40+% Growth Rate - How Long?

[archiver]

Posted by Raul at 12/23/2000 7:02 PM EST


Engineer on team #111, Wildstang, from Rolling Meadows & Wheeling HS and Motorola.



Since 1993, the number of teams participating has more than doubled every 2 years. When will we reach critical mass? How long could this go on?

I hope it does until every high school in the US is participating (and at least one from each of the United Nations).

Just think about it; at this rate we will have over 10,000 teams by 2010!

Can the existing FIRST organization continue to handle this with that many teams?

Can we really have a National competition with more than 5000 teams? Surely, there would have to be some form of regional playoffs or rankings to limit the number of teams.

How would they handle the kickoff? 20,000 people at one kickoff (not to mention Dean's house)? They would also have to have regional kickoffs or something like that.

How about the regionals? How many would there have to be? Will there ever be a regional in another country - there has to be if enough foreign teams join right?

How about media coverage? Do you think there could be 10,000 teams involved without FIRST become a household name? How long before we have professional FIRST competitions. At what point will FIRST be considered the elite high school event that everyone wants to be in (isn't that Dean's dream?)?

If you think 10,000 is no big deal, then how about 64,000 teams by 2015?

I would love to see FIRST's roadmap for the next ten or more years.

Raul