What is your team doing
 

I am fairly new to the whole First organization and I was just wondering what some of the things other teams are doing to earn the chairmans award. This is the stuff you do besides documenting your progress on the robot.

I have already heard some stuff like teams doing shop work at regionals and such but I am still curious what some other ideas are.

Re: What is your team doing
 

There are many things that teams do to change the culture of their community and help spread the word of FIRST. Now one of the best ways to find out what other teams do is to look up their chairman's submission, here is MOE's submission that won them the 2007 chairman's award at the championship.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/1983?

Re: What is your team doing
 

Our team won the chairman's award in 2007 in Kansas City, MO. That year we did a lot of volunteer work and documented it all. The wife of one of our mentors was in a car accident and ended up having some other serious medical problems. We put on a benefit to help the family pay for their medical expenses. We have also helped with church groups, helped mentor other teams, have done robot demonstrations for our sponsors and schools, and have worked very hard to earn our money to be able to keep our program running. We even do occasional cleaning of a local hockey arena to make some money...it is hard work and takes a lot of people and many hours, but it is all worth it to be able to compete in the competitions and give these students this great learning opportunity and experience!:D

Re: What is your team doing
 

Well, one thing we learned is that you have to be a three year team and we have one year to go before we are allowed to apply which is :(

Re: What is your team doing
 

That is 100% false, we submitted our first Chairman's Award submission our 2nd year and have done so each year following. The only year that you may not submit is your rookie, so Thomas, being a 24xx team, you certainly qualify.

At this point, my suggestion would be to find the list of Hall of Fame teams (I know it has been listed in threads here and that it is somewhere on the FIRST website). Look at those teams' websites and see what types of activities their team does for outreach etc.

Good luck!

Re: What is your team doing
 

You can make a submission your rookie year, but you can't win.

Re: What is your team doing
 

You are allowed to apply as a 2nd year team. Only rookie teams are not eligible to win the award. There is a note that the award will focus primarily on the current year and 2 years before, but that is designed to help younger teams do well against the teams with 10-15 year records (and make it so those teams are not complacent), not perclude 2nd year teams from competing.

As for the original question, I suggest you read some of the winning entries from previous years for an idea of where to begin.

Here is the entry for the 2008 Chairman's Award winners, 842.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2088

And of course, entries from some teams I have worked with (116 and 612 have won Regional CA's, 1712 will one day soon).
http://www.team116.org/2008/chairmans2008.html
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/1816
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2079

Re: What is your team doing
 

A rookie team's chairman's submission is used to judge the Rookie All-Star Award.

Re: What is your team doing
 

Welcome!

One thing to remember when you're looking at another team’s Chairman’s essay… it’s not a measuring stick; it’s more like spoon- it gets ideas stirring.

Just like our team fits our situation, and the Falcon’s program fits theirs, your team will build something unique to your place and time but SIMILAR in shared FIRST values. When it includes your whole team, submitting for a Chairman’s can help figure out who you are, what you stand for, and where you want to go.

(I'm a HUGE fan of Falcons 842- if you read their essay, you'll be too!)

Good luck and have fun!