Bring back the awards!
 

Here is a thought I had when rummaging through past award winners and the sort. I really think that FIRST should bring back the awards for Best Offense, Best Defense, and Best Play of the Day. It seems to me that the direction of FIRST has been more focused on the design and "purpose" parts of the game. As everyone knows, strategy is also a huge portion of this game...both on the field, and off the field. It only makes sense to me that a teams use of successful strategy should be rewarded...not to mention great plays such as team 67's capping of another robot definately deserve recognition. These awards are fun, reguardless if FIRST feels that they dont focus on the "purpose" of what we are doing. I say...lets get them back!

Good Luck!
Andy Grady

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

I think the problem they have is the judges don't hardly see matches and don't see all of them for sure. The ref and volunteers have enough to handle and not to mention more bias than a judge. I just don't see who they would have judge the award how they have it set-up. Who chose the winners in the past?

I agree with them being fun and would be nice to have but don't see exactly how FIRST would judge these. The other awards are all comparatively easy to judge.

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

yes. I agree I never have heard of these awards before but I think from hearing about them they would be a very important part of the awards. You can have the best robot ever made, but with no stradegy you will not win. The only reason I can think of that would make this hard to do would be the fact that the judges might have a hard time picking. Aren't all awards hard to pick. I think it is a great Idea to bring the awards back thanks for brining it up

edit: i was posting as ngreen made the post I think that a way to fix this might be that volunteers just rocomend a bunch of robots or matches and the judges watch matches including them or go talk to them about the stradegy. Most of the matches are video taped anyway. I wouldn't be THAT hard

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

but watching all those tapes would be .. i mean the judges have to be dead tired by the time they get home and watching more tapes would be a lot of work ...

but i do like the idea for these three awards ...

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

You could have the teams vote on Saturday a lunch. Let one vote per team. The scouts from teams should have a good idea of these teams. The judges already have more than enough to do.

You could make it a team award. Sometime people appreciate those more than FIRST awards. It could be team xxxx best offensive robot award and make a award to give them. Vote or choose within your team. The steam engine awards would be cool.

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

How about a team ballot? Each team has a piece of paper in their pits with the three awards, and by noon on saturday they have to turn it in.
You could make the awards for each division too, because no one can watch all the matches.

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

How about make it voted on by the field crew volunteers? They're watching matches all day, and this would create added incentive to be a volunteer.

Hehe, I think Andy just wants to be the person deciding this award :)

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

YEAH!!! That definately should be an award for the announcer and MC to give out!!! Actually in the past, i believe they used to poll teams about it, though I'm not positive.

-Andy Grady

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

I'm pretty sure Incredible Play was judged by teams, and best offense and best defense were judged.

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

Actually, as I recall, back in 2001 the teams at SoCal were handed an envelope that had sheets for voting on each of these items. Therefore, the judges, the refs, and the volunteers had nothing (or very little) to do with the award other than tabulating the results.

indieFan

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

While we're at it, what about bringing back my personal favorite, the "fly weight in the finals" award? Of course these days the robot that wins it will probably weight 125 lbs.

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

Well, you can have one vote per team, and one vote per volunteer crew, just as if they're a team of their own.
I think a problem with having just the field volunteer crew make the decisions would be that a lot of times, a lot of the volunteer staff are pretty young kids, plus it's hard for them to see the whole match being down at ground level.

I think they would be fun awards to give out. And if FIRST doesn't want to do it, maybe one motivated team can organize it, tally the votes, and present the award.

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

Also a lot of volunteers seem to have ties with teams so they may not be impartial.

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

But if you want to argue it that way, a lot of teams have a lot of ties with other teams...so they may not be impartial. ;)

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

Yea, I like that idea, most of the volunteers, MC and referees are watching all the games anyway and knows when a good game, a good team strategy, or good driving is made.

I'll vote for that! :D

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

Last night I was having dinner with Andy in Boston and we were talking about this very thing in fact so I figured I'd post with my thoughts.

I agree I think that these awards should return. I totally agree withy our comments about FIRST being centered on the "purpose" in the last say 3 years. I find it interesting that these awards were just one year not there and all of the sudden the "Engineering Inspiration" award just appeared. Now I'm not out to diminish the winners of this award which is after all "the second highest honor FIRST bestows" I just don't like how FIRST makes it sound like this award has always existed. I think that the focus of FIRST has shifted DRASTICALLY in the last few years more and more the focus shifts away from robotics and the game to things like entrepreneurial spirit. If you think this isn't true look at the awards but also look at this year’s game. The primary method for scoring was to depend on the human players. I remember once upon a time when FIRST was about designing a robot to compete in a robotics competition. It seems more and more like FIRST is a business fraternity than a robotics competition. I would like nothing more than to see a little more of the focus shift back to the game, design of a quality robot, and strategy. However I think that this would require DRASTIC changes in the mindset of the FIRST community which I do not see happening.

Because the pot should always be stirred every once and a while...

Justin

P.S. Before you bad rep me from now until Sunday I ask you to think about how truly childish that is.

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

Ahhh, could be true, but I think that because it's one vote per team, and it should be a "team decision", it wouldn't get too biased. With the caliber of teams out there, I don't think they're gonna vote for their best friend team who had no exciting plays just because they're best friends.

Since these awards are "fun", I don't think anyone has any reason to be biased, including the volunteer staff. It's just for fun... But, giving votes to the general team population gives a nice large average and would probably ensure that at least someone on every team has seen every match. By having the field crew decide the awards, it takes part of the "fun" out of it for the teams. Besides, as mentioned before, the field crew has enough to think/worry about. If they're gonna let the team students judge animations, why the heck shouldn't the teams judge these fun awards?

I think someone (I don't know who though! - who started this thread? :)) should find out if this is do-able, either through FIRST, or a team that wants to do it.
just my thoughts....

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

I agree, I doubt it would happen on a wide scale, and I really hope it wouldn't - but it would probably happen at least a little.

I'm just throwing the idea out there that it may not be impartial. :)

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

These were great rewards, my team would always sit down and discuss the most amazing matches we saw that day and then vote for the team who made the match. I think it is a great idea to have teams voting for other teams to win awards, brings about a sense of comraderie among teams and appreciation for good strategy and driving. I say FIRST should bring us back to the old days and let us vote on these three awards once again!

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

while i agree with points in this post (the what's happening) I don't think they are a bad occurence. Granted, I haven't been around FIRST too long (three years not long enough to see these old awards) I do plan on being around FIRST for a while. I think one of the biggest problems that people that have been in FIRST for a while have is the fact that it is changing from a competition to something else (what exactly time will tell). But that's because FIRST is getting MUCH bigger. There are a thousand teams from four (maybe more???) countries. This is a good thing. Should there still be a robotics competition...YES...without a doubt. The competition aspect is what drives design to become better and what helps inspire some people (myself my first two years on the team included). Competition drives teams like 45 to create new designs applicable to robots...however...it is the new "entrepenuerial" spirit of FIRST that is instilled in them which leads them to share these ideas with hundreds of other teams. The same can be said for a lot of teams throughout FIRST. Our team has a slightly different focus. No doubt we love the robotics competition and strive to build a competitive robot every year, but we are become more of the Cyber Blue Corporation that builds a robot than simply a group of students building a robot. We do a total design review process (four gates during the season. an exact replica of what is used at Rolls-Royce), we have a business plan. Am I saying my team is better than another? No. Not in any way and I appologize if it sounds that way. We simply play FIRST's game a little differently and it's working for us. Teams should do what works for them (throwback to another thread where I put my foot in my mouth and had to work my way out of it...60 and 254 found what works for them and have obviously been successful with it (a Chairman's and regional victories and overall good showings (both sides of the coin)))

Now, to answer the question. Yes. The awards should be brought back, but awards like the Entrepenuership, Sportsmanship, Engineering Inspiration, and Chairman's Award should retain their prestige. There (in my eyes) is a lot less luck involved with winning these awards at the regional level. I see this as a double sided coin. Some teams will focus on the robot...some on the outreach. The true FIRST teams will focus on both.

45 or 71 would have recieved my vote for best offense. both made it to the semi's in Chicago (45 won but didn't beat 71 i don't think). 45 got the sportsmanship award. 71 got engineering inspiration. both examples of FIRST teams. there are others out there. keep up the good work everybody!

Hold on to the "I" and never let go.

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

I think this is a great idea, but I also think there might be problems getting it accomplished. Nationals is the BIG BANG and FIRST has grown over the years, making the event a bigger bang. There is so much going on already, that for the panel of judges, or refs, whoever makes the call, and review every match and agree on one team for the award would make it an all night event. Maybe I am wrong and underestimate the FIRST staff's power, but it seems to me that deciding on the awards would be endless.
So that's the bad stuff, for the good stuff, I think it would bring out more competitive spirit in the game, and the game would be much better with everyone competing so fiercely. I'll admit that some matches can be pretty dull during qualifying, and I'd like to see that go away. Awesome idea Andy, keep up the good work.

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

Cyber Blue 234 will take care of voting and distribution of these awards for our division at nationals (whatever it may be).
Best Offensive Strategy
Best Defensive Strategy
Best Play of the Day

ps===we are also looking to implement these awards for IRI! :)

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

These awards could be handed out by the referees. They see everymatch. They can see strategies and whatnot on the field. Yes they are busy but I think if could be a way for the refs to get even more involved and in a sense give them recognition for thier time.

-Pat

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

yes i know that team 60 shoud have gave a team spirit a award and a lot that they gave last year and all the other veteran teams.


nick brown

Re: Bring back the awards!
 

** Newton Division **
Here is our voting form for determining these awards.
We have chosen the name "The Classics".
One vote per team in the division. We will pass the forms out on Thursday.

Now if someone from the other three divisions can volunteer to do the same.