Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

They are embarrassing for us to offer up to sponsors who have donated in excess of 5K and in some cases, 10K. When I saw our trophy for RAS and 11's trophy for Chairman's I was pretty disappointed in FIRST. If we handed this to our local Boeing office or NextFab they would probably laugh at how simple it is. Luckily my team is full of rookies so they didn't know the difference :P

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

These trophies are in a word, unprofessional and unrepresentitive of the amount of work teams put into competition.

If we are talking about different types of trophies I think that FIRST could make some really awesome riveted sheet metal trophies anodized gold, sliver, and bronze.

These could probably be made cheaply or for free by sponsors, would be easy to assemble and would be very unique to FIRST while looking awesome.

By the way this idea came from these: http://www.vexrobotics.com/media/cat...-10-and-12.jpg

Regards, Bryan

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

^That's exactly what I was thinking. The Vex awards are simple, yet still look professional and industrial. Another good example would be 2826's awards, which is just a piece of sheet metal with their logo cut into it, bent so it will stand, and has a small plaque with the award name on it. Plus, I can't imagine cutting a piece of sheetmetal and bending it is outrageously expensive.

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

The last two years Team 907 has made it to the semi finals (hurray!); we got out buttons and thought it might've been a joke?

I have two 'participant' medals on permanent display in my home from 2009 and 2010, and next to them two 'semifinalist' pins... ? It's disheartening that once you start to cut out mostly everything else in your life for the sake of build season to get a strong robot built-up for competition, that the awards start getting smaller...

C'est la vie, I guess.

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

No. Just.... No. The fact that they are giving these out for both FIM and MAR makes me think that this was FIRST's idea.

Why would we devalue the district awards like this? Are we to believe that district events are now second-class?

My children receive better participation awards from soccer. And that only costs me $50 a kid for a season.

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

Ok so, are these the trophies that will be used at the State Championships as well?

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

I have no idea- but my guess is that the MAR and FiM Championships will use the usual regional trophies - since the idea is that the Championship event for the district is more like a Regional.

This totally sucks. I'd love to work with someone (or several someones) on a proposal for FIRST for a better set of trophies. Please send me an email to the address in my signature, and maybe a few of us can get the ball rolling on this.

Just as a quick side-note, I worked at FIRST HQ this summer as a Marketing intern, and I had -NO- idea the trophies were changing. Sometimes the different sub-groups and programs at FIRST seem so disconnected - so what I think we could do, as a group of concerned students, mentors, and volunteers, is write up our thoughts on the idea, as well as offer a few solutions - and send it both to FRC and Marketing staff. (After all, it kind of makes FIRST look bad to have such cheapo trophies.) And, like the request for transparency a few years ago, we can post here on CD when it is complete.

Who's with me?

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

A.) I sure hope they use the traditional trophies for state champs

and

B.) I will TOTALLY work with you on this!

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

I have heard that the traditional trophies will be awarded at the Michigan State Championship. I assume MAR is probably the same.

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

You know its bad when you put one in your back pocket "temporarily" and then sit down comfortably without realizing it was there the whole time... :confused:

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

FIRSTers are resourceful and great problem-solvers. I think there is sometimes a disconnect between what happens at HQ and out in the field, and this is an example. I think this issue can be easily resolved. And again, I've seen some amazing trophies, at both FIRST off-season events and at VEX events, that cost the same as what these trophies cost.

Someone just needs to spearhead the effort, and it sounds like there have been some volunteers raising their hands.

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

I say use Alex. HE did an amazing job with the design and execution of the Rah Cha Cha Ruckus awards the last couple of years.
2011

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

I'd be on board for this as well. The more I look at our Horsham trophy, the more I want to just make my own for the team to display. There are tons of great team, off-season and other competition trophies out there; these are just sad. I'm starting by collecting images/designs of other trophies, if that'll help.

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

Definitely. Shoot me an email, I'm going to get a Google doc together of all the people who've offered to help, to compose ideas and bring them together.

Thanks!

Re: 2012 Awards/Trophies
 

Because they have always been viewed as second class events. There is a distinction in FIRST's material and always has been where Districts and Regionals are different things. I don't understand this, we compete with the same robots, on the same fields, under the same rules. Why are we being treated differently? Oh, because we can run our events cheaper? That shouldn't mean we get second tier awards.