A Request for transparency from FIRST

[Foster]

I'd like to see the "number of students" number too. We are growing, our FRC team has gone from 10 to 30 students per year (this is year 6). Our VRC teams have gone from 1 team 5 students in 2005-6 to 9 teams with 50+ students this year. So we are reaching out to more students, the growth is good. This is our first year for a FLL team and that's another 12 students.

One of the things about FLL, FTC and VRC is that when we get more roboteers it's a smaller upfront cost to spin up another team. With FRC that's a harder prospect, the base cost is much higher. I like to see everyone engaged and thats a tough thing to do with a large FRC team. Some teams (and you know who you are) have students that are always focused, for some of us it's a much bigger challenge.

And all roboteers don't all groove on the bigger robots. I have high school students that want to work on the VEX bots, the big bot does not interest them. On the other hand I have 7th graders that would dump the small bots in a heartbeat to work on the big one.

Run the program that works for you and your roboteers. There are 50+ million students NOT in a robot program, so we have room for everyone. And remember there are robotic programs for the air and water, they are also worth doing.