Making heads or tails of the new announcement...

[Lora Knepper]

Originally posted by Jeff Waegelin


Well said. Sometimes people (myself included) get too worked up about their own team's situation to look at the big picture. Not just the big picture for Nats, but for FIRST...

Agreed. Though for the record, I'm going to be one of the exceptions like Joe. I'm not officially with a team right now. And I've worked on or close to teams that will be guaranteed a spot in this year's Epcot event (I'm sorry, I just cannot call it "Nationals" anymore....not with this level of exclusion) and also with teams that right now are thinking they have no hope to make it to Florida.

I know in my heart that FIRST needs to limit Nationals. I dreaded the moment with everything in me, but I knew that it was inevitable. I just disagree wholeheartedly in how they went about it.

And now with the limits, I'm afraid. Not so much for the veteran teams that will sit back for a year and make things bigger and better to secure a spot at Epcot next year. But rather, I'm afraid for the rookies. As much as I hate to admit it, Florida is a big draw to new teams, and a great recruiting event. It's in the process that we all get hooked from Florida into the robots and team instead. And what about some of the teams from the "rookie regionals"? I know things have been said about the KSC and the VCU regionals especially - I know I'm guilty of some of them. The teams that participate in these regionals are always first out. They are always trying the new and unknown for the first time. And as history has proven, the scores at these two regionals in particular are lower than at say, the Midwest and the New England.

I'm concerned about how FIRST decided on this....but no matter. I am a FIRST-a-holic, and after I cooled off of some of the inital emotion over this, I know that no matter what silly moves FIRST takes, I'll keep coming back. I've gained too much from this project to give up on it now.

~ lora