Chief Delphi - FIRST $CASH$ prize...

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- General Forum (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=16)

- - FIRST $CASH$ prize... (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51563)

Eric Finn

11-01-2007 17:11

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

Quote:

In the laboratory, rats get Rice Krispies. In the classroom the top students get A's, and in the factory or office the best workers get raises. It's an article of faith for most of us that rewards promote better performance.

But a growing body of research suggests that this law is not nearly as ironclad as was once thought. Psychologists have been finding that rewards can lower performance levels, especially when the performance involves creativity.
...
There is general agreement, however, that not all rewards have the same effect. Offering a flat fee for participating in an experiment - similar to an hourly wage in the workplace - usually does not reduce intrinsic motivation. It is only when the rewards are based on performing a given task or doing a good job at it - analogous to piece-rate payment and bonuses, respectively - that the problem develops.
...
Creative work, the research suggests, cannot be forced, but only allowed to happen.

A few excerpts from this article.

How about for getting people interested in FIRST, give a little money to new teams to help them get started. Of course, you could run into the problem of people pretending to be teams just to get the money.
I guess we should just keep it the way it is. Your funding comes from sponsors and fund raising, and your reward for winning is the knowledge that you won.

Ericgehrken

11-01-2007 17:13

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

FIRST is about inspiring students in science and technology. They just make it a competition to make it even more inspiring because science and technology are exciting and competitive. Sports seems to see what America is about and that's why Dean founded FIRST as a competition, to be more inspiring to students. If you want cash prizes for building robots then you should just go do battle bots or something like that not FIRST. If we were competing for cash prizes could you imagine how little support we'd have because that would just make FIRST a go for broke competition like any other sport and not a learning and inspiring experience.

Lil' Lavery

11-01-2007 17:15

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

Quote:

5.21.5 The Allaire Medal - Leadership Exemplified
The Chairman’s Award is presented at the Championship to the FIRST team judged to have the
best partnership effort. The Allaire Medal recognizes leadership exemplified and is awarded to
an individual student on the winning Chairman’s Award team.
Named in honor of Paul A. Allaire, a long-serving FIRST Chairman of the Board, the Allaire
Medal is given to the student who has demonstrated outstanding leadership on his/her FIRST
team, within his/her school and community, and whose personal character best embodies the
spirit of FIRST.
The team receiving The Chairman’s Award at the Championship will select the Allaire Medal
recipient. The adult and student team members determine the winner. The recipient must be a
high school junior or senior who has been accepted into a four-year degree program at a college
or university. The Allaire Medalist receives the Allaire medallion and up to $10,000 in total
scholarship support for undergraduate tuition, room and board, fees, and books at his or her
intended university or college.

If $10,000 isn't enough motivation for the students to strive to fulfill and spread the meaning of FIRST and the Chairman's Award, I don't know what is.

kawelch

11-01-2007 17:25

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

8+ million in scholarships isn't enough of an incentive?

Besides... if a team just one the championship do they really need any more help the next year... how about helping th eteam that came in dead last... I think they would need more help... If you reward the winners with money or refund it will just make it harder for other team to compete... and that will make newer teams quit.

jgannon

11-01-2007 17:27

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

Quote:

Originally Posted by nparikh (Post 554164)

Why not offer some kinds of other incentives--perhaps the opportunity to try out innovative products for next year, computers, or other gear to help teams.

I don't know if this is still the case, but in 2004, we were given two brand new computers with flat screens (courtesy of CDW, I think?) for winning our division at nationals. I always thought that was a nice little perk, and I wouldn't mind seeing it continue.

mizscience

11-01-2007 20:17

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

Definite NO. FIRST has been attracting people to the experience that is robotics for almost 15 years now - without the use of monetary incentives. Adding a cash prize would take away the pure fun and the working for the eventual self and team accomplishment that comes with FIRST. There is no need to sell out that way...

:]

lopz056

11-01-2007 20:22

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

i think that while money would be cool to have as a motivator, but really FIRST is for young students to gain experience, and skills so that they could be able to make money as they grow up, but still, the money would be good to use for future robots, or the travel expenses, maybe they could have the grand prize as credit for certain companies?

chris31

11-01-2007 20:24

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgannon (Post 554258)

That sounds cool. Something thats nice and team would want. But nothing to make the next year unfair or make people cheat/play dirty to win.

Synergy1848

11-01-2007 20:26

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

basically what would happen is the top team wins the money and uses it to make a more powerful robot next year and the year after, and this team keeps winning becasue they have extra money. and then the barley registered teams dont stand a chance against their robot.

Cody Carey

11-01-2007 21:22

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

WARNING: I'm going to post a differing opinion than almost EVERYONE in this thread.

A refund would not cause people to cheat any more than they already do. The fact that you shelled out $10,000+ dollars just to play the game means that you wouldn't have anybody in it "just for the money". The $2,000 refund/break in costs next year would only serve to help the winning team "stay alive" and compete next year.

Professional Fighters get payed to win their respective competitions, and I haven't seen a more Graciously professional group of people. They spend 15 minutes hurting each other, trying to win... and get up, shake hands, hug each other, and all is forgiven, because that is what they do.

How about that DARPA robot race from L.A. to Las Vegas? They get a $1million prize, and that doesn't even begin to cover the costs. It didn't spur cheating, It didn't turn the competition into bloody Maul, and it most certainly didn't decrease their degree of Gracious Professionalism.

Now, I think that the Ideal prize would not be raw cash, but a refund of the cost of the regional/championships event that has been won. (I say "won" not to reference any particular award)

I know that a cash prize of some sort wouldn't motivate me personally, as it would go to the team... It would just be a Pleasant bonus at the end of a regional to know " Wow, the team coffers are a little less in the red".I would go as far as to say that it wouldn't motivate "good", "graciously professional" people to cheat at all, as they already know the right path.

And I leave with you a wonderful quote that I stumbled over somewhere near the 4th page of research for this post:

"Any time you do something, you're out there in front of God and the world. It's pointless to get too wrapped up in winning."

-Cody

Libby K

11-01-2007 21:37

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

*stands on soap box*

Giving a cash prize would not be in the spirit of FIRST. Yes, the purpose of FIRST is to change what we celebrate, but it's also to change HOW we celebrate it. I think Dean puts it best in his kickoff speech:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dean Kamen

FIRST is not about building robots. That's gonna be hard for you to believe, when for the next six weeks you don't eat and you don't sleep because of robots, but PLEASE, (every speaker so far as made some alusion to it), but I want to remind all of you that FIRST got started for a simple reason. We have a culture that gets what it celebrates, a free culture, and even kids are free to do what they want, and we celebrate extraordinarily well the world of sports and entertainment. And I think we do it so well we sometimes forget that those things aren't the SOURCE of our wealth, they're a result of it.

(...he goes on a while, which I've omitted because it's unrelated...)

...I'm begging all the mentors, no matter how exciting and intense the competition gets, like other sports, sometday we will be THE sport, the 21st century sport, the sport that is a part of the culture everywhere, I'm begging all of you to remember, we have a much bigger set of goals to keep at the front of our mind all the time than whether your robot wins or loses. Some of the robots will lose, some of them won't even run, but all of the participants shuold be winners, they WILL be winners if we keep track of what's important. So, my first message is just, for all of you veterans this is a booster shot, FIRST is an extraordinary group of people doing an extraordinary thing, let's not ever lower our standards or forget why we do this. And to the students, I'll remind all of you, we don't want any of the trappings of sports that , frankly, are an embarassment or inappropriate for things as important as what we're doing here. Helping create the next generation of people that will determine the fate of the world.

So, as usual, i have my homework... (and, it goes on from there.)

If you didn't read all of that, which is completely understandable, it's long, I hope you read the boldfaced section.

Personally, I consider one of those 'trappings' to be whatever prize you get for winning. FIRST is most certainly NOT about winning. It's about the connections you make with the people you work with, something that is very important in the long run. Please understand that I am in no way trying to undermine the achievements of those teams who have won, that's not what I'm trying to get at here.

Essentially, we are not the Superbowl. We are not the US Open. The aim of FIRST (as I've been taught it) is not to win. Why should the teams that DO win get money out of it, when the team that's been working all season just to get enough money to pull a robot together, and comes through in the end not get anything?

Money for winning just DOES NOT make any sense to me.

$ 0.02 deposited. Now I'm done.

*steps down from soapbox*

nparikh

11-01-2007 21:41

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery (Post 554248)

No cash/refund/etc. should ever be given to a Champion of an official FIRST event. Period.
As for Scholarships, there are already a multitude available, including one that essentially is a prize. The winners of the Championship Chairman's Award select one student for the Allaire Medal:

If $10,000 isn't enough motivation for the students to strive to fulfill and spread the meaning of FIRST and the Chairman's Award, I don't know what is.

But there's a difference between winning Chairman's and winning the Championship Event. Winning the Chairman's award entails years of hard work--for many over a decade's worth. Winning the Championship event results from your work over the course of that one year. Yes you can argue that from experience you become better,etc, etc, but regardless--it's based on that year's performance. In 2000, just our 4th season as a team, we won the Championships--but the Chairman's Award wasn't in our reach.

Now the Allaire Medal is something wonderful, but why not have a scholarship for one member of each party of the winning alliance? Or as someone said before--perhaps some kind of technological incentive. I don't think teams are going to cheat any more than they do (if (hypothetically) they do) because they might win a computer, software, etc. It's the thought of cash money that perhaps could drive people to doing extraordinary things. (and not in a good way)

**edit**

I agree with Libby's above statement but disagree with a certain point. You are getting a wonderful reward by just participating in FIRST, yes--but why not reward teams with stellar performance with an incentive or a means to continue. Let's say you get some kind of pass that gets you a discount next season or at some point in the future. Many teams go onto perform very successfully--but die out because of a lack of funding at some point. Why not give these teams that have performed exceptionally some kind of a break.

JaneYoung

11-01-2007 21:48

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

Thank you for your post, Libby.

I think what I'd like to say is that if we start giving cash 'prizes' - it is almost like we are turning around and walking back into the same culture we already have - away from the culture we are developing.

I also think FIRST is 15 years old and should have a lot more time to work on its program development and educational expansion moving in the direction that it is moving now - tweaking and improving as it goes in keeping with the vision of Dean Kamen and
Dr. Woodie Flowers.

Jane

KelliV

11-01-2007 22:23

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

If you want a prize go out in your community, visit your local Elementary school, and start something, wether it be a FLL team, FVC team, or just a day where little kids come and look at your old robots, the look on their faces as they smile and learn should be enough of a reward for any of you. As we said at WildStang, FIRST isn't just about building robots, it's about building people.
Being on a FIRST team is prize enough. Money is not needed. Start a new team, and give that prize to other kids, share, create a community that is centered around robotics, just watch and see, maybe you can win Chairman's, The Championship, or what I think is even more prestigious, a peer award from a neighboring team that you have helped more than they could have imagined. FIRST changes lives, you can be part of that change, and I don't know about you guys, but that is prize enough for me.

Gboehm

11-01-2007 22:31

Re: FIRST $CASH$ prize...

Cost are Spiraling out of control as it is. FIRST would be stupid to do this, its one of the things that killed CART.

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