I like that idea Bduggan04. I was thinking the same thing about contacting Ted Boardman, he does a lot for first including the tutorials.

Again good ideas Chris, but I believe we are ahead of ourselves.

I contacted the main info from first and all they gave me is an auto reply, so I will be trying some other email addresses.

I will also put a post up in the regional section askign for emails. Please put yours there.

Tyler Olds

ANIMATION TO BE JUDGED AT THE REGIONAL AND NATIONAL LEVEL!
 

Well, it's a done deal now!! In the Awards Manual, 6.1 states -

"In 2003, Autodesk is pleased to announce that the AVA will be judged at both
the Regional and Championship levels. To accomplish this, Autodesk has grouped the FIRST
Robotics Competition Regionals into five “Autodesk Award Conference” areas that are listed
below. All award-winning AVA’s at the regional level will advance to compete at the
Championship."

:D :D Thanks to all who influenced FIRST to do this, it's really given me a goal to work towards now! :)

Re: ANIMATION TO BE JUDGED AT THE REGIONAL AND NATIONAL LEVEL!
 

I like this.
Two weks less work time is a bit difficult but it also will force us to be more efficent in using our time working so that's actually a good thing (I also love the creation of a Website award though I have a sneaking suspicion who will win...:rolleyes: ).
Now maybe animation will get a little more respect in the competion as something other than filler during downtime in the competition.

I agree,
By having the awards, the people who bust thier behind just as much if not more than other people on their team will fineally be reconized. Though the 2 weeks off sucks, I think this is a huge step for not only animations, but FIRST

actually, its a little under 4 weeks off if i remember correctly

another question I have, is that in the past autodesk judged strickly on content. Which is why some of us wondered why certain animations won last year. In my personal opinion the cybersonics and the metal jackets got snuffed out. Now there could have been some disqualifaication issues that I didn't know about, but both of those animtoins were amazing.

This brings to the judging at the regional level. If everybody judges the way that I would have judged last year then possibly the ones with content and creativity will get pushed aside for the really awesome ones.

I don;t know if this makes any sense to anyone else but your thoughts on the matter please.

It sounds like FIRST will be changing the Animation competition from the Oscars to the Peoples Chioce Awards.

he he he he that's funny

It would be more funny if it didn't suddenly sound like FIRST had trivialized our already ignored part of the competition. Dag gone it! And I thought things were looking up for the animation competition!:(

nother thought i had...maybe autodesk is getting lazy. It doesn't seem like they will be judging all of the animtions...just the ones that get sent from the regionals...so that basically means that we've cut their work in about 1/4. It will also make it easier for them to sort through all the good animations that have on on and to not have to waste time on uncompleted or terrible ones.