American "Selectiveness"

[Wolfe]

The thing that annoyed me the most at the nationals was the Americans who are unable to think of anything outside the USA. About a quarter of the awards speakers who named the competition called it US FIRST instead of just FIRST. Many of these people spoke as if there were no international teams involved in FIRST, making constant references to American high schools and American students.

And don't tell me they were talking about North and South America as a whole. Nobody says it that way, and besides, there was a team from England so that’s incorrect as well.

What really annoyed me is that talking to Americans after the awrds ceremony, none of them seemed to notice. It's the American paradigm, to half of them, it doesn't pop into their minds that there is a whole world outside their borders.

This year there was an amazing expansion of FIRST in Canada. It went from 3 teams last year to 26 teams and a new regional! Canadian teams went from 0 awards in all other years to 13 awards!! including 3 regional victories and a regional chairman's award, against some VERY good teams. It is also considerably more difficult for Canadian teams to participate in FIRST because of our low dollar. It's also quite difficult for a foreign team to be at any FIRST event because they are so heavily Americanised. The resounding success of Canadian teams is due largely to the efforts of Mark Breadner and Woburn collegiate (#188). Why wasn't any of this mentioned? This is some really amazing stuff!

The reason it wasn't mentioned is that despite the name change and a bunch of superficial changes on the FIRST website, the attitude is that this is still an American competition and that the International teams are just along for the ride. There doesn't seem to be the kind of ownership that American teams have. For example, all those important people who went around visiting the regional. Didn't any of them feel it might be neat to see a new regional in a new country with 2 dozen new teams?

What I’m trying to say is that FIRST doesn’t really seem all that concerned with international teams. There’s the lack of credit, the lack of encouragement. Things like, ordering everything from small parts are much more difficult outside the USA. And worst of all is the idea that it’s still an American competition. As well as the frenzy of patriotism that simply manifests as extra long national anthems, and an obsession with the American flag!