Positive growth reached again

[Alfred Thompson]

The growth is good of course. Especially with the poor economy. But I worry about the teams that start up, run for a year or three and fall by the way side. I'm not sure the funding model that calls for all or most of the money to come from companies is ideal. FIRST would be a lot more stable if schools put the money into FIRST that they do in teams with similar numbers of students. This implies I am also worried about the schools with fewer than 10 kids on the team as well.
But all to many schools are not interested in FIRST or perhaps do not understand it. Dean is doing a great job selling FIRST to companies but who is selling it to schools? I would like to see FIRST have a booth at NECC (the National Educational Computing Conference) and other educational events to promote the program.