The Growing Gap in FIRST & on CD, and Our Responsibility to Fix It

[Mori1578]

So before o judge or say anything i'll tell my story/my team's story -
1578 was one of the first teams in israel, on the first regional in the 2005 season.
The team was active in 2005 and 2006 and then was closed.
All members and the teacher left school.
Last year, me and a couple of friends heard about a "robot competition" called FIRST. We had the WORST mentor and didnt have any adult more than that. During the build season i fell in love with robotics but still didnt have any idea about what FIRST really is.
In the comeptition, I saw all the other teams - helping each other and communication with other teams. Only then i finally realized what FIRST is.
Of course this year we continued for our second year.

So first, i have to say that i don't know how it was 6-7 or even more years ago.
But i think that two years of living FIRST every day and day is enough to know what you are talking about.

By now, i saw two sides of FIRST and you could truly see this in th Israel Regioal a week ago.
There were huge communication problem and almost all robots didnt work for the first two days. The teams were divided into two types:
The first - the teams who got upset. Most of the teams, especially the rookie teams. Many teams started a riot and made chaos everywhere.
But there were also teams who didnt lose hope, and just played the game as it is - like they should.
First is much more than a competition and whose robot is better.

Most teams are not taught by the values of FIRST and thats a shame. But I dont think its a reason that First is dying or something. It can be changed at any time - the teams just need to do that change