New FIRST competition structure in Michigan

[NEMentor470]

Originally Posted by 340x4xLife

I think we all need to work on something that will work everywhere, not just MI. I think the MI Pilot will work there, I think if all the MI teams agree on the point structure then that's OK for them.

Not ALL Michigan teams agree, nor were they all consulted in the planning stage. The plan was apparently mentioned as a possibility at some meeting to which not all were able to send representatives, but details were not discussed at that time. Michigan teams who were not part of the planning group found out about the change at the same time it was announced to the rest of the world.

We've been attending one Regional, GLRC, at Eastern Michigan U, right in our "backyard": No travel expenses. In order to participate this year we will have to rent a bus and/or other vehicles. This will probably cost $1,000 - $1,200 even though we are going to the closest two events possible. (so much for saving $1,000)

The idea of a district system has a lot of merit, but the roll out could have been less traumatic. I wish that FiM had made a greater effort to let ALL the teams know of their plans much further in advance. A year to plan and raise money would not be too long.

I hope that any future program changes will be considered by a wider group of leaders and input about logistics and costs will be sought from all teams. Every team is important, even if they haven't fielded a champion robot. The students still learn a lot and go on to be engineers. That's the real point of all this isn't it?