Ideas to move in the direction of making FIRST competitions 'fair'

[KenWittlief]

There is a forest and it contains many trees. We can walk through the forest all day long and point at trees here and there and say "look how good this one is doing, its only two years old..."

but that doesnt mean the forest itself is growing, or healthy.

People have been asking me where the teams are in this thread who are not happy with the current structure?

I have been on teams that lost their sponsor, and had to find new ones. Ive pitched FIRST to CEOs and had them ask me "Are you crazy?! Are you actually going to do this?"

Ive been on teams that lost their teacher and engineer mentors because they burned out, or it was too much commitment to do year after year.

Ive been part of a group trying to form new teams, at schools where we could not get a single teacher to commit, because the personal demands were too much.

I know of teachers and mentors who have been told by their wives "If you sign up for FIRST again this year I WILL divorce you!" (seriously).

The teams that failed to form are not here to post their opinions in this thread. The small teams that are overwhelmed and do not even know about the CD forum are not here to post. The teams that folded because their mentors where overwhelmed are not here to post.

If we want the forest to grow, to have a tree at every HS in the US, at any point in our lifetime, then we need to address these issues.

Telling mentors and students you have to work harder, you have to do 'FIRST' 80 hours a week during the build season, and you have to be engaged in it the rest of the year as well, is not going to make FIRST grow the way it could.

I personally do not have the free time to mentor a team this year. 3 teams have asked me to mentor. I know of a new team in my area that needs mentors, but I know FIRST is a black hole that sucks you in until you have no time left to give.

It doesnt need to be this way. We should be able to form new teams with 8 students, one or two mentors, attend a local regional, only spend 10 to 12 hours a week during build season and still be able to give the students an idea of what its like to be an engineer

without being trampled at the competition by vastly superiour teams.

I have one person here telling me "Playing with the big dogs is an important part of FIRST"

and someone else telling me "If FIRST is too much then start a VEX team instead"

I think FIRST is big enough that we can cut the big dogs loose, and let them have their own superclass of competiton, and also have a division for small teams, where they can feel some measure of success beyond winning one or two matches a year. Winning a match against a powerhouse team is great, and that could be a small teams highlight of the year

but if they had the chance to be division champions, I think that is what they will put on their college applications.

We could have a Mega Class division and a µClass division at the championship, and even if those teams dont compete against each other, they would still connect and consider themselves to be FIRST collectively.