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

[E. Wood]

Originally Posted by pathew100

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...

To answer your question, yes creating VEX teams count. Our team has helped to start three local competitions including one vex and over 50 other smaller (FLL, FTC and VEX) teams. The vast majority of these teams were VEX based. When we won the RCA this year the judges did not say we helped create 19 FIRST teams and over 30 vex teams. They simply gave the total numbers. As for the whole VEX versus FIRST idea, I think it’s rather silly. We all need to remember that the robot is just a tool to inspire the students. Who cares what parts it’s made of? Wishing one fails is not in the best interest of anyone let alone the students involved in that particular program.