The Ideals of FIRST have Changed...

[StephLee]

Sorry to post again in the same thread, but I think the shear number of posts this thread has gotten in less than 24 hours helps to prove that the ideals and spirit of FIRST are most definately alive and well.

[Adrienne E.]

Going into my 7th year of being involved in FIRST I think I can say I have experienced allot of different "teams" I came from Team 191. Well funded, huge on Chairmans and awesome at inspiring all the the people involved on the team. I graduated and moved on to Team 229. My first season with them (2003) was a real eye opener for me. I didn't realize how hard it was for teams with no budget, and very few dedicated mentors. But I threw myself into the team and the robot, and after that year I almost quit the program. In high school I never got a chance to see the difficulties that some teams face, and truthfully I'm amazed that so many teams continue to exist year after year because keeping a FIRST team going is really hard work!

So theres my background, but the real point that I want to make in this post is that success is measured very differently on each team. So yes, maybe some of the smaller, less funded teams in FIRST aren't winning regionals and awards every year. But maybe thats not what they consider success. If you were to ask me why this season was so successful for Team 229, my first answer would be that FOUR of our graduating seniors got FIRST scholarships for college (a big improvement on the zero from last season). Maybe thats just the mentor in me talking but I really am extremely proud of them!

This season we lost 2 key college mentors, and next year myself and most of our leadership will be graduating. Am I scared that my team is going to go down the tubes? YES but the only thing I can do is try to inspire more people to step up and keep it going.

Anyways, after all this rambling, have the FIRST ideals changed? No. Were they ever the same for all teams? Probably Not. But we all just have to do what we can and are willing to, to keep our teams going.

[mechanicalbrain]

see thats what i kind of don't encourage. while i love mentors i like watching them take a hands off approach. mentors should be able to say "if i wasn't here my team would be fine" and it should be true. finally being junior and leader of electronics finally gives me some sway and one of the things I'm pushing for is a teaching workshop where all the group leaders basically explain everything they do which is good because if we cant show people can move along with out us it also means that people can switch in if a group needs extra help. i don't know how it works in the other teams but i see some great ideas kids create that never make it because a mentor has a great idea he wants to do. in allot of these cases kids who would be innovative leaders end up just putting together a mentors idea. some people here may do it with out realizing it. mentors ask yourself are you a guiding, driving, or helping force. if you picked one of the first two then you might be doing a job that would be better put in the kids hands let the kids lead and invent help them to be the best but remember that (this especially applies to returning FIRST people) that in order for kids to grow they have to be given room to grow if not actually using an idea (because not all ideas can be used) still encourage the kid to create more ideas even build a couple that way the kid might be on better ground with his experience and have become stronger from your encouragement. i know this will probably earn me some interesting mails and yes i know it doesn't apply to everyone. i honestly think this will only be valuable depending on the person who reads it. oh yeah i would like to give thanks to sanddrag who i think is a great example of a mentor.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by ChrisCook

I mainly wrote this because I;m graduating and my team is being left with nothing ...

plus another blow our mentor that started the team will be retiring from our school next year and we will have no program.

What i really need is some serious inspiration ...

Ok, if Im understanding this correctly, you had a team in 2001, nothing for 3 years, you put together a team for this year

and now you have 3 seniors graduating and your (only?) adult mentor is retiring?

Is that the situation?

The intention of FIRST is for corporations to team up with highschools and form teams. If your team was able to attend events with no corporate sponsors, no engineers? no professionals other than a HS teacher, then yes - you had a very minimal seat-of-the-pants sort of team this year

and it will be very difficult to sustain a team like that from year to year.

If this is the case, then your school needs to find a corporate sponsor. That is the idea behind FIRST, for HS students to work with engineers and scientist to see what a career in those fields would be like. If you dont have a sponsor, and no engineers, and no technicians..... then I dont know how that is suppose to work, except for the things you can pick up working with other teams in your area.

The burden does not fall on FIRST to find sponsors for each team - they do help match up sponsors looking for schools, and verse visa - but the primary responsibily of matching up sponsors and schools falls on the sponsors and the schools.

The best advice I can give (if Im not off the track and in the woods by now) is:

1. Set up a parent / student group at your school to look for a corporate sponsor.

2. contact FIRST and see if there are corporations in your area looking to start a 'new' team.

If you managed to have a team this year with no sponsorship, my hat is off to you - that is an incredible accomplishment. I think you will find it incredibly difficult to continue in that mode year after year.

You need to connect with a company that can supply funds, facilities, equipment and engineers and scientists - the experience your students will have will be totally different.

EDITED TO ADD: you need to do this now if you want your school to have a team in 2006. Most companys appropriate their community service funds in january, so you are already 5 months behind in that respect. But it is possible to find corporate sponsorship over the summer, and start up again in the fall.

Our team lost its corporate sponsor after the nationals in 1998. One of the parents rallied several other parents, two teachers and a bunch of students to work together to find a new sponsor. We pulled it off, but it was a lot of work. We talked to over 300 potential sponsors, and ended up with two companys, one of which (Gleason) is not only still our primary sponsor (7 years later) but they are also one of the sponsors of the new Rochester (fingerlakes) regional.

maybe something better than you can imagine will come of this - you never know!

[Bill Gold]

Originally Posted by ChrisCook

What I have meant to say is that Teams with great spirit and commitment are usually cut out of the spotlight. I mainly wrote this because I;m graduating and my team is being left with nothing because this was the first year that we have been back since our start in 2001.

I Don't care if our team gets honors or awards, i just want these kids to have fun, but if the program does not survive then whats the point. I mean the kids were inspired at the wrong time, They came to the comp. and said "why didn't you do this?" and the response I had to give them was we did;t have enough
(time?, money?, manpower?, enthusiasm? commitment?) and because we couldn't get our team to really see the bigger picture they just started to bail on our efforts and the few that were really dedicated to this project, had to face the burden of the work.(Which was about three Seniors)

plus another blow our mentor that started the team will be retiring from our school next year and we will have no program. What i really need is some serious inspiration and some people who think that this is just a joke to realize what they are really doing.
Thanks for your quick feedback.

Chris,
I disagree with the notion that “teams with great spirit and commitment are usually cut out of the spotlight,” but this really isn’t the point that you’re trying to put forward in this thread. You’ve put so much energy into your team, and now that you’re leaving along with other people who have been the cornerstones for your team you’re concerned that the team will fall because the other students who are being left the team were apathetic this past year. I can understand the feelings you have, having faced the same situation when I was a graduating senior. Like I said before, this doesn’t have to be the case.

If you really want your fellow schoolmates to continue being able to participate in FIRST, I would strongly suggest getting them in contact with people like Cory or myself. We’re in the area, and we’re very active members of the FIRST community. We can help hook your school and/or your schoolmates up with another team or give them the support they need to continue on with a new faculty member.

You’ve got to try to do what you can to keep your team’s head above the water, but if after you’ve given it your all and it still drowns, at least you know you gave it all you could and didn’t throw in the towel with some energy left in your tank. I did this with 258. I’m proud of my hard work trying to hold that team together and I’m proud of everything I did as a member of that team, but I’ve moved past it and put it behind me knowing that I did all I could and then some.

Please, Chris, if there are any students who will be at Homestead in 2006 or beyond who would like to participate in FIRST send them my way. I’ll make sure that they end up on a team, and get something out of this wonderful program. Seriously, email or IM/PM me or have them contact me.

-Bill

[MikeJ675]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

and it will be very difficult to sustain a team like that from year to year.

If this is the case, then your school needs to find a corporate sponsor. That is the idea behind FIRST, for HS students to work with engineers and scientist to see what a career in those fields would be like. If you dont have a sponsor, and no engineers, and no technicians..... then I dont know how that is suppose to work, except for the things you can pick up working with other teams in your area.

If you managed to have a team this year with no sponsorship, my hat is off to you - that is an incredible accomplishment. I think you will find it incredibly difficult to continue in that mode year after year.

Very, very true. 675 has been without sponsorship since it's second year. (we're in our fifth) A team without a sponsor is a hard thing to keep going. It takes a lot of time and effort. It will seem like the work never ends.

The best thing to do when you don't have a sponsor is to start looking for alternate means of funding the team. Right now, team 675's biggest money maker is our LAN partys/all nighters. These can start small. We're just moving past using free demos on live cd's towards hosting our own servers for more modern games. The all nighters also gave the team a lot of extra work time during the build session. (something like 90% of the wiring, and 50-70% of the arm got built that night)

It's a struggle, but you definatly feel good about yourself after it's all over.

[Daniel Brim]

Originally Posted by ChrisCook

Plus FIRST is not about the people, its about the robot and how well it does in competition, because no ones asks your team for advice, if your the last seed on a list; they ask the team first seed.

Whenever I hear something like that, I have to post my personal story.

About the robot:
From here

First of all, before I begin, I think FIRST is what you make of it (I think I borrowed this from a spotlight). The below is my interpretation of FIRST, and is by no means the only interpretation of FIRST.

Personally, I do not believe that FIRST is simply a robot building contest. As it has been stated before, the robot is merely a "by-product" of the competition. We build a robot because FIRST tells us to. A robot is just a way of giving us inspiration, and I believe that everyone can be just as inspired with another object. Say the goal was to build a car. Would it be harder? Of course. Would FIRST need more engineer involvement? Yeah. Would teams need more money in order to compete? Most likely. Would everybody be just as inspired? You betcha.

FIRST, by definition, is a competition, as was stated before. However, it is not a normal competition in that it is every team for themselves. FIRST is so much more than that. Just look at some anecdotes from previous seasons, such as six hour robot (everybody descending on a team with no robot's pit and build a robot in six hours). This is were the whole cooperatition idea comes in.

In addition, there are so many things to do in FIRST besides actually building a robot. That is another reason why I think it is impossible to define FIRST as simply a robot building contest. There are chairman's award people, animation people, PR people, Inventor people, NEMs, and many other positions that I'm sure I have forgotten.

Here is sort of a story from our team proving that you do not need to be working on the robot to make a difference in a FIRST team. One member of our team (you know him as DCA_Fan or George) has not really worked on our robot at all in his four years as a Beach Cities Robotics team member. This does not mean he is not working; in fact it is the exact opposite. In his work with our Chairman's entry, our website, as well as the website for SCRRF, he has made just as much as an impact as any other team member, if not more. It was largely because of him that we won Chairman's in the Southern California regional last year.

Me personally, I only touched the robot twice this year. One day I attached the drawer slides on our arm, and the other I tried my hand at driving. The rest of the season I have been working with Inventor to try to expand BCR's horizons as a "robotics" team. I like to think that I'm making a difference not only on our team, but in Dean's scheme to change the world.

In conclusion, I think that the fact that the Chairman's award even exists is enough to prove that FIRST isn't just about robots. If this was solely a contest, who would care about changing the community? Making a positive impact in the community and inspiring is truly what FIRST is about to me.

I hope you find that relevant.

-Daniel

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by ChrisCook

Teams that can afford more regionals, manpower and special interests, seem to always 'stamp-out' the other teams. Plus FIRST is not about the people, its about the robot and how well it does in competition, because no ones asks your team for advice, if your the last seed on a list; they ask the team first seed.
Teams with the most funding, mentors, and special interests do well and that’s how the program robotics programs continue. But for team like mine, the program is now nothing because we are losing our Head mechanic, head software and hardware, and team president.

Chris,
I can see your frustration with the loss of so much. I agree with the others here that the robot is not the all to end all. It is merely the vehicle to a much better place. When this competition loses a team we all suffer in some small way. Even the large teams lose significant team members and mentors it just doesn't show. I don't know what regionals you attended but I can tell you that teams that are doing OK look for and assist other teams that need help. I can count at least ten teams that I knew of who needed serious help in the competitions that I attended. Most of those teams accepted the help and did well, one refused until it was too late. That one team broke my heart because of the stubbornness of just one mentor. If I could get one message out to teams who need help it would be, "ASK!". There is an huge number of mentors and team members who are just waiting to be asked to help. Do you need mechanical help, software, driving or strategy tips? If you need electrical help ask me. If you can't find anyone for those other problems, ask me and I will help you find someone.
The biggest fallacy in FIRST is the belief we are just a bunch of different teams. We are ONE BIG TEAM with a lot of sub teams for the purpose of competition. When you need help, we are bound to assist when we can. When your event needs a volunteer, we are there. When the robot breaks, we will help put it back together. When you ask for advice you get it. (sift out the good stuff though)
Yes, there are things that aren't perfect in this organization but we get more right than almost any other institution. If we are getting more students into college, we win, if we get more students to lift their heads from the TV games and look outside their own homes, we win. If we get students to see the light, and their grades improve, they quit gangs, they find purpose, or they help someone else, we have won.

[Joe Lambie]

Chris,

I do not think many people will give you a lot of heat, just ideas. Being on both sides of the coin, a student on a well-funded team and now a mentor on a less then stellar-funded rural college team I hope I can provide a view from both sides. How one feels though is a matter of personal experience. Something that FIRST gave me was the idea of never giving up. The belief that no matter how hard something seems to be, that it only becomes impossible when you believe that it is impossible. I have a friend on a college team who receives only about 7000 a year to keep going on. And every year people make the sacrifice to keep coming back and they always build a competitive robot. Yes I agree, many teams that are larger and better funded have an advantage robot wise, but they also have a helping advantage. 9 times out of 10 it is those teams that are right there always willing to help. I know many of them from the Midwest, and anytime we needed help on 857, we could always find it.

In regards to giving up on chairman's, I would say do not give up to anyone. Chairman's is about everything you feel has changed. The teams that have won, both at the regional and national levels have almost always been very deserving of the honor. Now that is not to say there are disagreements, but I still respect those teams that receive the honor. Now if you feel as if you need to shift resources away from chairman's sometimes, everyone needs to make priorities, but never feel as if you need to give up on something like that. Like anything in life, you cannot win if you don't play.

If you really believe that the ideals of FIRST have changed, than maybe for you they have. For me, FIRST has changed in many ways, but the one area they have not is in the ideals and purpose of FIRST.

[Erin Rapacki]

"For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology"

Some teams are big,
some teams are small,
some have nothing,
some have it all.

Did your team members have a ball?

Whether rural or urban,
foreign or suburban,
one purpose of FIRST (I believe) does lie.

Simply put in the acronym; did your team members RECOGNIZE?

OK, I can't write poems. My point is that FIRST is about inspiring young people into careers into science and technology. Whether it be an urban wanna-be gangster who's inspired into attending a tech school and becoming a mechanic, to a confused suburban high school girl who's inspired into going into engineering school in a big city, or a wealthy have-it-all A+ student who only does robotics as a resume builder so they can go to an Ivy League school and study to become a doctor.

My opinion is that if your FIRST team is spinning off alumni who study/pursue careers in science and technology; don't worry about all the arbitrary stuff. A big well-funded team pushes to win Chairman's because its challenging. A smaller under-funded team pushes for more funding & support because its challenging. A team with a lot of experienced mentors push to build a better robot because its challenging. No matter how big or how small, a team should be pushing their limits, and thats all that matters too.

So if your team pushes your limits (in any way) and spins off alumni in science and technology related career paths, your team is fitting to the ideals of FIRST.

[Ryan Foley]

Originally Posted by ChrisCook

Prompt: I feel that FIRST has lost its objectivity. There is no room for the smaller and almost more devoted teams. These teams make up the 75% that don't go to Nationals or has mass funding or really devoted mentors. This thread was written in response to the " when do mentors go too far" and the "Worst call ever..." Teams that can afford more regionals, manpower and special interests, seem to always 'stamp-out' the other teams.

I once thought as you did Chris. My old high school team has been in and out of the FRC since 1997. Although what I have come to find is the reason so many teams have trouble is because it is hard to get a solid grip in FRC. What I mean is that when you start a team, it's hard to get a solid foundation that will ensure it's life for many years. That is why more well known teams are well known. They have solid foundations that work well and good organization that keep the team going year after year. And those well known teams are definitely not trying to stamp out the smaller ones, if anything, the well known teams jump at the chance to help a smaller team be successful.

I found that taking a year off from FIRST helped me realize this and turn my thinking around.

Good Luck

[Jaine Perotti]

Chris -

I both agree and disagree with you on several points. I will try to make it brief (which is not my usual fashion ).

I believe that the ideals of FIRST have done anything but change. When the founders of FIRST were just beginning to dream about designing a robotics competition, they all had the same ideas in mind - inspire and educate young people to be more aware of science and technology fields. I believe that this is still the most fundamental goal that has guided FIRST to be where it is today. I don't see any evidence of these core values eroding - I believe that FIRST is doing its job when it comes to promoting this ideal. At the rate FIRST is growing, more and more students are being enabled to view science and technology in a positive light. More and more are learning things that they have never even dreamed of knowing before. FIRST is inspiring more and more students to become engineers and scientists - students who would otherwise never have been given the opportunity to explore those careers (I know I am one of them).

However, I do see that the issues that you have brought up are becoming more and more of a source of frustration for many FIRST teams. I don't think you meant that the "ideals" of FIRST are changing, so much as you meant that the "methods of growth" FIRST is encouraging teams to use are dis-satisfactory to certain team "types". The "type" of team I think you are talking about is the underfunded, under mentored team which strives to break even at the end of each season. This type of team is much different from say, the "type" of team which has many mentors, a strong corporate sponsorship, and a surplus amount of money at the end of each season. I think that I tend to agree with you that the ones who are struggling to break even DO in fact have a disadvantage to the teams with bountiful resources. Looking at the way my team is now (we are the "type" which struggles every year for money), I see that it is virtually impossible to go around funding new teams (although we can offer mentorship) or initiating the sort of change which requires a large amount of dedicated and knowledgeable individuals. We are certainly not devoid of those types of motivated people - in fact, I would say that we have a very high ratio of those who are willing to throw their heart and soul into FIRST compared to those who have different priorities. However, our problem is that relative to the size of the team (which is quite small), that high ratio means that there are still very few of them. Because we have so few people, it is hard for us to, for example, start 10 lego teams per year.

I do think that you have a valid point by bringing up this frustration. It is indeed very hard for small, rural type teams to bring in enough revenue to merely pay for registration fees, let alone begin trying to make broad culture change by initiating new community programs. By no means am I saying it is impossible - take a look at team 103's excellent rural support resources. However, I recognize what you are saying when you mention that there is a problem. I think that FIRST needs to make its program more economical to different demographic areas. If FIRST can make the program more economical, then I believe it will be able to do its job even better; reach the areas that need FIRST the most (poverty-ridden areas), and allow existing teams to expend more money on the culture-change part of the FIRST program. I don't know how exactly FIRST should go about doing this - in fact, I don't have the slightest inkling. However, I do believe that unless FIRST changes something about the economic accessibility of the program, the founders' dream of "a FIRST team in every high school" will not be able to become a reality. As it has been reported already, there are currently not enough resources to support a large amount of FIRST teams in a small geographic area. The FIRST program is a "money-guzzler", as wonderful as it is, and in order for the program to spread, I agree that there needs to be reform in the areas of funding.

However, I just want to add one thing...

When you say that the large, corporate teams tend to "stamp out" the smaller ones, I would like to disagree. As I have already stated, my team is a very small team. <begin-slightly-shameless-but-hopefully-inspiring-plug> However, even though we too have been underfunded, rural, and small, we have managed to see great successes in our five years of participation. Last year, we won the UTC New England Regional, which is well attended by older, veteran teams, and we were close finalists at the New Jersey Regional. We won the Delphi's "Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award" at BOTH regionals - and we only have the help of one engineer. In Atlanta, we were undefeated in qualifying rounds, set the record of the highest score for the season, 230 points (along with team 45 and 1272, a rookie), and managed to be division finalists (losing to the alliance which eventually went on to win the whole thing). We did incredibly well for having the "small team" disadvantages that you describe! </end slightly-shameless-plug> I believe that your team can do it too. Take any group of individuals, no matter how small, and motivate them ... and you can go on to do great things. Take a group of people and transform them into a team, and you can overcome many of the toughest obstacles. As other have mentioned, in order to become one of the "greats", you must first build a solid foundation of team work and support. This is not easy, and it can take years and years to achieve. But once you do it, the sky is truly the limit.

Good luck,

-- Jaine

...and oops, that wasn't exactly brief...

[Marc P.]

Originally Posted by BurningQuestion

I think that FIRST needs to make its program more economical to different demographic areas. If FIRST can make the program more economical, then I believe it will be able to do its job even better; reach the areas that need FIRST the most (poverty-ridden areas), and allow existing teams to expend more money on the culture-change part of the FIRST program. I don't know how exactly FIRST should go about doing this - in fact, I don't have the slightest inkling. However, I do believe that unless FIRST changes something about the economic accessibility of the program, the founders' dream of "a FIRST team in every high school" will not be able to become a reality. As it has been reported already, there are currently not enough resources to support a large amount of FIRST teams in a small geographic area. The FIRST program is a "money-guzzler", as wonderful as it is, and in order for the program to spread, I agree that there needs to be reform in the areas of funding.

I think this is where the FIRST Vex Challenge will come into play. From what I've read and seen in Atlanta, it seems the Vex system is poised to provide FIRST's ideals an outlet to reach areas which otherwise would not be able to sustain a FIRST Robotics team.

The important thing to remember is FIRST is about Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology first (no pun intended, really), and a robotics competition second. Looking through the "Does FIRST give out too many awards" thread, and looking at the current list of awards, there are very few awards focused on the actual competition itself. Out of the list of 20 awards, only 3 or 4 are directly related to the competition structure. The rest have more to do with the functions of the team, from the design/fabrication of the robot, to web design, sportsmanship, spirit, Chairmans projects, Engineering Inspiration, safety, etc. Compare that to some of the awards of years past, such as play of the day, number 1 seed, offensive/defensive match of the day, etc.

Just as Woodie and Dean said in the introduction video at each regional- the competition is a celebration of all the hard work put into the build season. Not only in physically building the robot, but the engineers/parent/teachers/mentors putting forth their time and energy to teach their skills and share experience with students. In that sense, it really doesn't matter how much money a team has, or how well a robot does. The only thing that really matters is the understanding and appreciation of the technology and science behind how the robot came to be. Ideally, this would result in students going to college/university to pursue careers in whatever they find themselves enjoying throughout the FIRST experience. It could be mechanical/electrical engineering, business, accounting, or whatever. At the end of the competition season, if the students are pumped up about coming back the next season, or starting some team off-season projects, or about moving on to college, then FIRST has achieved it's ideals.

[Kims Robot]

As many have already stated, I really dont think that the "Ideals" of FIRST have changed. FIRST has always been about inspiration and continues to be.

But FIRST has changed in a few other ways. It has become more corporate like. Many threads show how "in the old days" the FIRST community was like a large family... now its more like a business. This often makes it hard for the smaller teams to be heard.

Another way that hurts the small teams is that it costs a lot more money. I can remember back in 2000 that there was a team of a father and his two sons who scraped together just enough money to attend nationals (before you had to qualify or rookies couldnt register). They essentially put together a plywood box on a scissor lift with wheels that could lift balls. It was a valient effort, and they were an inspiration to all of us.

Where I can agree with the "stamped-out" comment, is that yes, smaller teams can no longer afford to go to several events. Smaller teams cannot afford the people to put together a large scouting system or 10 different crews at the events. Smaller teams dont often have the resources to make a ton of marketing propaganda.

But where I disagree, is that smaller teams are still an inspiration to a lot of us. Its the "wow, look at what they accomplished with 1/10 our budget, or half our people..." etc. It inspires us all to be a bit more frugal and perhaps give a little more of ourselves. If we have 10 times the sponsorship, we should strive to accomplish 10 times as much, and part of that should be trying to help out the smaller teams that may need it, or start new teams, etc.

Dont lose hope... perhaps your team may not think it is seen, but it is. Someone recognizes the effort you made, even if you dont have the black and clear plastic to prove it.

Oh and another thing, you dont have to leave FIRST, I graduated HS in 98, and Clarkson University didnt have a team, so I started one... take your ambitions and your direction and start up a new team!

Anyways, I gotta run to our HS awards ceremony just my thoughts as usual.

[akshar]

Originally Posted by ChrisCook

Teams with the most funding, mentors, and special interests do well and that’s how the program robotics programs continue. But for team like mine, the program is now nothing because we are losing our Head mechanic, head software and hardware, and team president.

For those of you who went to UTC, 1568 was the little rookie team composed of 9 students (2 from junior high), 2 mentors and 3-4 parents. Our shirts were simple iron ons, nothing to fancy. Our robot was simple, a pulley mechanism to lift the arm(s). Our budget was 10,000 dollars. We did really well, placed as the top rookie team, and 13th rank going into alliance picking. We were the 8th seed alliance capptains and had to step out in our 2nd match because of a rookie mistake. So what do i think? our rag tag team of 9 people, only one which knew what was going on put together a very good robot using a very low budget. Maybe you think the values of FIRST has changed, but i do not. It's still about bringling together people to work on a common goal, and in the process promoting engineering.