The Ideals of FIRST have Changed...

[dhitchco]

Wow,
I did respond under "when mentors go to far", but would like to add a couple of comments here as well. From the creator of this thread

Plus FIRST is not about the people, its about the robot and how well it does in competition, because no ones asks your team for advice, if your the last seed on a list; they ask the team first seed.

To that, I disagree, but also "understand". FIRST is definately NOT "about the robot". You must keep saying that and keep thinking that way. However, I do understand that you will only get seeded and picked for alliances based on the performance of your robot.

In corporate life, you can't be all "sizzle and no bacon". You have to have an equal mix of marketing backed-up by a quality product; or is it the other way around. Such is real life frustration!

I would also like to comment about:

that can afford more regionals, manpower and special interests, seem to always 'stamp-out' the other teams.

I have never seen a FIRST team (regardless of their funds, etc really try to "stamp-out" the other teams. You should be in this event for yourselves, and not for your sponsors, etc. Although I agree that most teams will do "better" overall with some good financial sponsorships, this is NOT about the "deep pockets" and corporate funding. In fact, I don't like the fact that teams announce themselves during the alliance picking by saying that "team 9999, funded by Acme Widget Corp., proudly accepts.....". The corporate backing, albeit important to get some levels of funding, should be behind the curtain at FIRST.