White House Petition for FIRST Funding

[buchanan]

Speaking as an adult, I think one of the best things we can do for the next generation is stop borrowing money that they, not we, will have to pay back.

This might be a great thing were there money in hand to pay for it, but there's not. As with any new spending, every marginal dollar would be borrowed.

If engineers cannot appreciate that there's no free lunch, who can?

Sorry. The thought is worthy, but the idea is ultimately bad. No support here.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by buchanan

Speaking as an adult, I think one of the best things we can do for the next generation is stop borrowing money that they, not we, will have to pay back.

This might be a great thing were there money in hand to pay for it, but there's not. As with any new spending, every marginal dollar would be borrowed.

If engineers cannot appreciate that there's no free lunch, who can?

Sorry. The thought is worthy, but the idea is ultimately bad. No support here.

I hope you're not trying to softball in a political argument here. Either indirectly through government contracts or right from federal agencies, FIRST thrives because it is already backed by the government at its center. BAE, BAH, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Harris, General Dynamics, Halliburton, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Honeywell, L3 Communications, MIT, Motorola, Verizon, Raytheon, Siemens, Rockwell Collins, Texas Instruments, Northrop Grumman, Rolls Royce, Mitsubishi, and more are all on two lists: the top 100 defense contractors in the United States, whose contracts total in the range of 6 to 7 million USD per day, and the top 100 FIRST contributors, who are title sponsors of events, provide grants and mentors to teams, and are major integral sponsors to some of the powerhouse teams. FIRST would not exist at all without some of these, and would not be the power it is now if not for defense contract money that eventually trickles down a tiny bit to teams. The third largest industry in the United States also employs a majority of FRC mentors, regional committee members, and global board members, and also takes a major part in the second largest portion of our federal budget->deficit->debt. It's a slippery slope I'm not going to comment on, so I would avoid it here.

I will not avoid saying that I look forward to the inevitable, creative rejection letter that will be received if this petition earns enough signatures to merit a response, like most other wh.gov petitions have earned. /s

[buchanan]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I hope you're not trying to softball in a political argument here.

This whole thread is a political discussion. If a petition to government action ain't political, nothing is. If CD has a policy against such, it should go bye-bye.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by buchanan

This whole thread is a political discussion. If a petition to government action ain't political, nothing is. If CD has a policy against such, it should go bye-bye.

No, this post is about getting FIRST into the eye of the general public through a website. It has turned into a political discussion. I would request that if you don't like my teams approach to outreach PM me and we can discuss it.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by buchanan

This whole thread is a political discussion. If a petition to government action ain't political, nothing is. If CD has a policy against such, it should go bye-bye.

Glad to see you understand.

Just to be clear, I've never been behind the idea of aimlessly throwing money-bombs at FIRST. In the past two years, Virginia (the state in which 1086 and 422 operate) has netted +2 FRC teams, but has had 9 rookies register. That means we lost seven teams that last competed in 2011 or 2012. One of the teams was the RAS at Virginia and the Highest Rookie Seed on Galileo. I have actually sat in a room with people and I just kept asking the questions "What are we doing wrong? Why aren't we doing enough?" Because it is obvious we are not doing enough. Virginia veterans are not doing enough to support rookie teams. The Mid-Atlantic does not set exemplary examples you see in the Midwest, Northeast, Michigan, California, Texas, New England, and Canada, and it's something that needs to be fixed even though I have neither the time nor physical availability or training to help. I'm just throwing that out there. I shot off a bunch of emails to rookies last year, only heard back from two, and both said they were fine. Only 1 still exists. Whether it be at a global, regional, or state board, or team, we are doing something wrong and throwing money at the problem is not going to fix it, that much I know.

We try to plant trees in the desert. There may be enough money to throw together for a rookie KOP and registration fee, but there are improper human resources, improper or incomplete preparation or training, and a host of other things. Granted, nothing can prepare you for a rookie FRC season, but in trying to spread the gospel of FIRST, we try to sell a product some school districts and communities can't buy yet for a variety of reasons.

FIRST is important to us. It's important to me. When we start teams that just aren't ready to exist yet, they will fail, and when the time comes for a team to GROW there instead of just come into existence at the fling of some veteran team's wand and a trickle of cash, it won't happen. Why would the community want to get burned again by robotics?

The whole organization is doubtlessly on the precipice of a huge boom. The students who participated in the beginning of the modern era of FRC are now employed, settling down, and may be looking to mentor a team (and 1114 and 2056 can tell you what FIRST alumni-mentors can do to a program). The American economy is starting to actually perk back up. The organizational infrastructure of FIRST is shifting the competition structure to prepare and enable us for this. This isn't a time to push for inorganic and possibly disruptive or destructive growth.

That's all, I guess.

[pfreivald]

While I agree that the discussion is inherently political and pretending otherwise is a bit silly, I'll let that go to say this:

I'm inclined to agree that the focus should be on sustainability, and not expansion.

Our non-profit has created two FRC teams in three years, one of which fell apart after one year due to reasons that had nothing to do with money or build space or even mentors, while the other is going strong and building wonderfully. Invite parents and students from other schools into your team for a year, or two, or three, or five. When they are ready -- with experienced mentors and students, eager sponsors, build space, tools, etc, spin them off into their own team where they can recruit a bunch of rookies from their own school/town/community.

If I were a betting man, I'd wager that this kind of organic growth will in the long run be much more successful than showing up at a school with a pile of money and saying, "Hey, who wants to build robots?"

The current method is a bit too Darwinian for my tastes.

[wilsonmw04]

as of the time of this post: 165 signers. The first hurddle, and by far the easiest has been completed.

Thanks to Jeremy G, from Lancaster, CA, for getting us over the hump!

[wilsonmw04]

36 hours into it and and we have over 400 signers. Not bad :-)

If you are so inclined, please post the link on your teams Facebook page and twitter feeds.

[Michael Hill]

I don't think limiting to FIRST is such a good idea. There are other robotics programs that schools should be able to participate in.

[Calvin Hartley]

Now I don't want to get all political or controversial here, but...
I must agree with what some are saying. I don't like the idea of federal funding for multiple reasons. First off, yes, FIRST is incredible and (proper) growth is excellent. But I don't think the government should be paying for it. Now I'm no expert, and I'm probably about the farthest from, but I think we should be cutting spending, not adding to it. I think if we want growth, we as teams that already exist need to get out there and facilitate it.

Just my two cents.

[Taylor]

Wow. Lots of piling on here. Let's all take a step back and breathe.

Nobody's writing a bill here. Just a note to the White House that says, "Hey, we like this thing, it helps us and it helps our future, and we wouldn't mind it if some of our tax dollars went this way." It's not a mandate, it's not a demand. It's a suggestion.

If nothing else, it will perk up the White House's ears a bit and let them see that these programs - which they know about; we've sent teams there and a few presidents have appeared on broadcasts - are still around, are still viable, and are worthy of consideration for federal funding.

Maybe they'll come out and say, "You know what, this program is great, but we already do fund it through NSF and NASA grants" - and that's fine because that means they're thinking about it, talking about it, addressing it, and the first step to culture change, or any successful marketing campaign, is creating Top Of Mind Awareness.

Add another signature to the list.

[BugByte]

I agree with many of the criticisms raised and if this was actually possibly going to become law I wouldn't vote for it. However, the history of responses on this website shows that it is just a way to get some kind of response from the government and spread awareness of an issue. I signed.

[IKE]

I had been interested in an idea similar to this. I called it:

"Mentor Match".

If your program was an approved Mentorship Program, then mentors could apply for a Federal Match when filing for their taxes. The match would be an exemption that would be the equivalent of up to the minimum wage value x 200 Hrs. maximum. For instance, if you make $20/hour of $40K/year, your federal income tax rate is probably on the order of 10%. 200 hours = $4,000 deduction which would in turn be paid to your charity to the tune of $400. Assuming a minimum wage of $7/hr, then the cap would be $1,400. This would be the approximate deduction for someone making $100k/year or more (At $100K your income tax rate is around 14%, 200 hours at $50/hr = $10,000 * 14%= $1,400).

My thought was to keep it fairly general in the sense of "Mentorship Programs" so that programs like Big Brother Big Sisters, Scouts, 4-H, .... Might be able to get some additional benefit from the hours a Mentor provides.

[wnewton00]

As many people have stated, the best thing about this is the potential to get people taking about FIRST, people who haven't heard of it before, possible future mentors & coaches. We have a new mentor for 1086 this year who had not heard of the program until his coworker's daughter joined our team and she told him about it.
I also coach FLL & previously Jr.FLL, which I did not do until my daughter joined 1086 and then through that exposure, my 7 year old son DEMANDED to participate as well. So I, who had not heard of FIRST until then, started a team.
Getting people to talk about it is how we will find all the resources we need to support all the children who could benefit and thrive in this program.
The greatest thing I think would be when I do not have to explain what FIRST is to my son's new teacher each year or the parents of the kids who hear about it and want to join or my coworkers.
We all know what someone refers to when they say their kid is in Little League, First should be at least as well recognized.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by IKE

I had been interested in an idea similar to this. I called it:

"Mentor Match".

If your program was an approved Mentorship Program, then mentors could apply for a Federal Match when filing for their taxes. The match would be an exemption that would be the equivalent of up to the minimum wage value x 200 Hrs. maximum. For instance, if you make $20/hour of $40K/year, your federal income tax rate is probably on the order of 10%. 200 hours = $4,000 deduction which would in turn be paid to your charity to the tune of $400. Assuming a minimum wage of $7/hr, then the cap would be $1,400. This would be the approximate deduction for someone making $100k/year or more (At $100K your income tax rate is around 14%, 200 hours at $50/hr = $10,000 * 14%= $1,400).

My thought was to keep it fairly general in the sense of "Mentorship Programs" so that programs like Big Brother Big Sisters, Scouts, 4-H, .... Might be able to get some additional benefit from the hours a Mentor provides.

+1 for this idea. Virginia has a tax deduction for individuals who volunteer on a company's behalf, and the companies get to deduct that person's hourly rate up to a certain amount (if I read the tax law correctly...). It really helps small businesses out who also support their community. I had plenty of people tell me "yea, you can do it" -- except an individual cannot deduct from their own personal taxes >facepalm<.

I'd say that it needs to be capped though (to reduce abuse & address fiscal issues), and the audit trail needs to be standardized. I know I put in 500-700 hours a year into overall mentorship activities, and at my hourly rate that would be quite a chunk of change in deductions as well as quite a nightmare to track/audit/verify.

It'd give incentives to people who mentor. That is, IMO, the biggest hurdle to FRC team sustainability. Individual team funding will come with that, eventually.