Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

This is a discussion I've been having with a few friends for the past few months, and they've been asking me to post a thread on the topic for a while.

So, should District and Regional Chairman's winners (as well as HOF teams, but they usually do anyway) be mandated to make their winning essays publicly available? Many teams already do this, and others willingly do if asked, but what about a team who does not wish to or refuses to share an essay?

I have several of my own opinions on this matter, but I'd like to hear what others think before I post them. Some of my reasons might sound controversial, but I think this will be a good discussion to hold.

What do you think on the matter and what is your reasoning?

-Akash

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I think the best answer is: it should be up to the team.

I've found that a large number of them do, but I entirely respect those who don't.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

As stated, please include some thorough reasoning for your opinion, if you can.

I always like to see the thought process behind someone's opinion, as it may help me modify mine. :)

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I think it's important that Chairman's teams do this. Creating better chairman's teams that spread the word of FIRST like they do is the the very spirit of the Chairman's award.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

As a Chairman's Award submitting team, I can say I would have no problem posting our finished essay online. We are proud of our accomplishments and we would love to have anyone who wants to read about it do just that.

As far as it being 'required' i'm not sure I agree with that. Teams should have the right to choose for themselves.

I think it would be a good idea for FIRST to have a location on their website for all winning teams (Or all submitting teams) to post essays if they choose. I feel like they may have talked about this in the past actually.

I know Bomb Squad wanted all RCA winners one year to submit their essays for inclusion in 16's HoF display. Not sure if they still do it.

Bottom line, should teams do it? Probably. Should it be required? Probably not.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I'm all for sharing but I also don't think sharing should ever be mandatory. Once you make something mandatory you can only make people upset. The people that want to do it willingly will do it anyway.

I do however think there are lots of ways that we as a community can encourage more sharing of all the things that teams do including the Chairman's award.

FRC-Designs has been a great resource for getting teams to share the CAD files for their robots. Why don't we have something similar for Chairman's teams? (It's been on my list of things to do for about a year, but I am awful at web programming and haven't had a student who is good at the back end part of it either) Having a central database would not only help encourage people to share but would make them far easier for people to view. It's hard to find all the ones that are posted. I have a pretty large collection that I give to students who write the essay every year so they can look through them without having to hunt them down there selves. The website could also have the executive summaries, photos, presentation scripts, videos, slides, and everything else that goes into a Chairman's Award winning submission.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

Teams who submit Chairmans pour hundreds of hours into their outreach and their submissions.

While the video is specifically designed to be an outreach tool, both for the winning team's to be displayed at the competition and other teams to use it as a method to promote their team, the essays are a 'direct line' to the judges. Therefore, I think it is personally acceptable for teams to maintain their 'secret sauce' while sharing details about their outreach and team activities and inspiring others through different channels. I also equally respect (and appreciate) teams who are willing to share their submissions, as, to an extent, they can be used to see what works, and what doesn't (or what might stand out more than the next essay).

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I personally do not feel the Chairman's Award teams should be required to post their essays.

One of the reasons I feel this way is because Chairman's is a competition. It's a more brutal competition than the actual game in a sense that teams who win it devote time and effort into it that transcends our six week build window. Now, while I do find it important for teams to draw inspiration from the Hall of Fame teams, but it's something that each time must find their own path to.

When I was a student on 1126 writing the Chairman's Award for 2010 and 2011, it shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with the Finger Lakes region that I studied 340's submission essays as much as possible. I didn't want to steal their ideas for winning the award, but I wanted to see what a winning essay looks like. My biggest fear is that, by releasing the winning essays, teams will be compelled to mimic the team's actions. Maybe not by building a special demo robot that they can use to make balloon animals or by designing a smartphone app, but I fear it will become a game of who can mimic 1114's or 67's or 254's (etc.) submission the best.

Maybe I'm just paranoid in believing that that would happen. But I think that a team's submission essay should be kept private, at the discretion of the team. Besides, a Chairman's Award winning team is likely to want to help the FIRST community anyway, and post their essay in that regard.

(If you find my explanation lacking, because I do have difficulty explaining things like this, you could just say that I don't think there is enough of a gain in posting the essay to FORCE teams to make it public.)

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

Working with a team who has spent 3 years re-dedicating to work towards their first RCA and a team now beginning the long haul to a CCA (mostly in outreach/marketing/awards submission areas) I'm stuck. On one hand, a lot of team already post their award submissions because it falls in line with their mission to improve the program on a regional/state/national/international level outside of their team number. On the other hand, if the teams really believe in that mission and FIRST receives the submissions in plaintext anyway, why not release them?

Yet, maybe some teams consider themselves to be role model teams by what they do and not what they submit for awards, so basically I'm flip flopping while typing and will probably change my opinion a few times more even after this thread dies.

EDIT: I'm all for compromises, so maybe submissions could include a check-box for something like "FIRST can publish and reproduce this awards submission for purposes of furthering the mission of the Chairman's Award"

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

We would have love to display our Chairman's winning design (I was told it was in the form of a board game) from back in '92 but I am sad to inform the masses that it was lost forever many moves ago.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I find this discussion to be remarkably stimulating. I read through earlier today, and dismissed it, but then couldnt help but to think about the topic several hours later. So this is what I came up with...

The Chairman's essay could probably best be compared to an essay submission for a scholarship or application for a university or grant, in that it's purpose is to outline through effective communication skills in an innovative way that stands out from the crowd those factors which make a team a good role model to others.

Within FIRST Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition exist as the two core FIRST values, which guide many teams actions including basic respect, sportsmanship, and even strategic alliances between teams. Many have extrapolated this concept to the basic mantra that FIRST is an open source competition with complete transparency between teams, with many examples of this on display here on Chief Delphi.

As a mentor who leads my teams strategy towards the Chairman's Award each year, I would suggest that teams should not be required to share their award winning essays. I would even go as far as to suggest that those that do share them reconsider.

On the other hand I do encourage all teams whether they have won an RCA or not to share their outreach efforts through videos and articles on their team websites and social media pages.

I believe through this publicity teams will be able to continue to inspire each other to develop new innovative means by which to share the FIRST message, and serve to benefit themselves within their own community as a means of publicizing their efforts and raising awareness for sponsors.

If teams wish to share theme ideas for their presentation, or the videos, or their slides, pamplets, etc, that is fine. However, the actual essay, a piece of raw text, represents the writing effort of a single or group of students on each team, which serves as a valuable resource in itself, and an educational opportunity for that student or group to work with a mentor to develop their own writing style.

So Conclusion: Share Essay (NO) Share Activities (YES) But on either account making it mandatory would be sort of strange. The closest thing I can see is having the video have to be publicly available through a youtube playlist or something.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

When I made the move from 103 to start my own team (which became 1712 in 2005-06), I made the decision that everything we did (robot, awards, etc) would be shared publicly "as it was happening" or as close to that as reasonably possible. For our Chairman's efforts that meant publishing our entry in a whitepaper here as soon as it was submitted - and, for the time I was involved (through 2010), we usually had it published about a week before the deadline in an attempt to encourage more teams to submit "same season". We would also share our outreach activities and documentation during the course of the year as well.

My rationale? More sharing = stronger community.

However, by 2004, I had the benefit of already having a piece of nearly all the FIRST banners, medals, and trophies one could ever dream for (save an on field world title) so in that sense it was very easy to proceed with this type of philosophy.

However, requiring the publishing of CA entries is something I used to feel very strongly about, but now I'm more or less indifferent about it. I'm fine with it if it happens, I'm fine with it if it doesn't. If a team decides not to share a CA entry, but conducts workshops, published models of outreach activities, mentors rookies, FLL, VEX, seaperch, whatever ... is that any less valuable? There are soooooooo many ways for an exemplary team to share, model, strengthen the community that it's really hard for me to say these entries must be published.

While, from a "telling an incredible story" standpoint, I'd love to see a ton of these entries archived for public access in a single place, I also see the potential negative to it as well ... negative scrutiny... If team X presented their CA at the same event as team Y who won the award and team X decides they were better, team Y "lied", blah, blah ... then a whole lot of people will start spending time justifying why they should have won as opposed to taking the model, learning lessons, and moving forward to grow.

To me, I've always believed this. There are FAR more Chairman's worthy teams than there are Chairman's Awards to go around every year. Just like I wrote in that "this is the year" post so many years ago about "gracious professionalism" not being a "gauge to judge others..." the Chairman's Award is a logical extension of that. The entry should be used to measure and monitor a team's own growth and drive the team's decision making about planning for the future. Documenting and presenting "the story" is a vital part of that process and, blue banner or no blue banner, it's the most important endeavor your team can undertake.

As long as there is a choice to publish or not, then there is no "wrong" choice.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

This is precisely what the Chairman's award is about! From the description of the award we hear every year as the winners are announced:

(emphasis mine)

Chairman's award winning teams set the standard for all FIRST teams, on and off the field. Whether or not they share the essay is relatively unimportant. How they impact their community and promote the goals and purpose of FIRST is. I would hope a winning team has a strong enough community presence where an essay isn't the only way to know what they do. Marketing and publicity are just as important as anything else a team does- accomplishments should be listed on the team's website, in local media, displayed in their pit, and spoken of through casual conversation. I can't imagine a winning team keeping the FIRST community in the dark as to what they've been up to outside of competition.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

Marc. P beat me to the post........

If you are submitting for Chairman's, the you are publicly declaring your team to be a role model. What you do, how you act, how you accomplish your work should be visible to all.

That is what a role model is.

Someone please correct me but I vaguely remember a statement from FIRST last spring stating that starting in 2013 all winning Regional Chairman's teams essays would be published. But I don't remember and need to research it.

We do not have a problem publishing the essay and it is posted on ChiefDelphi white papers.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I can think of only one potential negative result of sharing a Chairman's Award essay:

Some people will publicly critique, nitpick, or otherwise complain about what a team says it does. This could include accusations of exaggerating or even inventing details. Even if such accusations are without merit, they would still cast shadows over the process.

Though I doubt that would be enough to detract from all the potential positives, I'm still leaning toward leaving things as they are. It seems to me that the teams that truly deserve to be emulated already share their essays.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

You bring up an interesting point, Alan!

I haven't written my opinion yet, but this is a big part of it, so I'll throw in another question:

Would the thought of making essays publicly available discourage teams from bending the truth, reduce exaggerations, or in general, create a system of checks & balances? I read a thread on here a while ago about a team discussing something similar to this that made me think about this type of situation. Do people in FRC think that teams who win/submit Chairman's already have the decency to avoid things like this? What about if a student is submitting/writing an award and just doesn't know all aspects of the type of work their team has done in the community? How can it be ensured a student doesn't pass along false information/exaggerations to the judges? (In general, this is the tougher part of the question, in my opinion). Should teams have to present visual evidence of all events/services to judges?

Would teams reading these essays be rude and harass a team about something that is written in an essay, or would they calmly ask questions in private?

Ed, I think I almost totally agree with your first point, with some small exceptions maybe.

As per your second point - if you find a statement regarding this, please do share.

As I said before, some of the questions I raise may sound controversial, so please keep the discussion as civil as it has been!

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

Maybe I am naive or ignorant, but I have never witnessed any Chairman's Essay that would suggest an exaggeration of truth or a discussion on the veracity of a submission.

Does this actually happen frequently and I have no idea of it?

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

Wil, to clarify, the threads that prompted me to think about this type of stuff were these two, posted by a mentor of 1912. The questions they posted made my think about how far some teams may intentionally or unintentionally stretch details of services to their community. I thought they were two great questions.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...t=Chairman%27s

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...t=Chairman%27s

In these cases, for example, if a team claims to have mentored or started another team, would judges confirm this type of information with the team that was mentored? Do they ask how involved the mentee (is that a word?) team was? I've just always wondered how judges may go about this.

If anyone here is a Chairman's judge at the district, regional, or CMP level, I'd really love to hear about this process as it seems extremely difficult.

And, as always, my remarks are not accusatory, so don't wonder if these questions were prompted because of a team from my area. They are just questions that a few friends from all over and I had and were wondering about. My remarks are also mine and mine alone, and in no way reflect associated teams.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

A long time ago, for me, Chairman's was a battle... it was "how to win it" it was "how do we beat XYZ team". And I'd be lying if I said even in more recent years that I didn't research "the competition."

But something in me changed around 2007. Just prior to 1511's first CA, it dawned on me that all of the competition, all of the secrecy, was counter-intuitive to what the whole point of the Chairman's Award was.

Chairman's teams are Role Models for the rest of the community. If we want to rise above having our kids emulate basketball players, actresses and singers... we NEED to get to a point where our Role Models are accessible. Holywood has loads of books published on them, magazines documenting their every move, websites dedicated to everything they do. I can probably go online and tell you what Justin Bieber ate for breakfast yesterday, and I could find out that this basketball player just dumped this actress... yet for many teams applying for the Chairman's award, I couldn't tell you that they just published a childrens book, or they just did a demo for 4,000 people at an event, or they just ran a training session for five local teams. I only find this out if the judges put it into their awards summary.

While some teams are good at publishing what they do online, that is not the case for sooo many teams. In fact if you go on most team websites, its hard to tell that build season has started.

The thing that's nice about seeing other's essays is that the essay is the most concise summary of everything that the team has done. You don't have to dig through hundreds of blog posts, chief delphi threads, photos, videos, etc. The videos are nice, but often don't convey all that the essay does. They are a handful of interviews, or some funny skit and some voiceovers of pictures. All great, but it doesn't always tell you everything special about that team. In order to be a role model and in order for teams to be able to emulate their role models, they need to know what their role models do.

Yes at the lower levels people might just copy the simphone app, or write a sustainability plan like Team 359, or try to create a Girls in Gear program like 341, etc etc... But there are two sides to that. With more resources and programs like that, FIRST and the world WILL be a better place. Even if its just emulation. The other side is that one of the big criteria of the CA is what makes you UNIQUE. Teams won't get to Championship Chairman's status without that. They will have to do something that sets them apart. So honestly, if 50 teams emulate Daisy's Team in a Box - awesome! If 100 teams try and run their own FLL competition... cool! Something good will come out of it.

Personally, I don't get the point in secrecy. I usually say to each their own, but I don't think I would be up in arms about the requirement to publish your essay/video/etc. I could get behind the question of timing (which has been discussed before) ie don't post until after championships for the teams that want the "edge" in their presentations and talking to the judges. But I think once Championships is over, all of the teams that are or wanted to be Chairman's teams shouldn't be hiding what they do or what made them stand out. Role models don't have "secret" sauce. Role models are examples for others to emulate.

Are you more inspired if I tell you I'm a Systems Engineer, or if I tell you that I am a Systems Engineer and walking to the other building yesterday I watched one of the robots my company builds get tested driving across ice? See how the details make a difference?

A perfect example is the year that 842 won Chairman's - they published their essay BEFORE the essays were even due! Any team looking to "get a leg up on them" had plenty of time to do it. They could add to their essay, modify their presentations, prep judge materials. Yet 842 still won. If you want to win, BE AWESOME. Be UNIQUE. But if you want to start heading in the direction of a Chairman's team, emulate them, try out one or two of their programs, see if you can put a spin on their unique style of essay. But if you want to be Championship material... that's when you need to go the step further and do your own thing.

I get it... for many teams, a trip to Championships is on the line. But frankly, it's in the other 300 days of the year that you become a Chairman's team. It doesn't matter if the team down the road knows that you built a microrobot cat toy, or spent 400 hours volunteering at a children's hospital. You need to convey to the judges why your team is truly deserving of the award, and then and only then will you be a real Chairman's team.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

As someone who is currently in the process (almost done!) of writing 157's Chairman's Award essay, having examples that another team has done to look at has helped a lot. We've never submitted for the award before so this is a learning process for not just myself but also my mentors. One of the very questions asked and the main points of the essay and executive summary is along the lines of "What are characteristics that your team has that other teams should emulate", therefore I think in the very spirit of the Chairman's Award, it should be public.

Also, I don't think that there really is any 'special sauce' a team could have. I'm not sure about other teams, but many teams in my area, 467 for example, and my own team included... We're all very public and open with our outreach and operations. We don't really have anything to hide.

Lastly, I think in the very spirit of Gracious Professionalism, a team should be doing outreach to help people or inspire people, not to win an award. Then again, if you're only doing outreach to win an award, I suppose the good that comes from it comes either way?

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I feel that wining teams should submit their essays to help inspire other non-winning teams. Winners will most likely have content that could give other teams ideas on what to do.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

We have posted some of our Chairman's essays in the past and some we have not. Not posting was never an active decision but an oversight due to us being really busy at the end of the build season. Last year in response to this thread I posted our essay along with annotations on how we documented the claims in this post. We will post ours online again this year and plan to do so going forward every year. Each year's essay will be in our book at the iTunes store (a little bit of shameless plugging here) from now on as well. We have been asked to help a couple of other teams with their essays and presentations, and we will always share what we do.

So if publishing all of the essays was required it wouldn't bother me personally. But I am also not sure it is the right thing to do. If a team is sharing with and supporting other teams and the broader FIRST community well enough to win a Chairman's Award, I am not going to judge their motives in sharing or not sharing their essays. As some of the posters have said, I think there is even more value in sharing the activities in which a team engages than in the essays themselves. But the essay is a convenient way to share this.

So I think Rich Kressly's post sums up my belief. We will continue to post our essays unless someone convinces us there is a better way to share. But we will be perfectly respectful of other teams' choices not to share. And if any teams or individuals want help or advice we will be happy to provide it or try to connect them with someone else who can.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I believe that sharing what your team does to help promote FIRST in your community and to inspire other teams to push themselves is why FIRST created the Chairman's Award.

In order to achieve the mission of FIRST they needed the teams to understand that in order to truly change the culture, the program just can't be about the robot. I needs to be about how the teams promote the vision of FIRST to change our culture. The robot is just the vehicle to get people inspired to carry out the vision.

I think that sharing your Chairman's essay is a way that you can consolidate all the things that your team does to promote FIRST with other teams. By doing this it collectively makes all the teams better, and has a bigger impact on our culture. This is one of the primary reasons why we share all of our essays and videos on our website. I guess I would not make this mandatory but I think there is a lot of value added in sharing what you have done with others.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I know of one winning RCA essay (not from a team I have been active on) that exaggerated the truth/misled to believe said team did something major that didn't happen.

I believe it should be up to RCA teams if they want to post their essay but I wish CCA essays were posted. Recently our team found 365's 2007 CCA submission and it was very inspiring to see the impact that team has had.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

What if I responded to this by saying that I don't care if these things take place or if there is ever a system of checks and balances? I would hope all teams do their absolute best to represent themselves fairly and well, but trying to externally mandate or manage this is a bad idea...

The Chairman's Award is about documenting your team's growth, impact, and outreach so you keep the type of focus in your program that Dean, Woodie, Dr. Murphy, John Abele, and others have envisioned since the beginning. It about managing your team and program in a way that's more concerned with positive culture change than it is with solely building a killer robot every year. It's about being a model for the creation of socially conscious leaders.

You start shifting the focus toward "catching the cheaters" and you'll start creating more teams that point fingers and worry about the blue banner as opposed to worrying about the healthy pursuit of the blue banner.

Do I want every team to be 100% honest (whatever that means, btw) in their endeavors? Yes. Do I want to spend any time thinking about other teams that might not be doing business that way? No. Not at all.

I want to seek out the models in the FIRST community, take previous year's judging feedback given to my team, think deeply about what makes sense in growing my team's program, and then plan a positive course for growth.

This effort is about the mirror test folks; it's not about looking for the "cheaters." I realize that I may be in the minority here, but we're not going to change enough of the culture for the better if we don't start thinking differently and living accordingly.

my .02, take it for what it's worth.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

1) teams that look at and read Chairman's submissions need to understand the architecture of what is happening. In other words, how does their team address FIRST core values without getting too bogged down in the specifics of what the team does to address the points. It is important that people understand how activities ties to the core values.

• mentoring
• helping others
• building a team
• corporate sponsorship
• team spirit
• gracious professionalism

2) public essays does create a system of checks & balances.

3) the business about passing along false information !! - we have a bunch of rookies in 'boot camp' learning about the team. They looked like a bunch of military recruits with the "deer in the headlights" look. We give exam to all team members, rookie and veteran about team history, Chairman's information, and all the rest. The last thing we want is some clown BS'ing to anyone about what is going on. There is absolutely no good outcome to that scenario. If they don't know the answer they need to pass the question to someone else.

Students have to pass a written and oral exam. The written exam will be given in a month. It looks like this:



Teams need to document what they are doing with pictures, news articles, etc. And put it in a scrapbook or some from of communication. We have a scrapbook and a stakeholder report, similar to a corporate annual report.

The issue that we have the most difficulty with is the 'teams started' business. There are other threads that discuss this at some length. We have addressed this issue by stating: "We have directly aided in the development of N new FRC teams", meaning that we have put substantial effort into incubating the team, training the team, helping the team. Figuring out how to assess that is one of the toughest things, what meets the bar and what doesn't. For better or worse, right or wrong our 'bookends' look something like this. A minimal effort is we spend a full day training the team, have them build a kitbot, program it, drive it and phone support thereafter. The maximal effort is we spent 25 or so four hour sessions training the team on everything we could throw at them. There are some teams that spend a few of their build days in our shop getting support. And another team it is completely building their robot in our shop. In every instance there is a guaranteed 8 hour minimum face to face effort, and the instance listed above went up to 100 hours. Phone and internet support always. Agree with it or not that is pretty much our position.

Figuring out contributions like exhibitions, briefings, policy shifts, classroom incorporation, etc is a lot easier to assess.

A team may slip through on occasion by 'cheating' but it isn't going to last long or carry them far.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I'm not concerned about the already existing possibility of teams stretching the truth. My worry is about an increased possibility of public accusations from others even if the team is blameless. It's not a big worry, but I wanted to express it as the only thing keeping me from fully embracing the automatic publication of CA entries.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

My notes taken from an Oct. 2011 "Ask an Expert" http://www3.usfirst.org/community/vo...training_calls
call on the topic of the Chairman's Award contains the following: The FRC National Judge Advisors stated "RCA winning submission for regionals and districts: their written submission will be posted on the FIRST site within a week of earning at an event."

I added the info to the presentation I gave at a workshop in Nov. 2011 on judging.

In the spring of 2012 I inquired, but told it would not be implemented. There were some personnel changes at FIRST HQ in the fall/winter of 2011, and the new folks were not aware of what I was referring to.
I have no knowledge about 2013.

I was honored to be a RCA judge for 2 years. It was hard work.
I have also helped teams document their experience and submit. It is also hard work.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

Wish we could spotlight an entire post.

Wisdom.

Jane

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

Well this is a subject that could be debated for hours, but my opinions after reading some of the posts are as follows -

A team should do what they feel is best, and if they do not want to share every little detail that is fine. Chairman's award winning teams should be inclined to help other teams out where fit and if that team feels they do or do not need to fully share their business plans and award submissions, then that is what's best. This is not about copying what the elite teams have done, it's about innovating and raising the bar higher for your team and FIRST how you feel fit.

If publicly traded and privately held companies that have made it to great peaks of success were to release all of their plans, patents, and so on would they be where they are today? The answer is no.

So instead of reading teams chairman's award submissions and even forcing them to post their submissions (btw, ours is on our site somewhere, but when we submitted the process was 100% different), be creative and find ways to show your teams innovations, every team is capable of this. And reach out to teams who have won for guidance, I know personally our team is more than willing to sit down with teams and walk them through the process and help them hone in on what makes them successful.

Each and every chairman's award should be different, not one should be the same because not every team is the same, we all have different attributes that allow us to be the teams we are.

Just my two cents.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

Much of what I say will end up echoing Rich, Kim, and others. In no way am I ashamed of this post "emulating" their very valid points.

Once upon I time, I viewed the Chairman's Award as another form of competition. I cared very much about which teams submitted at which regionals, and how we could "beat" the teams at our event. I was even younger than I am today, and as many young people are, I was both ambitious and foolish.

If you view the Chairman's Award as a competition to be won and lost, you're missing the point of the award. I'm not saying you shouldn't strive to win the award and take pride when you do, but the motivation behind your actions should not simply be the trophy at the end. Likewise, and more importantly, when another team wins the award you shouldn't view it as a defeat. The achievements of someone else does nothing to tarnish what you have accomplished yourself. If you were already proud of your action, why would a piece of plastic change that? Strive to win the award by accomplishing more, not "getting a leg up" on someone else.

I find it highly unlikely that many teams win the award today without significant effots to share what they do with the FIRST community. It's such a fundamental part of what it means to be a role model that I can't really wrap my head around how a team would win without it. The very fundamental concept of the award is to further FIRST's mission by showcasing the best of the best at accomplishing the end goal. How does secrecy help you further the mission of FIRST? How does secrecy make you a good role model to emulate? And, yes, being emulated is the point and a positive result.

I understand the work that goes towards winning a Chairman's Award and preparing the submission. I helped write three Chairman's essays in high school, presented two of them, and have edited and reviewed multiple since then. Both 116 and 1712 have left plenty of events without a Chairman's banner, but with feedback forms loaded with "currently strong" check marks. It took 116 13 years to finally win a RCA. 1712 has yet to reach that goal. It's no easy task, and I fully understand the frustration. But all that work should be a mark of pride, even if your ultimate ambition is unfulfilled. Why on Earth would you keep any aspects of that a secret?

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

We had a "Future Hall of Fame" display for several years where the current year RCA winners were invited to put whatever they wanted on our computer for people to access with a touch screen. It started long ago enough that a touch screen was interesting. The HoF display constraints that began in 2012 ended it.

Some teams were happy to provide all their material - essay, pictures, video - some didn't want to participate and kept their submission secret. I promised to not reveal any of the submissions until the CMP display. I did enjoy looking over them all myself, but had no judgement toward the teams who wanted to hold their cards, so to speak.

Sorry for the digression, but the FRC16 media group asked me for a "digital copy" of our 2000 CCA winning submission instead of the pieces of paper so that they could post it to our website. My answer, "scan to a PDF," did not make them happy. How far we have come!

My answer to Akash's question: I would not support "making" teams post their submissions. Chairman's teams should want to publicize their efforts, but that doesn't have to be their exact submission. And cheaters never prosper - in the long run anyway.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I'm still pretty disappointed about this. For all the talk in this thread about the importance of entering for an RCA award and its importance, I wish the display size would be representative of such efforts. :(

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I really dig Sean's post, especially the part I highlighted above. Kinda reminds me of Karthik Kanabapathy's TEDx talk from this past weekend, "If you chase perfection (which you'll never achieve), you'll catch excellence along the way." What team is he from again? :rolleyes:

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I'll be honest. I dont miss the work the team put forth in the "preparation" of a submission. It truly is a lot of work trying to document everything you do. Every team (some more than others) has great learning moments. But trying to capture it all, makes it tough. Our team has just about every element that we still continue to do regardless of an RCA award or not, minus the submission and pictures.

One big award I am very disappointed about is the elimination of the website award. I'm afraid, less teams will focus on having one.............which I think is the biggest form of communication a team can transparently showcase about themselves.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I actually really like this concept, as it would solve one of the issues that I think exists. Might have to borrow this for the future!

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

The point of the Chairman's Video is for the benefit of other teams, so I don't see a reason that posting their essay should be nessesary.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

This.

I have grown to look at the Chairman's Award in much the same way I look at coaching cross country. Our team has 75 boys and 85 girls. Only two of them ever get to be the fastest even on our team. Some years we have a really good team and not a single runner on the team ever wins a race. In cross country we focus on running well. When an athlete runs a personal best time for a course, or an overall personal best, it is cause of celebration. That is what I now try to instill in the students regarding the Chairman's Award.

A few years ago at the Buckeye Regional, we got our feedback forms back with, as Sean mentioned, lots of currently strong check marks. The judges made note that it was a difficult decision and they simply felt the team that won had been a little bit stronger. As it happened, I had been chatting with one of their (291, CIA) mentors and some parents the day before. While I felt we had a really strong submission that year, I knew that they were deserving of the award. And I realized that it was just like coaching cross country. I am much more satisfied when we run really good races against top competition and don't win than when we win against competition that isn't as talented as we are.

In any event, thank you everyone for this conversation. It has been interesting and thought provoking.

Re: Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?
 

I'd make them mandatory, and publish them together in one place.

One reason to do so is to seed just a little bit of uncertainty in the mind of anyone who would consider laying claim to an unverified fact (as distinct from a known falsehood) to strengthen their essay. "What if someone notices?" is enforcement enough for me: it's enforced in your head, by your fear of embarrassment, and not just by your conscience. There's definitely no need to give FIRST the responsibility of fact-checking anything.

Another reason I'd make them mandatory is so that they can be treated as some kind of a historical record. Wouldn't it be nice to see, decade by decade, what FIRST teams used to do differently? What was important to them back then?


188 :p