Chairmans Predictions for Nationals

[Jeff K.]

Originally Posted by breeahnuh

I see your point and not to take any credit from 1138, Nancy and her team are amazing, but though the workshops may have been helpful, the Hawaii Regional primarily owes its existence to 1. The government 2. Nasa/BAE Systems 3. Organizations such as The Hawaii Scholastic Robotics Alliance & The Hawaii Regional Planning Committee (Mentors of many veteran Hawaii teams are members) and 4. the support and mentoring of veteran teams to start teams at other schools (4 to 25 in one year!)

I cannot speak on behalf of New Zealand, but Hawaii was definately not due to one team,person, or organization.

As for volunteering and helping with set-up etc for the regional.... this is done by numerous Hawaii teams, mentors, and local volunteers....two amazing volunteers being Alex Ho and Osa Tui of 368 (this year's volunteer of the year)

I think what he was trying to say was that it was a collective effort. New team growth was not really occurring because of no system being in place to allow these teams to learn the basics for FIRST. We heard that most teams did bot ball when we first went to Hawaii in the Summer of 2007.

In a way though, our workshops were a catalyst to allow these new teams to pop up, and with the help of Governor Linda Lingle, Alex Ho, Osa Tui, and may others, the regional was formed. There needs to be a system though to teach the new teams the fundamentals and basics and also to allow them to grow. The system was also not fully in place the next summer as we had to come back and host the workshops, but this allowed further growth. The workshops are not the sole reason for FIRST Hawaii to be at the level and magnitude it is today, but it helped along the way, as well as mentoring from the veteran teams in the area.

For New Zealand though, FIRST and VEX were only introduced this past year at the last set of workshops. A regional was not possible due to funding, but will most likely happen in the future due to the large amount of interest for one, and the amount of teams. Come July, 1138 will go again to New Zealand to host another set of workshops to allow teams that went to the first set to grow and advance, and to allow new teams starting out to learn the basics.