Video or essay- does it really matter?

Upon reading the description of the award it clearly states that this year more than ever FIRST will be looking for the teams which uphold the FIRST ideals throughout the year.

It seems to me that if your team has been really active and has been doing work in the community on behalf of FIRST then it would be obvious. Whether or not you have a great presentation would be irrelevant.

The Autodesk award rewards a great presentation, the Chairman's Award rewards a great team.

Less worry about the award format and more worry about what it stands for seems to be in order here.

OK- off the soapbox now and back to work....

WC :cool:

The more I think about this, the more I like this new rulling...


<edit> (Basically what Andy said above...) </edit>

I mean, some of the chairmans awards (not bashing anyone) looked really good with their professional videos, slides, etc, but the content wasn't as good as the video looked...

Now this new rulling will focus more on the content of the chairmans award, not how good the video is, or what kind of slide show you can put together..

*gives 2 thumbs up to the rulling*

r-u-l-i-n-g

I still am not sure...I'm a rookie, so I have actually never seen any of the old Chairman's award stuff. I think our Video team was a little disappointed, but I'm sure there will be great submissions either way.

even if FIRST doesn't change Chairmans back to its original format I hope they add a little award for video formatting or something...


what do you think- a 2 min or 3 min video .. thats the least they can do-

-you CAD guys have your inventor award..
-animation dudes have your animation award..
-hey- somebody's left out...

I think what you meant to say was that your team uses audio and video well in putting a spin on what you do.

FIRST isn't about spin. The Chairman's Award is a spin-free zone. You did it or you didn't. There is no salesmanship here, and there shouldn't be. It's about your accomplishments, not your skills. Your accomplishments come from teamwork. Your Chairman's Award submission comes from reality.

If you want to make a video, go right ahead. If you want to win the Chairman's award, stop worrying about the submission and start worrying about the better things you could be doing with your time.

Mr. Krass hit the nail on the head with this remark. When you have a team of 5-6 people doing videos or other high-tech presentations on your activities so that you can win the Chairman's Award, if you do not also have 50 or 60 OTHER people actually DOING the activities, you are missing the point.

The current format requires only 1-2 people for a few hours, even a small team of 14 like ours can afford that, nor will it make a big impact on our other activities. But a video style entry would have required 25-50% of our team to do properly, it just wasn't worth the effort to us.

Chairmans award
 

yes the chairmans award is about the team, but its not about the people, its about ideas. Its about initative, and creativity. By not allowing for this in their essay format they are essentially saying that being a monotonous paper-pusher is acceptable and a goal of FIRST is to turn us into drones.

For many awards such as the buisness plans I feel that the goal of it it to present a concrete goal and for this an essay with graphs is approrriate, but for an award that signifies free thinking this is an awful regression on their part.

Format
 

Well, in response to those who say there's no room for creativity...
I'm the layout editor for my school's newspaper, and I see plenty.

This is my team's first submission, so we didn't have the video edge. Instead, I'm looking at laying something out nice and well in Adobe PageMaker that will accomplish a nice polished effect with plenty of room for graphics and all that, in the allotted four pages.

This doesn't seem too difficult - and it doesn't have to necessarily be an essay, but maybe set up as a newsletter or yearbook type style that allows graphics and maybe short pieces strung together in a way that flows both visually and textually.

Just my two cents worth...

Aaron Knight, Webmaster, Team 891
Note: our current web server is down, you can look at our mirror at:
http://www33.brinkster.com/first891/

addendum to my 2 cents
 

If you use a program like PageMaker or Quark, you'll come up with something plenty eye-catching enough...

Our mirror's changed (for the better): first891.topcities.com

'Later
Aaron Knight
Webmaster / Team 891

here here
 

This is the first time that our team has submitted a chairman's award, and I think that the new format levels the playing field. All videos and animations do is provide for yet another virtual outlet to try and make your team look better than it is. You can say anything you want or make it appear any way you like in a video, but if you are going to convey it in words, it's a whole new ball game. You actually have to know what's really going on within your team and what it's all about.

Good luck to those of you that have become accustomed to flashy facades, because now we get to open the door and see what's really behind the scenes.