Bills Blog- Yes, I’m already counting down to kickoff 2012

[pathew100]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

I think people aren't wrong in saying that if there were a competing product to FRC (because thats what it is, its a product), there would be teams jumping ship left right and center. I almost think HQ has lost some of the vision that FIRST was built on.

Dave stated on CD that he left the GDC for personal reasons relating to GDC decisions he couldn't get behind. Maybe HQ needs a wakeup call.

I suspect this might have something do with FIRST trying to compete with the other robotics competitions out there. (Which, as Dave has stated, is a BAD idea).

I got the same feeling at kickoff when Dean's homework was "You aren't a robotics team, you're a "FIRST" robotics team!"

And then came the minibots which were intended to be built out of an FTC kit. And the vision was FRC teams were supposed to reach out and find FTC teams to work with. Or FTC teams would show up with minibots at FRC events. (All of which flopped as we all know).

Further, some of the criteria (although not specfically stated as such) for winning some of the highest awards is how many other FIRST teams you can spawn. Can you point to a CA or EI winner that hasn't created FRC,FTC,FLL teams? Possibly, but probably not. (What if you created dozens of Vex/BEST/??? teams? Would that matter? It's still promoting science and technology in your school/community after all.)

It seems that things like this are an attempt to get teams involved in FIRST to "close ranks" around the FIRST programs...