White House Petition for FIRST Funding

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by mdiradoorian

Good points andrew.

However, what about he teams that do have the mentors, but barely have enough money to go to the regional and build a robot. They apply to those grants and sponsorships and often they dont get it. The way I see it it is another way to fundraise and to promote science and technology and FIRST in this country. If this administration wants to help education and increase STEM education in schools, they should consider this petition. It is our responsibily to get 100,000 signers, if every team gets maybe 50 people to sign it we could very well get over that number.

Andrew it is great that JC Penney gives out grants to those teams but FIRST is a learning experiece, most teams do horrible in their rookie season. They return stronger the next season because they know have the experience on how to build a robot in a given time constraint.

We can do this, it is a great idea in my opinion.

First off, I like rookies. I like growth. I think that JCP was willing to give out the amount they did is simply phenomenal. I think it was just handled wrong. I think FIRST, JCP, and we as a community ALL share that blame. Predominantly though, I blame us and FIRST. JCP is just another in a long line of companies that throw money at FIRST teams without understanding our problem space. They don't know crap about us or our community or what it involves. 2 years ago I was on a JCP team, our contact came into the meeting and literally said "holy crap, this is what you guys have to do? How is $6000 helping at all? What more can we do?" And I put my money where my mouth is, last year I was in contact with many of the rookies in Tampa Bay. I took numerous hours off work to meet with their mentors and ask them what they needed. And universally they all told me that they had no idea what they had gotten themselves into. I could continue these stories for FTC, FLL, Vex, and BEST too.

If you want to help fix some of this problem... document EVERYTHING. Show how much it costs. Show how hard you work. Show the hours you put in. Show the partnerships you have had to form. And if you don't know how? ASK. Then get out in your community, work with your RDs and your Senior Mentors. If you want to spread FIRST spread the wealth of knowledge NOT just money. Maybe instead of focusing on getting the White House to fund teams we should get them to bring HoF teams back in. Maybe we should have them bring in WFA winners for debates on STEM education policy.

And I fear that any federal funding would exacerbate this problem to the point of over-saturation of teams. FIRST is a plant, a living organism. What happens if you water a plant too much? We need to grow smart not grow fast.