What do you feel about the growth of FIRST?

[Koko Ed]

Originally posted by rees2001
If FIRST wants to find a way to improve as they expand, they need to find a way to keep & help the better teams. Last year there was a “FIRST STAR” rating that ranked teams based on past average performance over the previous 4 years. To improve the quality of Nationals FIRST could use a system similar to this ranking. From what I have seen good teams continue to be good. This is not to say that below average teams cannot make vast improvements. If FIRST used the ranking for qualifications & then allowed current year Regional winners, the quality of robots at Nats would be awesome.




As for teams finding money to continue, we will find a way to continue & hopefully so will the others in our position. When we finally realized the situation our team is in we set out with a better plan. Granted we still have not found a new sponsor yet but we have found a way to become a more organized and a more determined group of people. Rather than look to the obvious, our former sponsor, we looked within(we have not received any funds from Nortel since December 2001). We have a core group of mentors from, J&J, Kodak, Nortel, Pactive, Delphi, Valeo, Pfaudler, and, Manning, Hennig & Squires, not mention other mentors from other companies. If we can find a way to get people from all of these companies to find the value in the FIRST program we can find a way to get sponsorship. There is money out there we just have to be more active about finding it.

Amazingly Delphi has not started a team in Rochester yet and they have a plant here.