FIRST and Wikipedia

[artdutra04]

While I believe the article should mention that the debate does exist, the way it is worded now seems biased. And to totally ignore it from the article would be even worse. The best way would be to state that the debate does exist (I wouldn't call it criticism), and state both sides of the issue.

Debate:
When it comes to fulfilling the "inspiration" of FIRST, the issue is purposely left open by FIRST for FRC teams to decide themselves. A vast majority of teams are a combination of student and engineer driven, but there are some teams that are strongly tipped in one direction and not the other.

As such, there is often debate among the FIRST community on which method (student- versus engineer-driven) is best for inspiring students and fulfilling the mission of FIRST. While there have been strong arguments made for both cases, a common consensus can never be reached.

The official position of FIRST on the issue has been to leave the issue to individual teams to decide which is best to inspire their own students.

[note: I would possibly include a few links to ChiefDelphi forum threads as references for this section, especially on the debate parts.]

As we have found before in the past in many discussions here on CD, there is no right or wrong answer to this question. If a strong engineer-based team inspires students just as well as a student-driven team, then so be it, even if they use radically different methods of doing so.

The final product, the inspiration, it all that matters. Awards and championships are just bling.