Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

The biggest impact here is that it will help both the teams AND the judges follow a more clear set of definitions when defining quantity and terms used often by teams in their essays, interviews with judges, and their presentation.
This is a big improvement versus the status quo where many teams in the past have used such terms loosely to their advantage.

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

It could be as simple as having a link in a compliance statement on the submission website - "check this box to acknowledge that you and your team has read and complied with the definitions supplied here." With something like that, no team can claim ignorance...

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

This is a good thing and long overdue, but I still see two potential issues that this document seems to allude to:

• FIRST seems to value only FIRST programs. This document infers that robotics and engineering programs that are not affiliated with FIRST are not given the same if any "credit"
• The Chairman's award seems to have returned to a competition of who can start, mentor, and assist, more teams and who can run more events.

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

To your first point. makes sense to me.

TO #2: That is not it at all. What they are trying to do is standardize what it means to "start" ,"mentor" ,"assist" , teams. It is in no way stating how this is going to be weighted.

I do have a questions about how this is going to be enforced, if it was ever intended to be. Why have the second part of the definitions here at all unless there needs to be some sort of supporting documentation required or each mentored team listed? It makes no sense otherwise.

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

This is a great addition to the Chairman's Award rules and criteria... an excellent tool to encourage and provide consistency. I'm very happy to see this put in place. We often have discussions about what a particular term really means and what it might imply to the judges... now we have it defined for us. This is definitely a positive change. Thank you HOF teams for your work on this. :D

^ This is a perfect suggestion... can't claim ignorance after that.

^ My interpretation has long been that the Chairman's Award does emphasize outreach within the FIRST community. This has also been reinforced with the updated short answer questions in the last couple of years that specifically asked about interactions with and encouragement of other JFLL, FLL, FTC, FRC teams. Alternately I have viewed the Engineering Inspiration Award as encompassing more efforts not necessarily associated with FIRST, as well as emphasizing STEM related outreach as opposed to more charitable efforts like Relay For Life or Special Olympics. Of course, that is just my personal interpretation since it is not explicitly spelled out in the award criteria.

^ An excellent point! Stating the requirement of agreement of the receiving team certainly implies that there will be some sort of validation or expectation of follow-up.

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

I do know of one instance where a Team X claimed to have mentored Team Y. Some set of judges asked Team Y about this, and Team Y did not agree. Team X was removed from contention for Chairman's.

It may not happen all the time, but it does happen.

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

"^ My interpretation has long been that the Chairman's Award does emphasize outreach within the FIRST community. This has also been reinforced with the updated short answer questions in the last couple of years that specifically asked about interactions with and encouragement of other JFLL, FLL, FTC, FRC teams. "

I can think of at least 2 recent CCA teams that focused a lot of time and energy on Vex based outreach...I hope that openness to other programs promoting STEM growth is still in effect. If FIRST CA judges are going to weigh alternative program use as outreach less than FLL, FTC, etc. then I would hope they clarify that asap.

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

I agree, the changes to the questions and this form both seem like that is the way FIRST is heading with out directly telling teams that.

There are a lot of schools and students who don't have every opportunity to be on a robotics teams, any type of competitive STEM team. It's my belief that we should all be trying to support the grow of all STEM education. I love FRC but there are tones of schools where an FRC team just doesn't make sense, maybe FTC does, or VEX, BEST, Botball, Trinity Firefighting, OCCRA, MATE, or any of the other dozens of programs that want to inspire students to learn more about STEM.

I'd be interested to know how the HOF teams felt about this since the way the blog reads these definitions were published by them.

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the discounting of other STEM initiatives varies heavily from judge crew to judge crew. I know presenters from various teams have definitely come away with the impression that FIRST-related activities were weighted more heavily, based on judge questions. However, results seem to be a mix.

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

That I agree with, my worry is what is being told to judges in training. If CA judges are all being told to limit the importance of spreading STEM through other means besides FIRST programs, to me that greatly changes the meaning of the award.

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

And I can think of at least one of the Chairman's videos being changed to say "other robotics teams" when released to the public rather than "VEX robotics teams" (which was the version shown live at the Championship).

It's also been no secret that the Chairman's award focuses on FIRST related outreach, especially with the changes to the online submission short answers questions starting in 2014.

I doubt you're going to ever hear FIRST say "We don't value non-FIRST outreach" In stead, they've made it clear they have emphasis on FIRST-related outreach.

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

It may help to keep checking Frank's Blog to see direct responses from him regarding some of the questions in this thread...


Receiving team documentation

Permalink Submitted by Frank Merrick on Tue, 10/13/2015 - 10:24.

"Hi Liron. We had talked about requiring some documentation briefly, but did not want to turn this into a legalistic exercise. Our working assumption is that most teams, in keeping with the ethos of Gracious Professionalism, will not mislead about their support for other teams, once presented with reasonable definitions they are told they must adhere to. With the number of teams applying for Chairman's Award, some percentage certainly will still intentionally mislead, but we don't want to punish those who don't by requiring additional paperwork."

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

Related to the definitions in the new document,
I'm glad FIRST is providing these definitions. It will be helpful for teams in several ways.

Now teams have clearly defined terms they can use when writing Chairman's Essays.
Also, teams will have a standardized set of terms/measures with which they can compare themselves to other teams to know if they're really doing what they should be in terms of helping other teams.
Lastly, it may help motivate some teams to move from an assist role to a mentor role or a mentor role to a start role.

In the 2nd portion, it also clarifies a somewhat muddy distinction between "running" an event and just helping.

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

I wonder where Frank got that particular phrase from :p Hi Frank!

Re: [FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions
 

I actually did laugh out loud when I saw this.

"Team A creates and publishes a scouting database compiling statistical data from competitions, and the database is downloaded and used by other Teams"

There are only a couple of teams that publish scouting databases. There are a few more if you include scouting apps. I know my previous team did mention the scouting database as part of the Community Service Slide. I also know they never claimed the other teams that downloaded the file as being "mentored" or "assisted" in their chairman's presentation.

So it is either (a) some team did claim that or (b) somebody thinks that a team like ours had claimed that but not sure so adding this clarification will make sure it does not happen. Either way it is sad we have to come to that.