Quote:
Originally posted by asher
I think most of you missed the point of Bill's post. It's not about the sad stories or stuff people went through, to me personaly its just saying that FIRST as a competition is worthless. If FIRST is about learning and all, why bother to have nationals at all if all teams cannot attend the national collective learning experience? That is the central theme right? If its going to be a cometition than lets have that and do away with all these oh so sad "learning and growing" stories. If its going to be a learning experience then just stop complaining and quit throwing more money at disney and not have nationals, but wait that reminds me, only the teams with money will be there anyway so why even bother complaining. Yes I agree with Bill, saying unless you win you can just wait and go on your odd/even year is like saying, oh poor little ugly puppy, well find some blind sap to take you in. Now I'm sure you'll go off and write some post about how wrong I am. Go right ahead, waste your time.
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Why have a competition at all if FIRST is about the learning experience? Because without the end result(the competitions), the process(where the real learning takes place) has no goal, no motivation. To have FIRST focused solely on the process would turn it into a science fair, which I have a very strong feeling would cause more people to drop out than with the current format. While I understand people have differing opinions on this, and while I am not trying to attack any of those points in particular, the issue stands like this:
1. In the past 10 years, FIRST has experienced phenomenal growth.
2. The majority of the learning aspect of FIRST takes place in the build season, preparing for the events.
3. Once this learning process has been completed, in order for those involved to have a goal to aim for, a competition structure has been set up for the weeks following the build season.
4. Similar to sporting events at the high school, college, and professional levels, FIRST has implemented a competition structure that starts at the regional level, then progresses to a national championship.
5. Unfortunately, the size that FIRST has become prevents all teams from going to the National Championship. So, they have implemented a qualifying structure. Because if only the top ranked teams from the various regionals were to attend the nationals, the Championship would go from a 300 team event to a 50 team event, FIRST has implemented a qualifying structure that allows teams who have performed exceptionally in the past in various aspects of the competition to qualify as well as the top performers this year. In order to have an event close to the size that they were aiming for, they have implemented a system that in addition to increasing the size of the event, allows teams the opportunity to travel to Disney at least every other year.
Am I disappointed that not all teams can attend the national competition? Definitely. Do I understand that it was an inevitable consequence of the growth that FIRST is experiencing? Yes.
We are different, but in our differences we help the world continue to grow, change, become inspired. Different is NOT bad. Be true to your self, be weird, be dorky, be crazy, be a geek. :) - chellyzee93 [more] 
06-12-2001, 20:08
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