New Submission Format for Chairman's Award
 

But a picture says a thousands word....anyone can say they did an activity but unless FIRST is going to substantiate each statement, it easy to verbally enhance your activity. The proof is in the picture. It also provides another technical but not super technical area to interest and inspire students. It does use technology whereas just writing can be done in school and will not inspire a student in science or technology.

Fran

Re: New Submission Format for Chairman's Award
 

For as long as the teams in consideration for this award are charged with evaluating themselves - as they have done since the award's inception - there will be embellishment, reinterpretation, and outright deceipt. The only truly fair way of evaluating the recipient of these awards, in my mind, is to have a neutral third party directly evaluate the teams as the year progresses. Then, these third parties, using an agreed upon rubric, score each team, compare their scores, and decide upon a winner.

I have a lot of issues with the Chairman's Award. Particularly, I have trouble resolving the difference I see between what the Chairman's Award is meant to represent and what it has become.

By submitting a entry into this part of the competition, a team indicates its desire to win this award. For me, that calls into question everything that the team has done and plans to do. While the reality may be that a team's events have impacted their community in a positive way, their intention is just as important - again, in my mind.

A team that holds events and reaches out into the community - all with video camera in hand - is out there for the wrong reasons.

A team that does the same thing, but writes about it later - a second though...that's the team that deserves to win. The teams that do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing, and for believing in the message of FIRST deserve to be recognized. Teams that seek to win the Chairman's Award and line up activities to follow suit are shameful.

Again, this is all in my opinion. I don't like the Chairman's Award. I never have. I think it's fake. I think it encourages deceipt, manipulation, and dishonesty. I think by simplifying the submission format, it'll help to redeem the award.

Besides, nobody is saying that there cannot be photographs - or, similarly, that there needs to be more than a few words on these pages. You've been given a blank canvas to work with. Be creative. This doesn't need to end up looking like something from a medical journal.

Doing a community event and writing about it for submission into the Chairman's Award is no less shameful than documenting it on film. I personally think that it is perfectly fine. The way I see it, the Chairman's Award inspires teams to reach out. Sure, they are motivated by winning the award, but honestly, how many teams would do community events without this motivation in mind? I'm sure a few teams out there wouldn't worry about that if there was nothing in it for them. Granted, there are plenty of teams out there who don't care about an award and would love to do that kind of thing on a regular basis.

Anyways, what I'm saying is that FIRST wants us to reach out to the community. And if they want us to present all that we've done to them, shouldn't we be allowed to do it in the best manner that accomplishes this? And FIRST is all about science and technology. We have people wanting to be animators or engineers.... Why not open up a career of video editing to them too?

All I have to say right now (no offense to the talented video people) is Yipeeeee!

At last, I can actually be of some use to a local team! I might not have to be a teamless orphan anymore!

I have checked the map and the easiest teams for me to commute to are in Manchester (NH) off of the main interstate.

Mr. Kelso?

Point is being missed
 

I think that many of you are missing a significant point.

FIRST has greatly limited what we can do with the initial Chairman's Award entry... but they still are doing interviews with each team. These interviews mostly take place in the pit. That's where your creativity should be placed.

You can still do a video. You can still do a powerpoint presentation. Now, it's just gotta be shown in your pit... during your interview. So... not only should you include your writing experts, now you need to involve your school's theatre department!

So... last year's video (or other) presentation was supposed to be 10 minutes long... this year's needs to be shorter (3-5 minutes), and you get to do it LIVE. I'd say that this ADDS to the creative challenge.

So... build your kiosks, create your story boards, write your scripts, shoot your video clips, plan your pit layout accordingly. We are.

Andy B.

essay?!
 

I am from a small canadain team. Last year was our first, and while one person from the team worked very hard on the chairman's award submission, he failed to hand it in on time :(. I agree that a four-page summary is more equal to all teams than a video.
But this is not the point. While reading this thread, I wondered why people called this submission an 'essay'. I understand this word as something very boring typed with a 10-size font. I think we can make those fout pages into more than that! It doesn't even have to be in words. It could only have pictures, if your team wishes. For people who complained about not using technology enough, why don't you try to make some 3D images on there in a hologram or something like that?!? Or for designers: just as there are tons of ways to make a video, there are so many ways to design four pages! I think calling it an essay kills everybody's creativity about that. Don't make it a boring essay for the judges to read, make something interesting out of it.

Yes, we brainstormed a little yesterday. It doesn't say what kind of paper, there are no margins specified, we wondered if you can make a pop-up, have wild colors, have it professionally printed, bordered in words, icons, logos...have decorative cut-outs in the paper - see thru paper, bind it...

Video Interview
 

Having a video running for your presentation- absolutely ingenious....

How I'd love to do that... I see one possible glitch- last year at the Philly Regionals the judges interviewed us in the lobby of Drexel's gym, not our pit area..

can anyone verify for sure where the interview/presentations will be held?

At every site I was at last year, they had a specific location away from the "noise" of the competition for the interviews...

Re: Point is being missed
 

Well said, Andy.

That's pretty much what we decided. Even though we are limited to what we can do with our submission, we'll work with it. There's not much else we can do!

Our team is still going to make a video. Team promotional items are always good to have on hand, anyways. :)

- Katie

My team managed to find a way to keep making the videos we were working on and actually use them to interact with the community, which in turn gives us another topic to mention on Chairman's. So, things are looking up, maybe for the better. I guess we'll just have to see....

Yeah...this probably will turn out to be a good thing, but I know reding this thread right now that someone I know is going to be extremely unhappy about this turn of events...he is kind of psycho about his creativity with videos and such. This is going to be good for our team, though. We'll just have a smaller and shorter(only work on it for 1-2 weeks) chariman's award team, unlike the past where we've had 6-8 people working toward that same award. Oh well, that frees people up to do other cool stuff and focus more on broader PR(including more community service).

I would definitely agree that if you think your creativity is being stifled, you need to think about all of the other awards out there. Creating PR stuff like videos and interactive CDs is where you should send your people. Videos and such running in your pit can get you an award if they demonstrate aspects of your robot or team. I'll stand by my conviction that theres a place for everyone in FIRST. regardless of their area of talent. If what you're doing is not for an award, you should become even more motivated and make something really cool, grab the attention of others, and maybe in the future there will be an award for it. FIRST is an environment that should be condusive to your creativity.

I doubt that FIRST will actually go through with this. It might be to use people's initial reaction as a deciding factor (and generally the response is pretty negative).
Frankly, this is a dumb idea, because there isn't really anything challenging or hard about writing an essay about the team's accomplishments/endeavors, as long as you have 1 person who is good at english. Given that the Chairman's Award is supposed to be the most prestigious award, writing an essay to win it basically cheapens the award.

It would be like giving the national championship to the robot which was physically largest.

Keep in mind that the way the guidelines are written(or at least the way that I'm reading them), it nowhere says that it has to be an essay, only that it has to fit on 4 single-sided sheets of paper. So, if you were to use a newsletter or yearbook(actual school yearbook, not FIRST's "yearbook page") layout, that would still qualify...

A good Challenge... and a fair one.
 

It's a good challenge and a fair one-

1 sheet of Executive summary
4 sheets of text or images
5 minutes of conversation with the judges
hours of observation of team performance

This is more than enough to help the judges
select one winner per regional.

I believe this new process will allow
all the teams to compete at an even level.
In the pass some teams had videos/DVDs
that look like a Hollywood production.
FIRST, I believe, know that the resources to
produce on this type of media is way beyond most schools.
Some are even struggling with local transportation
just to get to the events. Should this give up
on applying for the Chairman's Award because
they can't produce a high quality production?
No... they are the school that FIRST wants
to encourage to apply for the Chairman's award.

To me, this change make sense.
:rolleyes: