Is the international branching of FRC, a good thing?

[IrwinTan]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Purely for historical context, FIRST was started as U.S. FIRST (and I believe that may still be their name in some legal contexts). That's why until the recent (and much maligned) switch to the new firstinspires.org website, the url had been usfirst.org

Just to add a bit more historical context, I believe that the first non-US Team was Team 188 which is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I know that there are some of their original team members who are still very actively involved with FIRST (their Mentor now leads FIRST Canada and several of the students are well know in the FIRST community).

Given that the earliest non-US team joined "back when dinosaurs roamed the earth" as my son would say and that my old high school is Team 610 (no robotics when I was at Crescent School) and they were part of the winning alliance back in 2013, I would make a case that at least Canadian teams have contributed to FIRST's current culture and that it has been "international" for a long time.

Of course, it's not that fair a comparison given how close Canada and the USA are as countries and neighbors. Does anyone happen to know when the first overseas Team joined?

Irwin Tan
Mentor - Team 1310