Why these seven countries?

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Bomberofdoom

As far as I know, the idea of FIRST in Israel first came up when a couple of guys from the Technion of Israel in Haifa went to one of the Championship events of FIRST in Atlanta...
...I'm quite sure there's lots of mistakes in what i said and I hope someone will correct me. I might try to contact the Technion guys who started the project. Would be nice to write an article about how FIRST started in Israel.

I'm not sure the entire story either, but you left out one detail, the work done by Alisha Wallenstein. She worked with GM (UMI in Israel?) to help spread FIRST to Israel, including speaking to the Minister of Education. She is now the Israeli Regional Director.

[Greg Marra]

I have a list of teams broken down by quantity per region. Maybe you will find it useful:

http://thebluealliance.net/tbatv/teamlist.php

[dtengineering]

The history of FIRST in Canada is somewhat complex, as the international version of FIRST was preceded by... what was it called... Canada FIRST? I'm not personally up on all the ins and outs and details as we did not get involved until the FIRST Canadian Regional (now the GTR) was up and running and Canada FIRST was no more.

My understanding, however, from those who have tried both, is that this is a good thing, and I believe you can find out more from team 188, Woburn Robotics, the first non-US FRC team.

Jason

[Jonathan Norris]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

The history of FIRST in Canada is somewhat complex, as the international version of FIRST was preceded by... what was it called... Canada FIRST? I'm not personally up on all the ins and outs and details as we did not get involved until the FIRST Canadian Regional (now the GTR) was up and running and Canada FIRST was no more.

My understanding, however, from those who have tried both, is that this is a good thing, and I believe you can find out more from team 188, Woburn Robotics, the first non-US FRC team.

Jason

Back in the late 1990's there was a robotics program in Canada called Canada FIRST, it was based on similar principles to what FIRST was at the time. However as my school found out quickly it wasn't of the same quality of US FIRST. As you can find out from their website Woburn was the first international team in US FIRST starting in 1998 (if you look through the history books there may be some familiar names on that team ). In 2001 my team (610) joined US FIRST, leaving Canada FIRST after one year (I believe 296 joined at some point around here or before, don't know their history). In 2002 teams 188 and 610 (with the help of many other people) founded the Canadian Regional (now known as the Greater Toronto Regional). Since then the program in Canada has expanded greatly with three years of the Waterloo Regional now, started the Lego League 4 years ago, and now on its second year of the FTC.

[Bomberofdoom]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I'm not sure the entire story either, but you left out one detail, the work done by Alisha Wallenstein. She worked with GM (UMI in Israel?) to help spread FIRST to Israel, including speaking to the Minister of Education. She is now the Israeli Regional Director.

Oh my Gosh! You're soo right!!!!
Alisha has been extremely supportive in all of the FIRST Israel activties. She's the most active and lively person in the directory of FIRST Israel and I feel she's a real inspiration to all the FIRST fans in Israel. (that's all I know about her, including what you said, Lave). Oh, ok well she was once in an FRC team when she was in High School in the US.

Thank you Alisha!!!!