What do you feel about the growth of FIRST?

[Ken Leung]

Not sure if this topic have been discussed already (and if so, please point out the link). But I've been reading about new request for new regionals, and more and more students graduating and starting teams of their own, and started thinking about the growth of FIRST, and the future.

A few things came into my mind when I thought about this... The economy getting worse and worse, more sponsors are pulling out from both teams and regionals, and number of FIRST staff is going to remain relatively the same.

Mean while, one of the biggest goal of FIRST is to have a team in every high school across the country, so many more students will be exposed to this competition.

So... Realistically, with the growth rate right now and the condition of the economy, is it even possible to reach that goal? Well, I am not sure, because even with a health economy, I can't see a team in every high school across the country within 2 to 4 years. So, a short term goal is to get a decent growth rate every year. But, is that even resonable under the current circumstances?

In the bay area, there are relatively a lot of teams around here, Almost one team in every city on average, and there will be more rookie teams starting up. There will be less sponsors per team at this rate, and the Silicon Valley Regional is at its maximum capacity. So, some how, all those teams are going to need $9000 for two events, plus 5000 to 10,000 dollars to build a robot. Then we will need Sacramento regional to be bigger, and eventually another regional near the Bay Area. Same thing is happening at LA with lots of veteran and coming rookie teams.

So, I don't know what to think right now. I have a weird feeling that sooner or later we will reach a limit where we just can't fit more teams around here anymore, without something being done. When I say something, I mean things like: 1. Economy go back to normal, 2. some sort of laws passed to help teams out finanically, 3. more regional FIRST staffs supporting teams out there and running the new regionals.

Well, without going into deeper thoughts, I just want to know what everyone else think about this. Is FIRST growing too big for its own good? Do you honestly see a much bigger future for FIRST? What are some of the things that could potentially stop FIRST in its growth?

Feel free to put your thoughts into this topic... But I do ask you to think a little bit before you post.

[SteveB]

Ken,
While I agree that there are many challenges that face all of us in keeping up the quality and level of expectations from year to year. The growth factor is a major part of this but I disagree that money will dry up. In fact I strongly believe that WE as an organization of collective minds and able bodies have not even tapped 20% of the potential sponsors. Why is it that every time I start a meeting with telling people about FIRST (and yes I do this at every vendor meeting I can) I find myself educating, describing, and in general making people aware of what WE are doing for the students and ourselves. It never hurts to ask for help from companies. The Bay Area alone already produces a huge amount of money for FIRST teams but in comparison I think ( I don't have the facts on this) that most of the big dollars is from large east coast companies. XEROX, FORD, Delphi, and others are huge supporters. Let us not forget NASA and all of it's support but as I see it, there is still very limited west coast industry, science or technology money. Sure you might see a few dollars from HP supporting a local team and thanks to Hitachi and Intel our team continues to survive from year to year but the amount of companies that are involved is still only a very small percentage of the total.

I have been thinking of ways that we could get the word out and show the hundreds of high tech engineering based firms in Silicon Valley that a small donation and or a little support could go a long way. What I am looking for to get this started is a one or two page description of everything that FIRST is about and why it works. With this eye catching, can't say no, type of marketing letter I would be willing to go door to door, from tech company to tech company, asking for a commitment to help a team. I'm confident that we could turn this into a movement strong enough to become a household name where high school students are found. I'm always looking for help with the marketing materials. Getting the tech firms in our area to hear the pitch would be the next step. I think we can. I think we can.

I'll leave the number of teams and number of regionals problem for more time to think. My gut tells me that there must be a way to fine tune the system so a gathering could support 100 teams. I know we all couldn't believe that it would be possible but if the team base grows so should the volunteer base. More is more.

-Steve B

[Joe Menassa]

Well, I have to say that I agree with you about the economy and the problems that will be faced causing FIRST to steady out for a while but here is what I have always imagined.

The way I see it is there have been many many graduates of FIRST who have gone onto college and have been studying engineering. I myself am one of them and I know of many others. These alumni are the ones that will make FIRST grow extremly rapidly in the coming years. What I see is these addicted students that went to college 1 or 2 years ago and even the ones that went 4 years ago, graduating and going to work right away. Most of these kids will go work for big and small engineering companies. These kids will make sure to promote FIRST at their places of work and I can certainly see the companies listening and responding. And all the companies that will be started by FIRST alumni in a few years... good God.. I see no reason why they wouldnt help out.

I know that wherever I work or whatever company I work for I will absolutly make sure that they sponser at least one team.. if not.. then thats not the job I'm looking for.

And to think, FIRST sent so many kids off to college over the years that I am just waiting for all those guys to start raking in the doh so FIRST can reap the benifits.

[Chris Hibner]

I really like Dean's vision of every high school having a FIRST team. That would be great. However, it's never going to happen as long as corporations are footing the bill. Corporations are more concerned about turning a profit than helping the youth of America.

However, there just so happens to be one organization that already exists whose sole purpose is to help the youth of America: the school system.

The only chance that FIRST ever has of getting a team in each school is to get the schools to sponsor the teams. I played hockey growing up and I know that the budget for a high school hockey team is about $25,000 to $30,000 per year (it varies by a number of factors, but this is typical). If high schools foot such a large bill for a sports team, why not for a competitive team related to math and science? (Actually, they don't do it now since the demand isn't there yet, but that's where TV exposure and such comes in - but that's another topic.)

Anyway, this is not to say that the corporations shouldn't be involved. It would still be a great idea to have corporate partners, but relying on a corporation for the survival of your team is pretty risky business - especially when the economy goes south.

-Chris

[Joe Matt]

The team in VA have been experiencing this for the past 3 years. We have had a growth of FIRST teams. Godwin, Tucker, Deep Run, and others are all within a short driving distance of each other. We are strapped for resources. It's EXTREMELY difficult to get new sponsors here since either a company already is sponsoring a team or they can't afford to do it. FIRST has out-stripped all of our resources here.

I think Dean needs to re-think the FIRST message. With more and more people agreeing that the students, not the sponsors, should be the focus, prices and possibly other things should be lowered. Everything FIRST has done promotes sponsors over schools. We need a Renaissance in FIRST, a switch from corporate focus to student focus.

[Jeff Waegelin]

Maybe what is needed is a shift from sponsorship of individual teams to sponsorship of first. I think JosephM is right... as FIRST expands, the focus needs to shift from the corporations to the students. You can't get a 5 or 6-figure sponsorship for every high school in the country. It just won't happen. FIRST needs to work on getting more sponsors for regionals, and for the program as a whole, to reduce the cost of entry for teams. If Dean really wants to have a team in every high school in America, FIRST will need to take steps to make the program accessible to all, not just the long-time veterans with big budgets and secure sponsorships.

[Gene F]

I firmly believe there can be a FIRST team in every high school. I read in this thread that money is a great concern. Well let's put it in perspective. Most high schools in our country support at least one sports team. The cost of having a sports team is about the same as a FIRST Robotics team. Look at the cost of their equipment, playing fields, transportation, etc. It easily equals, if not exceeds, the cost of running a FIRST team. Also there are many schools that have Marching bands. These too have budgets that rival what it takes to run a robotics team.

What's the answer?


PUBLIC AWARENESS!!

We need to be using every means at our disposal to get our communities involved in FIRST. How about a home coming celebration when the team returns from Nationals, complete with a parade, floats, dances, etc? How many people from your community are you getting to come to your regional competitions? Take every chance you get to get the team in the paper and on the news. Post signs around the community supporting the team. Encourage your team members to wear their team colors in public and be willing to explain what FIRST is all about. Take every opportunity you get to show your robot to the community and give out nifty trinkets.

The money doesn't have to come from big corporations, it can come from many small contributions.

If everyone in the community sees what FIRST is all about money will not be a problem. Both for more teams and more regionals.

[Frank(Aflak)]

I dream of the day when highschools are known for their FIRST teams, and us FIRSTers get to wear cool shirts on competition days and get cheerleaders and are the hearthrobs of every other student. The day will come when FIRST events are held in stadiums before thousands of fans while football games are held in little two-bit feilds in nowheresville and noone bothers to care.

Well, it will never happen, but I am happy to see the growth of FIRST because it tells me that the sciences are still respected in the US.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by Frank(Aflak)
I dream of the day when highschools are known for their FIRST teams,

*chuckle* Our robotics' team came up over and over again in the school district's upheaval with outgoing members taking credit for the program, then letters to the editor, from people I don't know, regarding major budget cuts that should not extend to robotics.

[the doors]

Just a comment about the marching band...our school has one, but it is completely self-sufficienct. All money spent is money we earned.

[AlbertW]

Also, regarding the volunteers. As the current wave of FIRST students graduates, you (hopefully) have a bigger pool of people to draw volunteers/mentors from. I know that I'll be spending alot of my spare time in college helping out with FIRST

I think FIRST is growing too much, too fast. They need to slow down a bit and work on saving teams that are currently involved. Each year teams drop out due to funding or other issues, and if FIRST took a few years to focus on saving what they have FIRST will truely grow. Right now FIRST has a positive growth rate with more teams coming in than dropping out. This could easily change and not for the better.....

[Gene F]

Originally posted by the doors
Just a comment about the marching band...our school has one, but it is completely self-sufficienct. All money spent is money we earned.

Hats off to you and your Marching Band, great job! (My wife is the president of the High School Band Booster Club, I know the effort that takes).

But why can't we get that kind of commitment for a FIRST Robotics team?

[Ben Mitchell]

The growth of FIRST may be a double-edged sword.

For those who haven't noticed, we have had a sharp economic downturn for the past two years, particularly in the areas of technology and industry that most FIRST sponsors work in.

A quick economy lesson: Businesses survive by generating profit. Profit means making more money than you spend. With production and revenue down, companies must cut back on expenses to increase profit. This results in layoffs, and a cut back in expenditures.

FIRST teams cost a lot of money, time and resources. They also have few tangible benefits that would result in direct monetary or economic gains for their sponsor. FIRST teams do not generate a profit, or even some revenue for their sponsors. At least, most do not. There are probably exceptions.

In a time of a negative economic outlook, corporations will be unwilling to sacrifice money for a program that does not have a return on their investment in the close future.

FIRST has picked the wrong time to expand: teams are going to have a hard time finding sponsors willing to spend so much money, and resources on them.

FIRST also need to generate more attention. To be bluntly honest, people don't watch sports games to see everyone have a "good time" or see players interacting with one another. They watch for the competition, for the stunning victories and brutal defeats.

FIRST doesn't have that. I mean, even I get bored watching FIRST events, and I am IN FIRST and understand the game. The game play is way to repetitive. There is always one strategy that emerges as dominant, and pretty soon, all robots follow it. This year, after the second week of regionals, most teams realized that stacking was a pathetic waste of time, and converted their robots to plows to pushing bins around.

Wow...2:10 of robots pushing plastic bins from one end to the other - thrilling.

If FIRST wants to grow, they need to become much more friendly to spectators - particularly the media. This involves games that are exciting and clean to watch. This year’s game, to be honest, looked on TV like featureless robots smashing into one another in a sea of plastic bins. Not quite prime-time material.

But do we want FIRST to grow enough to have a team in every school?


Putting aside the fact this in impossible due to the number of regionals requires to support thousands of teams, what would be the purpose of having FIRST become so big?

I understand the whole "change the culture" attitude but within FIRST itself, I see attitudes changing, and not for the better.

In my opinion, FIRST does not need to grow larger, it needs to grow better.

1. Teams need to continue to uphold (or, if they do not, start to uphold) the spirit of gracious professionalism (both parts) that FIRST was founded upon.

2.Teams need to build robot as tough and as competitive as they can. This makes the game more interesting.

3. Teams need to understand that Gracious Professionalism should not mean: from each according to ability, to each according to need. Not only should teams help one another, within reason, but they should work themselves to try not to need help. If a team does not have a working robot the day of the competition, they should be pulled from the roster.

4. FIRST needs more quality volunteers, preferably ex-FIRSTers that know how things work

5. FIRST needs to standardize rules at all regionals: the amount of swing the rules have according to each regional is absurd, and unprofessional. I don't care if they are volunteers: they need to be at least consistent with other regionals, and know the rules.

6. FIRST needs to figure out whether or not it wants to "go mainstream." If it wants to be known to the average citizen, FIRST needs media coverage other than NASA TV, an exciting game, and different and cool looking robots to show it off. The silver and black boxes smashing into each other won't work if FIRST wants to grow up.

Of course, if FIRST leaders decide that they should concentrate on improving and maintaining teams that are already in FIRST, rather than recruit new ones. (Quality over Quantity) then steps should be taken to do that, including a revised nationals system based on merit or some sort of qualifier - not just a number being odd or even. I like to call this qualifier "incentive" for teams to go the extra mile to make interesting and competitive machines.

I'd also like to see FIRST as it grows, to develop better games that do not punish teams for not making smashing machines, and a revised set rules with clear definitions of terms and even a gracious professionalism guide for teams that are new. Instead of "rookie all star awards" I'd like to see awards rewarding teams for being professional and competitive, and trying something different.
////

Personally, I think FIRST is on a downhill streak, and that focusing on recruiting more and more rookie teams is not a wise decision on their part. FIRST needs to expand slowly, building up what it has. Instead of 30 regionals, I'd rather see 10 with the lowest average score being a couple points lower than the highest. I'd rather see more competitive competitions, than just more robots.





I am somewhat against FIRST expanding so rapidly - I think FIRST needs to improve and strengthen what it has rather than seek out more. Retaining long-time veterans would do more good in the long run. It’s quality that is more important.

[DougHogg]

Originally posted by Ben Mitchell

FIRST also need to generate more attention. To be bluntly honest, people don't watch sports games to see everyone have a "good time" or see players interacting with one another. They watch for the competition, for the stunning victories and brutal defeats.
...
If FIRST wants to grow, they need to become much more friendly to spectators - particularly the media. This involves games that are exciting and clean to watch.

I agree. To continue to grow, FIRST needs to become TV and video friendly. Teams and sponsors need to be able to show compelling videos of robotics teams with exciting action footage. Also as more and more teams seek sponsors, it would really help if the sponsors knew that they would get media exposure to help them with their bottom line.

Watching FIRST videos of our team's matches in Houston, at times I even found myself getting a bit frustrated because the camera was pointed to one side and I wanted to see what was happening on the other. Let's face it. This game is hard to video effectively, because there can be 4 areas of action.

The first and last 15 seconds work pretty well for video because the focus is on the ramp. But if a team is building a stack near the end of the game, probably no one would see it because the camera will be on the ramp.

On the other hand, I appreciate FIRST's efforts in making this year's game. It is a very tough job! Let's face it. We have very smart people working on it.

I have had a couple of thoughts on making the game better and therefore more audience friendly. One thought is to have two game design teams. Group A would be working on the 2004 game, while group B is working on the game for 2005. With that much lead time, the 2005 group could actually get 4 robots build and try out the game. Why?

As stated by Woodie Flowers in the kickoff this year

"Real things are really nasty. They're non linear. They obey rules that you have never heard of.
...
"So my advice is from the beginning get started in this do..think..learn loop and just keep doing that. Iterate. Build something. Try it. Mother nature will unambiguously explain to you what's really important as you work it out."

My idea is to have the game designers "try out" the game before it is presented to the teams, so there is time to go through the "do..think..learn loop" and fine tune the game. A tall order, but hopefully as we make the game more media friendly, we will have the resources to do that.

(Hm...sounds like a catch 22. We need the resources so we can make the game more media friendly so we can get the resources... Reminds me of this guy who was alone and couldn't get to the hospital because he had a broken leg. What was the answer to that problem? Well, somehow he just had to get there anyway, even if it was one inch at a time.)