FRC Team #1

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

And now we have the "new number every year" thing for FTC. FIRST might think that FTC is just a training or transitional program on the way to FRC, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of us are going to stick with FTC and don't really care if we ever have to weld up a frame again. Let's have permanent FTC numbers starting now!

Our leader is a fan of that. FTC is much easier...err cheaper... to integrate into the majority of school cirriculums/budgets. Garfield High School (Woodbridge, VA) doesn't have the resources for a grand FRC team but on a low budget they've put out 2 fantastic FTC teams in the last 2 years with some very well-engineered robots & teams completely done by the students with only 1-2 teachers as mentors. Unfortunately, they don't have a recurring identity even though (imo) they really deserve one.

2047 came out like gangbusters last year (2007) and attended four Regionals and the Championship, then disappeared from this year's roster.

This sounds like an unfortunate example of how some teams can overextend themselves. This is why business plans are a must for FIRST teams and there is even an award for FRC teams specifically for their business plans. I've seen the huge importance of them on our own team and I'm sure teams that have been around for double-digit years can attest to it as well. If, as a student, you do 1-2 regionals a year and maybe 1 championship, you've done roughly 6-8 events solving a great variety of problems over the 4 years.

Veterans: Have you always attended 2 or more regionals (championship excluded), say, in the last 10 years?