FIRST 50 years ago / 50 years from now.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by ASD20

I don't think FRC will ever be in every school. FTC/VEX/FLL probably, but FRC is just not scalable to that size.

FiM begs to differ.

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

FiM begs to differ.

Edit: Scalable well.

According to the District Ranking Website there were 411 teams in MI this year and according to this website, there are about 1500 high schools in MI. I do not know how many high schools are actually covered by those teams (my guess is a good bit more than 400, but quite a bit less than 1500), but it appears to me that MI still has a while to go before it has FRC in every school. I may be incorrect, but the data seems to be reputable.

Even now, the # of teams has reached a point where it appears that more MI teams will qualify for 2Champs this year than DCMPs (source: somewhere in the 2CMPs thread). I can not speak to the impact that team density has had on sponsor and mentor availability right now, but I imagine that there is a point where teams are dense enough to saturate the sponsorship and mentor pools (I have no idea where this point is and I don't think anyone does). I think FRC still has quite a while to go before this issues start to exist, but if we are talking 50-100% of high schools, I think we will start to see some major problems with sustainability.

[Roboshant]

Originally Posted by ASD20

Edit: Scalable well.

According to the District Ranking Website there were 411 teams in MI this year and according to this website, there are about 1500 high schools in MI. I do not know how many high schools are actually covered by those teams (my guess is a good bit more than 400, but quite a bit less than 1500), but it appears to me that MI still has a while to go before it has FRC in every school. I may be incorrect, but the data seems to be reputable.

Even now, the # of teams has reached a point where it appears that more MI teams will qualify for 2Champs this year than DCMPs (source: somewhere in the 2CMPs thread). I can not speak to the impact that team density has had on sponsor and mentor availability right now, but I imagine that there is a point where teams are dense enough to saturate the sponsorship and mentor pools (I have no idea where this point is and I don't think anyone does). I think FRC still has quite a while to go before this issues start to exist, but if we are talking 50-100% of high schools, I think we will start to see some major problems with sustainability.

iirc Every high school in Oakland county has access to a FRC team. Some teams (like 226,68) are partnerships with 2 high schools.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by ASD20

...but I imagine that there is a point where teams are dense enough to saturate the sponsorship and mentor pools (I have no idea where this point is and I don't think anyone does). I think FRC still has quite a while to go before this issues start to exist, but if we are talking 50-100% of high schools, I think we will start to see some major problems with sustainability.

I would also note that the sponsorship and mentor pools do not necessarily scale with the number of high schools or population in general. While there are likely a suitable number of technicians in any given location, the availability of sponsors and mentors for a creative tech challenge is inherently related to the density of technical design and development taking place in the area.

We see this in our own area - while Slidell is certainly no tech powerhouse to challenge Detroit or Silicon Valley, we have a larger proportion of tech companies and tech-savvy federal agencies (Navy, NASA, FDA) nearby than most of the surrounding area. We have no state colleges or universities within a half hour, four high schools, and two solid FRC teams. Just an hour away and about the same distance from Bayou Regional, Baton Rouge has two major state universities, eight times our population, and fifteen times the number of high schools, but only 7 Teams.