pic: America FIRST Team Map

[CD47-Bot]

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[Cory]

Wow... I was really pretty shocked by how many teams we lost in CA since last year.

Last year I believe we had 86 teams... and a slight lead over Michigan for the most in the nation.

This year we lost a whole bunch of veterans...

[Aignam]

Who has the most teams per state area? Good luck with that one...

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by Aignam

Who has the most teams per state area? Good luck with that one...

Not Alaska.

Wetzel

[Alex Golec]

Top States:
1) Michigan (Still proud of my homestate)
2) New York
3) California
4) Virginia
5) Florida

Has Nebraska ever had a FIRST Team? New Mexico went from 4 teams last year to zero, and Minnesota hasn't had a team since 2003.

_Alex

[tkwetzel]

Originally Posted by Aignam

Who has the most teams per state area? Good luck with that one...

Land area only..or land and water area? I would guess New Jersey...but it could possibly be Connecticut.

And the winner is: Connecticut with one team for every 179.5 sq. mi.
New Jersey has a team for every 211.9 sq. mi.
(I did not calculate any other states, I just estimated to see that they were not even close to those two).

The harder one is who has the fewest teams per state area (except for the teams with 0)?

[Jessica Boucher]

Originally Posted by tkwetzel

Land area only..or land and water area? I would guess New Jersey...but it could possibly be Connecticut.

And the winner is: Connecticut with one team for every 179.5 sq. mi.
New Jersey has a team for every 211.9 sq. mi.
(I did not calculate any other states, I just estimated to see that they were not even close to those two).

I pulled numbers from here (first thing that came up on Google, and these numbers include water). If you count DC in this listing (even though they're not technically a state) has one team, and with a 68.25 square mileage, it sticks them at the top of the list.

The harder one is who has the fewest teams per state area (except for the teams with 0)?

That would be (in square mileage):
Alaska (164106.3), Montana (147046.0), Wyoming (97818.0), Utah (84904.0) & Tennessee (42146.0)

Attached is the sheet I threw together. If I had more time I'd have another sheet with numbers for the other countries and their administrative divisions, and then another sheet comparing densities on a country level.

See what happens when I procrastinate homework?!? I'm such a giant dork.

[Allison K]

If the entire population of each state was on a FIRST team...

The Smallest Teams
West Virginia - 34120 people/team
New Hampshire - 51491 people/team
Michigan - 111668 people/team


The Largest Teams
Tennessee - 5689283 people/team
Kentucky - 4041769 people/team
Virginia - 2359505 people/team

[Alex Golec]

Michigan is up to 90 with the addition of Albion (1313/1614)
California up to 71.

What state had the most teams last year?

_Alex

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Alex469

Michigan is up to 90 with the addition of Albion (1313/1614)
California up to 71.

What state had the most teams last year?

_Alex

Im almost 100% sure CA had a few teans more than Michigan for the lead.

[Astronouth7303]

Maybe MI, NY, and CA should each send a team to AZ NM, Nebraska, and MN. [edit: I'm so glad I live in the midwest. I knew it was one of the two!]

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Astronouth7303

Maybe MI, NY, and CA should each send a team to AZ, Nebraska, and MN.

AZ has 11 FIRST teams... that'd be New Mexico, Nebraska, and Minnesota

[Bill Gold]

Originally Posted by Cory

Im almost 100% sure CA had a few teans more than Michigan for the lead.

Not necessarily connected to this, but it's something that has bugged me for a couple years...

<rant>
I'm not sure if it was 2001 or 2002 (I think it was 2002) where California had over 100 teams... but many teams have had to drop out due to lack of funding in the stagnant and/or declining economy, and a handful of teams had to drop out due to lack of school support. I believe strongly that this huge amount of teams (100+) in California was part of, what I thought, was a well intentioned but not well thought out "mentorship grant" and "rookie grants" by companies like KPC&B. This encouraged veterans to start up many rookie teams, whose funding was eventually competed for by more successful veteran teams and after their eligibility for KPC&B Rookie Grants dried up, so did the rest of their potential sponsors. It's a noble goal to increase the number of teams in the country and in the world, but it's counterproductive to encourage the formation of 25+ teams in a state where, economically, they can't compete for ample funding to sustain themselves after their 2 year window for "rookie grants" runs out. Those teams can't be sustained until the economy picks up over here and companies like Applied Materials can start financially sponsor multiple teams (or even a single team for that matter) again.
</rant>

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Bill Gold

Not necessarily connected to this, but it's something that has bugged me for a couple years...

<rant>
I'm not sure if it was 2001 or 2002 (I think it was 2002) where California had over 100 teams... but many teams have had to drop out due to lack of funding in the stagnant and/or declining economy, and a handful of teams had to drop out due to lack of school support. I believe strongly that this huge amount of teams (100+) in California was part of, what I thought, was a well intentioned but not well thought out "mentorship grant" and "rookie grants" by companies like KPC&B. This encouraged veterans to start up many rookie teams, whose funding was eventually competed for by more successful veteran teams and after their eligibility for KPC&B Rookie Grants dried up, so did the rest of their potential sponsors. It's a noble goal to increase the number of teams in the country and in the world, but it's counterproductive to encourage the formation of 25+ teams in a state where, economically, they can't compete for ample funding to sustain themselves after their 2 year window for "rookie grants" runs out. Those teams can't be sustained until the economy picks up over here and companies like Applied Materials can start financially sponsor multiple teams (or even a single team for that matter) again.
</rant>

Doesn't help that darn near everyone lost their NASA sponsorship after 2000 in CA

[Bill Gold]

Originally Posted by Cory

Doesn't help that darn near everyone lost their NASA sponsorship after 2000 in CA

I picked out the KPC&B grants specifically because of their "mentorship" grants. This encouraged veteran teams who wanted an extra $2,500 to recruit a team (or if they wanted $5,000, they'd recruit 2 rookies, or for $7,500 they could recruit 3, etc.) that could be entirely paid for by the KPC&B “Rookie Grant” ($6,000), and then just ditch that 2nd year team the following year, leaving them to fend for themselves. Then, their 3rd year this team, while usually hanging on by the skin of their teeth (if they’re still in existence), they’re forced to fight an uphill battle for corporate sponsors or other lower level sponsors (especially in stagnant / declining economy) with the established veteran teams who started them up in the first place. This happened to 20 teams that I know of, and, no doubt, to countless others. I think that encouraging this environment is wrong, and counterproductive to FIRST’s interests.

The NASA grants didn’t give veteran teams the financial incentive to recruit rookies. This is what differentiates the KPC&B grants from other “rookies only” grants, and imho made the KPC&B grants a net loss for FIRST, while the NASA grants, relatively speaking, had a better success rate for starting sustainable teams.