program. If the learning and real world experience isn't enough, and the excitement and competition isn't enough, the scholarships and friendships certainly should be.
FIRST promotes sustainability by sustaining themselves - the parent organization. If someone can suggest a way to promote sustainability among teams that doesn't require FIRST to hand out more money in some way, then I suspect they'd jump on board.
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Okay, how about this idea. What if FIRST was to charge a "stockpile" fee of $1500 for each rookie team when they register for thei rookie season. That money would become available to teams after their third year and would only be used for paying off a portion of registration. Some sort of system like this would take care of financial duties.
I also think the
frcteams@usfirst.org account should send out a mass e-mail to teams that have yet to register two weeks before the registration deadline for veteran teams, and again the day after registration is supposed to close. In the e-mail, urge the teams to contact FIRST if they are having any non-monitary issues, such as finding mentors, sponsors, etc. FIRST can then pass the information down to the teams respective regional director and the operation can resume from there.
I think these ideas make the most sense and wouldn't be that hard to implement.
just my $0.02