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I am aware that US FIRST recently changed their name to FIRST "in an effort to expand their competition to youth all over the world."

Personally I disagree with this change and will continue to call the competition US FIRST in the hopes that they will eventually change the name back.

In the video by 20/20 a few years ago they interviewed Dean Kamen who talked about how our children were falling behind the rest of the world in math and science and if we don't do something about it now we are going to raise the first generation of kids who will be less educated than their parents. Emphasis was on the ability for our kids to compete for jobs in the world market. They even showed graphs of math and science scores which showed the US near last in all cases.

I don't really have a problem with expanding the competition globally, I just don't like the name. I mean this year will be the 6th Annual FIRST competition!?!?! Go up to someone and tell them you are participating in the FIRST competition, their response? FIRST what? I think we should leave it US FIRST but define it the way many newspapers and magazines did before: "The United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology" Texas Instuments doesn't sell only to Texas, nor only to the US and they didn't have to change their name. So like the FEDEX commercial said, they changed their name to FEDEX because thats what everyone called them anyway, I encourage everyone to continue to call the competition US FIRST and hopefully they will choose to change the name back.

Note: The opinions expressed here are my own, and not those of my team, my school, or my sponsors.