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The Evolution of Chairman's Teams
Hi all,
I know we are all neck-deep in build right now but I had a question that I am hoping might clarify to the community what is generally necessary to win a RCA. How has the image of what a Chairman's team changed over the last five to ten years? What was expected of a team in 2005 or earlier compared to 2010 and so on? Best - Daniel |
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I tell any team that wants to win this award to have a genuine cause that they are devoted to. Teams should work as a whole and share a common passion while promoting their ideals throughout their community and FIRST. The days of throwing a food drive and a fundraiser are gone and this isn't the purpose of this award. Teams should be motivated and get emotional about it!
I really believe teams have to go big here, often moving the focus from the robot to their mission. Build season is only a short period of the year and the most inspiring RCA winners devote their entire year to other causes. Essays from 2015 winners are a huge resource and share common threads. http://www.firstinspires.org/node/4881 |
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Nowadays, at least in California, it takes international outreach to have a chance at the Chairman's Award. My team has been to China to start robotics programs for middle schoolers. Some other areas of the world I know teams in California have gone to is South and Central America (e.g. Brazil, Mexico) for outreach efforts. 604 has 8 Regional Chairman's Awards and they have the most in California. Looking at their program would give anyone a good idea of what a Chairman's quality team is. My team has gotten so close to Chairman's, winning Engineering Inspiration at Sacramento in 2013 and 2015. Maybe this year will be our year.
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Nor, do I know of any criteria that requires "international outreach" to win. |
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My apologies for not being clear on that. |
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The Chairman's Award, at times, seems to have a price tag attached to it. And along with the price tag comes a sort of "number supersizing" where one team has to start/assist/mentor X amount of teams and reach out to X amount of people to be worthy. |
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I wonder, if a RCA winner only got the opportunity to PRESENT at champs, and not compete, would people put in the extreme effort? |
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With regards to the original quesion: the difference between 2005 and now. In 2005 if you had a dedicated team of students who worked their butts off for several years running and did every event that came their way locally etc, started some teams etc, then you had a good chance of snaring a chairman's award. Now? Look at the resumes of some of the recent winners. Starting 2 or 3 FRC teams and a couple of FTC and Lego teams each year along with local outreach and even reach across state lines simply doesn't do it anymore. I believe 27's Washington initiative put them over the top. They had the resume for a long time, but there's a number of teams who have a similar resume of doing dozens of *big* off season events, and pulling in huge numbers of people. Starting teams. etc. The stat that always struck me with Simbotics was the '45' Vex teams started in one year. These really aren't things that students alone are going to be able to pull off. They need mentors fully dedicated to winning a chairman's as well. Beyond that, you need the connections to organizations that can help you make that change - and then you need the money to fund the travel (or get some very kind sponsors who do it). So that's what changed. To win Chairman's now you need an incredible resume and then you also need a huge initiative of some sort - be in national or international. Many of those ideas are going to need financing to pull off. You need mentors and students dedicated to winning it - mentors that quite literally will work year round to do it. Every one of these things is something teams can develop with extremely hard sustained effort. The level of the chairman's 'bar' has raised geometrically between 2005 and now. Look at the last 3 year's winners, find out everything you can about what they did, replicate it, then substantially improve on it. You'll realize that it's not something that happens in 1 year, or even 3 years. |
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I have some of my own connections to my hometown in the Philippines regarding education, and I hope to start some robotics based programs there too in the near future. To others, this may seem like international outreach, but for me personally, that would be local. I'd like to do this whether or not my team has any involvement in it, but it would be great if they did. Remember that Chairman's Award is just that: An award. Not winning it doesn't mean your efforts are lesser than the winners. The things teams do to get Chairman's Award should not be motivated by the award itself, but by the impact of their deeds. |
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As (mostly) engineers, it's easy to pick out and remember the "numbers" in the awards presentations you see. And numbers certainly are a concrete way to distinguish yourself from other teams, and give the judges a certifiable reason to select your team as a Chairman's Award winner.
However, there's a lot more to Chairman's than just the numbers. I'm lucky to be able to work in the shadows of the Mid-Atlantic's three Hall of Fame members, and to witness two of the three of them before they picked up the Championship edition of the award. John Larock (365) and Al Ostrow (341) have stressed that there is a "heart" element to the award that must be fulfilled. You must communicate to the judges the impact your team has on a personal level. The judges have to be able to sense that your team "gets it." While the big numbers of teams started/mentored/assisted/etc and the flagship outreach programs in other continents are impressive, that alone isn't going to win you an award. You need to show that your team and you community is feeling the impact. That your team has a role model culture worth sharing. With the 1114 video, they had both their "45 other robots competition teams" with their "Big Simbot, Little Simbot" program. In terms of how this has changed since a decade ago, my view is a little different. If anything, the bar isn't quite as high as it used to be in the Mid-Atlantic. Part of that is the swap to districts creating more award opportunities. Part of that is that the New Jersey regional had a long history of the same team never winning RCA twice. Part of that is that 365 and 341 are in the Hall of Fame, and not claiming RCA trophies each season. Part of it may be that the Mid-Atlantic is rather saturated in terms of team growth, so there isn't a whole lot of opportunities for constantly starting and mentoring new teams. That's not to say that the teams that are winning the award these days aren't incredible role models. Each of them has a tremendous impact on their communities and have built very strong programs. But I think the fact that the two teams recognized at MAR Champs this previous year didn't really have that flagship singular outreach effort or huge quantity of teams founded demonstrates that being able to effectively communicate your impact on a local level is still a viable path to the Chairman's Award. |
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I look at it slightly differently. With the district model, you are going up against the same teams every single year - and some of those teams are monstrous when it comes to chairman's programs. Up till just recently, we knew that we were going to have to go up against 27 every single year - plus teams like 33, 548, etc. With the new 'presenting at multiple districts' model, it makes it that much more likely that those same teams will show up every year because they can't knock eachother out by presenting at the same district.
I think (like everything else in the district model) you end up with better teams going to worlds at the end through the system, but it also means that to break into the 'big time', you're going to have to take down the big dogs every year. Quote:
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Here's a relevant thread from 2010 about 341 winning Chairman's at the FIRST Championship.
Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now? Quote:
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International outreach may not be an official criteria, but universally in California seems to be becoming a de facto standard. |
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Here my thought on this. My senior year I was part of team 1987 the Broncobots and the team in its seven years had won multiple chairman's and EI awards. And even though the scale of our outreach was not as far and as wide as some of the teams today we had a good program because all of our students new that we were making a difference in our community. We might not have had large numbers but we were able to consistently from year to year provide real and meaningful help to people within the community.
I tend to agree with the issue that Chairman's is not about how far away your making a difference or how many teams that you have set up, but more on the impact that your actions have had on the community as a whole. While its great to set up x number of teams, if those teams don't last or have a very low impact than what have you really accomplished. More can be done with a few strong actions, than any number of weak ones. |
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Interesting discussion. Especially after reading the previous link about chairman's award.
Chairman's: The most prestigious award at FIRST, it honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST Engineering Inspiration: Celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school and community. My feeling is that working as a community inspiring program (EI) is the path towards earning a chairman's. It is why there is the common thought of the EI being a runner up to the CA. In many ways that thought is true, since the process of the earning the EI is a natural progression of a program to moving on to earn the CA. If you are not able to change your school and community recognition of STEM then the CA is unattainable. Taking your team to that next level of outreach and working to start FIRST related programs is where you earn the distinction need for chairman's (CA). With all the definitions regarding the terms used in the Chairman's Award submission, about team starting, mentoring, etc. It seems even more so in black and white that IS the message FIRST wants teams to hear. The spreading of FIRST programs is the biggest difference between the two. Whether it is in your own community or abroad. Continual outreach to grow FIRST programs as a whole no matter where logistically is becoming seemingly essential to earning the chainman's. I think that in certain states, like ours, there is not much ability to grow much more. There is a finite amount of schools in the area, and the amount that do not have some type of robotics program is shrinking exponentially. On our island there is not very many school that isn't involved in a FIRST program, if any now... This is due to all of us working hard to make it that way. The only schools that do not have a FRC program are mostly due to the existing team disbanding. Loss of a key mentor or sponsor is the biggest contributor to defunct teams on our island. The only option is to reach beyond our borders. This is not an easy task for almost all the local teams. The ability to raise funds dwindles as more programs blossom. The lack of businesses here and the extreme remoteness to any corporation sure makes it difficult for us at times. But to me this is what the students can and will face in real life. Such a challenge is a great learning opportunity that we love to embrace. To succeed over these type of obstacles makes it worth it.. award or not. This is what drives the broader outreach outside the country we are seeing. Just my two cents.. if that. Aloha! |
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I think to win an RCA in 2016 you need to be an organization that has a diverse but focused identity. When you think of an RCA candidate, what are 2, 5, 10 things this team is the best team to go to for in the whole venue? Need fundraising tips? Need a problem fixed on your robot or just need it running? Want help with something in the offseason? Diverse but focused means you can accomplish things across the whole spectrum of FIRST from outreach to operations to technical and be considered a resource for those things. It's a roundabout way of saying that the role model teams at regionals are obvious and reveal themselves. If you aren't that, it makes Chairman's hard. I've seen teams who don't fit these ideas at all, but to be worthy of the honor this is probably a good way to look at it. Even though you didn't ask, others thought it might be good to weigh in on CCA so I will too. The CCA is a whole different and far more prickly beast. I'm probably someone who is in denial, but I think to be a CCA-worthy team you need to take the idea of being a go to for many different aspects of FIRST but make that a much broader reach. A CCA candidate team should be one of the best 10 teams not in the HoF at being a community resource for a variety of different things. On top of that, a tentpole/flagship outreach initiative or cohesive outreach plan would make you a worthy team. The competition for this award has become so tight lately that I've wondered what kind of paradigm shift we can expect with the championsplit. Something this thread has and will continue to verge into is the evolution of the Chairman's Award itself. It's a hard discussion for me to get into when I'm neck deep in the actual submission process (and the robot building thing too) and something that usually bubbles up in the pre or post champs lull. With the shift to #2champs how it will affect the award in the future is interesting. |
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This is an interesting topic to read and reflect on, even as we constantly evaluate our own program. Often times I think about what would happen if the 2016 version of 359 were to compete with the one that won in 2011.
The one thing that hasn't been discussed are the student presenters themselves. Yet, I believe it is one of the most important factors in competing for the Chairman's Award. Similar to drivers/coach for the robot, the performance of your robot is only as good as the ones controlling/directing it. Til this day, I believe we had one of the best trio of presenters back then. They knew our program and had the ability to present better than any mentor in our program. Our 2016 program would be at a disadvantage with respect to that. But today, there are many facets of our program that allows us to do more with less in terms of resources, mentor support (alumni), and outstanding students. Experience counts for a lot. IMO, programs with similar characteristics of previous winners or within close proximity of other HOF teams can be at a disadvantage. Teams from unique and different areas face many incomparable challenges. Its why we do what we do, to raise funds, to provide outreach services, to building a good robot, and ultimately our entire program. Being from Waialua brought some tough challenges. We could never compete for the same talent pool of engineering mentors, funding support, and use of facilities from Honolulu businesses and private schools. But on the same note, it provided a greater opportunity for our team to not make excuses, work harder than the rest, and try to tackle the challenges that FIRST presented with much success. In summary, I dont think the formula has changed over the years. The critical elements in what embodies the RCA or CCA are still there. |
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When my high school team (1675 - UPS) won our first RCA my senior year at the 2011 Midwest Regional, I was ecstatic. I thought we finally made it. But when we went to champs and the questions asked were about our efforts on a totally different scale than we had previously thought, I was a little broken. I remember watching 365 win and hearing about their work and thinking that we could never do that. Maybe in 10 years with proper planning, sustainable growth, and continuous improvement, UPS could have a shot at being a serious contender for CCA. But I don't think every team has what it takes to win CCA, in the same way not everyone has what it takes to win the Olympic Pole Vaulting event. Winning a CCA takes a lot of time and effort and a very solid group of motivated people that sustain their efforts over multiple years. I think CCA has a lot to do with a team having strong leadership that continues for many years. Quote:
*which is not to say a younger team is incapable of being as impressive as an older team, they just didn't have as much time to grow. |
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Also, not only are the awards judged by two completely separate groups of judges, the awards are actually quite different, if you look at the official FIRST descriptions of the awards. Engineering Inspiration: Quote:
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I try to take a very unconventional approach to going through the submission process, taking various abstract concepts of voice, history, and culture and calling it identity. The current result of judging variances linked to geography does get different kinds of teams competing for the award, which is great! I understand the idea of different standards exist with respect to geography. Just like how you can point to x areas of FIRST's footprint to find markedly better robotic ability, you can point to y areas and see higher standards to win the award than the global average. I express confusion when it comes to wholly different perspectives on the meaning of the award, where regions will heavily weight certain topics and nearly discard some others. As someone who tries to keep up with what all different kinds of teams are doing, I can picture the identity of a role model team at the CCA and RCA levels. It's hard for me to explain (which probably explains why I don't perceive the award being judged this way), but you see teams and you know they are unequivocally the best team in the venue. Yet they miss out on the award because the goalposts get moved not just north and south, but frequently to the east and west. The TLDR is that I like the idea of getting unique teams together to present for the CCA, but I lean towards the perception that the system gets there in an incomplete and inconsistent method that cheapens the results at the expense of other teams and maybe even FIRST overall. As a PS of sorts, I wonder if judges take into consideration how they award Chairman's one year at an event can carry a lasting effect on how teams operate themselves for the next 3-6 years. |
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But I've also been to regionals where our presenters have seen RCA judges walking around the pits. |
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As a mentor who has been supervising our Chairman's team since 2007, I want to weigh in here. I think, just as there are many approaches to succeeded on the field, there are many approaches to succeeding in the Chairman's arena. I don't think that you need the resources to do international outreach. As other posters have stated, I think it's important to pick you areas of focus and concentrate on them. What kinds of outreach do you want to do? What is important to you as a team?
We have a comparatively small, inner-city team. We're not, and probably won't ever, have the resources to go to China or any other country to do outreach there. But there's a huge need right in our own backyard, and that's what we've chosen to address. When we started this journey with our first submission in 2007, I told our students we're doing this NOT to win the award, but to grow as a team, year-round. We started with simple things - shake-the-cans at local grocery stores to raise money and spread the FIRST message, demonstrations at local schools, libraries, museums, etc. Flash forward to 2016 and we're hosting an FLL tournament for the third straight year, mentoring an FLL team, helping a team in the Netherlands by shipping stuff to them, translating documents for a 3-D printing project (we have many students who speak multiple languages) and making blankets for kids in the custody of the Department of Children and Family Services. Things I never thought we'd be doing nine years ago. Plus, we continue our grass roots efforts, demonstrating the robot at the typical places listed above but also at fairs, parades, festivals and even a camp for children with cancer. My message - striving for the Chairman's Award is not one-year thing. It's a long-term process, with rewards that go well beyond the blue banner. And you don't need to be big, flashy or international to win, as demonstrated by our team, which has won district Chairman's Awards in 2014 and 2015 and a district championship Chairman's Award in 2015. |
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My point was that NOTHING you say in the Chairman's room is given to other judges at the event, including those judging for EI, and vice versa. They don't even have access to your chairmans submission (essay and questions) unless you give it to them in a handout (which we sometimes do). This further proves that the two awards are in fact separate from each other. In fact, before the rule change allowing submitting for RCA at multiple events, we usually won EI at events where we did NOT submit for Chairman's. |
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--- If shaking the stigma of EI being referred to a second place chairman's is important to people, has anyone proposed giving EI winners a hot pink or neon green medal instead of silver compared to Chairman's gold? |
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