Re:USFirst is a Scam (Score 1)

How is it a scam? From day one, Dean Kamen has said that the main goal of FIRST is to inspire students in science and technology. It's not a program that is set up for students to do everything. And FIRST is not responsible for how a team is run. I've been a volunteer on team 116 for over 3 years now. Team 116's main claim to fame is that it is one of the few teams that gets a large grant from NASA and the use of one of their engineers (a lot of other teams get smaller grants to help them get started). The NASA engineer that we have is Dave Lavery, Program Executive for Solar System Exploration, is one of the main people responsible for the two Rovers currently on Mars. Now, a lot of people would think with a talent like that, our team would always be one of the top ranked teams... sometimes we do alright (semi-finals, VCU 2004) other times we suck (last place, VCU 2003). Every year we vote on who will do the work, and every year, the vote is for students to do the majority of the work, with the engineers to guide them when needed. We vote on just about everything, from the design of the robot to which competitions we will attend to tee-shirts and buttons. It sounds like you were on a team that was not a democracy, but again, that is not the fault of FIRST.

FIRST never made any claim to being "fair", but then why would they create a fantasy like that when life itself is not fair? Sure, it's not cheap to enter these events, and maybe there are too many inner-city, and small town schools who think they cannot afford a team, but I bet those same schools have sports teams. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with celebrating the body, but too many schools fail to celebrate the mind, and maybe one day the powers that be will realize this. Until then, teams do what they can. FIRST urges teams to reach out to schools like this, which is why the Chairman's Award has top honors over the actual robot competition.

FIRST inspires.