Entry Fee Increase---hurting teams

[Ian W.]

There's also the areas, like Long Island, where I'm from. It's a mix of lower class to middle class, and we have something like 30 teams, but there's not nearly enough companies to sponser that many teams. Long Island is a small area, not quite as small as a city, but not big enough for every team to have their own corporate sponser. My old team got lucky, and our school helped out a lot (took care of most ground transportation, and if we asked nicely, usually covered the initial competition), but otherwise, we never had true corporate sponsors, that would give us all the money we needed. Instead, we had fundraisers, one year we did a car raffle and made $26,000, which was then split in half 50/50 style because we didn't make enough to buy a car and have any left over for ourselves. We did bakesales, car washes, and every other sort of fundraiser, and always managed to have enough for two or three competitions, IF the students paid the majority of their transportation and hotel costs, and I know I worked myself because my parents weren't going to pay all of the money for me to go to Atlanta.

Believe me, my old team has had to find money in all sorts of places, we've actually been in the red during build season before, and had to go run around and get money from whoever we could to repay our teacher, and it's always worked out. As I've said before, FIRST is more than just building a robot, it's running a business, and you have to be able to manage all aspects of it, from getting money to fabricating the robot.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I'll note, again, that Long Island is hardly rural. Brief research reveals that Nassau and Suffolk counties alone have a population of 2.7 million between them. That isn't counting Brooklyn and Queens. We'll assume 10 of your teams are in Suffolk, however. That's a population of 1.4 million in an area of 911 sq. mi. Given 10 teams, that's a base of 140,000 people per team in an area of 91 sq. mi.

Now, apologies to Tonya, but I'm using her as an example. Ponca City has a population of 26,000. Kay county has a population of 48,000 in 911 sq. mi. That is quite a bit of area to cover for a third the amount of people. Not to mention that I'm sure Suffolk county still attracts more corporations than Kay county.

As an aside, I note that it appears the median houshold income around Long Island is about twice that of Ponca City.

So, rural America faces very large hurdles to competing in the FIRST competition. If you had to do a build season in the red and do all this other stuff, I'm sure you can see that it has to be atleast 3 times as hard for Tonya's team.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

I'll note, again, that Long Island is hardly rural. Brief research reveals that Nassau and Suffolk counties alone have a population of 2.7 million between them. That isn't counting Brooklyn and Queens. We'll assume 10 of your teams are in Suffolk, however. That's a population of 1.4 million in an area of 911 sq. mi. Given 10 teams, that's a base of 140,000 people per team in an area of 91 sq. mi.

Now, apologies to Tonya, but I'm using her as an example. Ponca City has a population of 26,000. Kay county has a population of 48,000 in 911 sq. mi. That is quite a bit of area to cover for a third the amount of people. Not to mention that I'm sure Suffolk county still attracts more corporations than Kay county.

As an aside, I note that it appears the median houshold income around Long Island is about twice that of Ponca City.

So, rural America faces very large hurdles to competing in the FIRST competition. If you had to do a build season in the red and do all this other stuff, I'm sure you can see that it has to be atleast 3 times as hard for Tonya's team.

Then look to Grundy for inspiration. I don't know the entire story, there are others on here who know it much better then I, but they are your rural America. Grundy is in southwest Virginia, old coal mining county where the mines are closing and people leaving. Not a lot of money there, but Grundy pulls it off.

Another favorite FIRST memory of mine is from Nationals in 2000. One team had their sponsors listed on the back of their shirts. All of them, in about a 15 point font took up the entire vertical length of the shirt. Including Linda's Lingerie Shop (actual name forgotten, but something like that).

You may have to look in some unconventional places, but there is money to be found.


Wetzel

[Adam Y.]

I'll note, again, that Long Island is hardly rural. Brief research reveals that Nassau and Suffolk counties alone have a population of 2.7 million between them. That isn't counting Brooklyn and Queens. We'll assume 10 of your teams are in Suffolk, however. That's a population of 1.4 million in an area of 911 sq. mi. Given 10 teams, that's a base of 140,000 people per team in an area of 91 sq. mi.

Your numbers are probably skewed. I really doubt that the population of Long Island is that evenly distrubuted. In fact it can't be. The majority of people probably reside closer to Nassau than Suffolk.

As an aside, I note that it appears the median houshold income around Long Island is about twice that of Ponca City.

That mainly relates to the fact that everything in Long Island is twice as expensive as it is in Ponca City. It's proximity to the city makes it the prime place for every single bussiness to rip everyone off. Also the only major company (Lockhead Martin??) on Long Island is sponsoring all of the teams last I knew.

[Denman]

the entrance fee isn't the problem for us.... microsoft have generously given us the entree fee for the last 3 years... however, the cost is going up every year. In 2 years we will probably not compete as each person will have to pay and extra £150 (~$270) for visa's . When your taking about 30 people with £150 each thats an extra £4500 pounds (which is more than the entry fee . . . . . (~$8,140)) so we will most likely not compete then (unless they host a regional here in europe / uk)

[Ian W.]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Then again, you may have even more fun since you won't be worrying about fundraising and whether or not your team will lose sponsorship or if you'll be able to afford FIRST's latest price increase, etc. Or possibly just because BEST is also a challenging program. Don't knock it till you've tried it, and don't assume FIRST is necessarily better cause it's bigger, more expensive, and more complex. I'm quite certain you can have loads of fun in both BEST and FIRST simply because I know I have.

I'm sorry if that sounds rude or something, but I'm getting slightly annoyed at BEST being panned as FIRST's little brother, the horrible zone that FIRST teams are relegated to when they can't or won't pay to play in FIRST.

I say FIRST is more fun, mostly because from reading the BEST site, and trying to understand what it tries to achieve, FIRST has more in the way of electronics and controls, which is my area, what I consider fun. BEST seems, to me at least, to be about 3 or 4 years behind where FIRST is, control wise, but that's because they simply don't have the need for controls as advanced as we do. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me, but that's the impression I got from reading BEST's own site.

[Don Knight]

I believe it has.......

I also believe the price structure could be rearranged to promote more growth without loss and probably a likely increase in available funds to FIRST.

$4000.00 - Initial Regional
Promotes growth with lower initial cost
Allows teams to "Catch the FIRST Fever"

$5000.00 - Additional Regionals
You raise extra money for additional competitions
Practice time is costly

$6000.00 - Championships
It's the "CHAMPIONSHIPS"
BIGGER - MORE OF EVERYTHING
FIRST has always said it the most expensive event to hold

[EStokely]

Don I think you almost got it the way I think it should be;
$4000.00 - Initial Regional
Promotes growth with lower initial cost
Allows teams to "Catch the FIRST Fever"

$6000.00 - Additional Regionals <--------------------I would make this 6K
You raise extra money for additional competitions
Practice time is costly

$6000.00 - Championships
It's the "CHAMPIONSHIPS"
BIGGER - MORE OF EVERYTHING
FIRST has always said it the most expensive event to hold

Extra regionals are a luxury. The initial regional should be the lowest on the list (imho)

But we should have all seen this coming when first announced, I will admit I really didn't do the math , I saw an additional $1000, when I should have seen a 20% increase. Next year we need to really make some noises about the pricing structure. This year, smaller budgets.

Eric Stokely

[EStokely]

Max Lobovsky wrote:
..A system like that is paramount to welfare with wealthier teams that attend multiple teams paying part of the cost of poorer teams that attend only one regional....

I agree sorta, And my first reaction is to not like it. But I see a different welfare with the current system, In effect the One regional only teams are subsidising any team that goes to more than one. Thats backwards at best.

How about Any regional, same price. 5000 or 5500.00 regardless of how many you attend? I would find that easier to accept. I know that doesn't take into account the KOP. Not a perfect solution yet....
Nats could still be 6K It is bigger.

More fuel for discussion.

[Jack Jones]

The idea that the price increase was necessary and that FIRST is worth it in no way contributes to growing the organization. We can cut costs by eliminating useless kit components and reusing controllers till the cows come home; it would save but a few teams and would have little effect on recruiting more.

What we have here is an egocentric grassroots organization. Each team acting in their own self-interest; very few – you may know the exceptions – working hard toward the common good. What we end up with is a dog-eat-dog existence where the fortunate few align to beat up the rest. Oh there’s the stated ideal of cooperative competition, where we shave points and share parts, but near the end of the day on Saturday we pretty much know who’ll be picking whom. It is, for a large part, scholastic and corporate Darwinism that drives the competition.

Cynical? You bet! Accurate? Not really. I’m sure that most of the sponsors start out with altruistic intentions; I know that the engineers, teachers, parents, and mentors just want to do right by the kids. But as long FIRST continues to grow from the bottom up instead of top down it will soon reach a point where an educator, no matter how dedicated, would have to be nuts to take on teams that survived. It will be then when FIRST gets frozen in time, thereafter to melt slowly away.

So, what the heck does this rant have to do with increasing costs? Everything! The competition cost to the teams should not be going up; it should go down to ZERO. We should not only be out soliciting companies to sponsor our schools, but should also be using our influence on them to sponsor FIRST as a whole. If their intentions are indeed altruistic, then their name and logo on the sponsor board and in the pamphlets will thank them. If the engineers just want to do right by the kids, then instead of two, three, or four of them helping one team, they could share themselves, their facilities, and their resources. (By the way, can you name more than two sponsors of the events? Have you dropped them a line to say how grateful you are?)

I believe that FIRST should come to the epiphany that it cannot continue to exist as it is. However, sudden change would produce sudden chaos, so we would need to evolve a step at a time. A good start would be to recruit enough Regional sponsors so that entry fees go away. Each and every team could then go to at least two, maybe three, which would justify the six weeks of angst they’ve all just endured. A second would be a “mi casa es su casa” approach to the build. That is, replace the exemption of costs when performed by a team member or sponsor with the exemption of costs when performed by any FIRST member or sponsor. That is also, an open door policy toward the community’s teams – kind of like ChiefDelphi.com, but up close and personal.

IMHO, what we really need is a summit, where the movers and shakers in FIRST come together to devise a plan to reorganize toward a utopia where all teams are created as equal as possible and with equal opportunities at the start of each season.

I’ll not hold my breath and turn blue waiting for this to happen. After all, as the Godfather said: “We are not Communists.” What I have done was, and is, to act on my instincts. Last year I lobbied my employer for a considerable chunk of change; we immediately funneled every last cent directly to FIRST regional operations. Our human and material resources went mostly to “our” team, but even then we did our best to share what we had. Seems to me that if enough do likewise we can forego the summit.

[Tonya Scott 476]

Many teams (like ourselves) are rural, middle america based, and there aren't a lot of corporate sponsors. Our team has won many awards based on our fundraising dynamics, but sometimes a small community can only handle so much. All the businesses in our small rural community get hit by several organizations on a daily basis.

We were actually asked to help write the fundraising guide on the FIRST website because we do so much of it. So fundraising is something that we are all to familiar, and experienced, with.

I still think that rather than looking at solutions to solve the cash flow problem, why don't we focus on the cause. It is very possible to solve the need for price increases at the root of the problems. I am no financial expert, but I am sure that there are numerous ways to prevent, or even decrease, the costs of entry fees.

Imagine the growth of FIRST if the initial Regional entry fee was $3000 or even $3500! It would be phenominal. Now I am speaking for middle america, regular to low income brackets. I like the earlier post about teams coming together to find sponsors to sponsor the regionals so that costs would be less for teams. Or even find sponsors that would fund half or all of the kits (if we even had kits) Just let teams use any motor of a specific type, and teams would be learning to be even more resourceful. Another aspect of being in middle america is having to travel a great distance just to attend a competition----most of our budget is travel (sound familiar?) it is 8 hours to St. Louis, 9 hours to Denver, and 9 hours to Houston. So we have to plan extra nights in hotel, extra gas, and charter buses because our school won't let us use personal vehicles. So if you live close to your regional, be thankful. It is a 4 day trek (or mecca?) to attend a regional---very costly.

Teams numbers are growing. I just think that change comes with growth. Flexibility is also a wonderful trait. But being a part of FIRST is a great experience, the other competitions are also very fulfilling, but if kids have their heart set on FIRST-----then funding shouldn't deny them. I think we all agree that we love doing FIRST and we get very excited just walking thru the pits to see all the ideas that materialized into functional machines.

There are so many creative and brilliant minds out there that build wonderful inventions and machines---surely we can be equally creative and open minded so that we don't deny students the opportunity to participate due to such high prices. Just think about how a student feels during build season and kickoff when their team couldn't pay the price to compete. FIRST is a great experience......every team that wants to participate should have that opportunity, regardless of financial resources.

Grants are great, but very difficult, especially among high competition. Good luck to all the needy teams, may you find some funding to get you there.