[BB]: News and News
 

Posted at 11:41.

Good Morning Teams,

Keep an eye out. Sections 4 and 5 of the 2010 FRC manual will be posted very soon.

New in Section 4 Robot Shipping:
We need your help to make the FedEx donation stretch as far as possible so we don’t exceed the total and have to pay extra like we did last year. What can teams do? Keep your robot crate as light as possible. Freight shipments are charged by weight, so the fewer pounds FRC teams ship this year, the further the FedEx donation can stretch. You can make a difference by carrying that extra toolbox in your car rather than shipping it in your crate, or deciding to pack 1 drill rather than 2. Every little bit helps!

As part of this effort, FRC has decided to raise the overage fees for teams whose crates are heavier than the 400 pound limit. We hope that this will provide even more incentive to keep crate weight down and not have FRC exceed the FedEx shipping donation. Pack carefully.

New in Section 5 Awards:
We won’t be using FIRSTAwards.org anymore. Instead, Team Main Contacts will assign up to four students in TIMS as Award Submitters. The student Award Submitters will then be given access to the award submission section of the new Student Team Member Information System. The site opens for submissions at noon EST January 12, 2010 and closes at midnight EST February 18, 2010. Decide now who’s going to be responsible and make sure your Main Contact gets their names into the system.

Plus, there’s a new Coopertition Award. All the details are in Section 5

News on the FRC Staff:
Late last week we bid farewell to Neil Rosenberg the FRC Engineering Manager. Neil had a positive effect on FRC during his three years with us and will be missed. We wish him and his wife the best as they move to North Carolina to begin the next phase of their lives.

We’re looking for a new Engineering Manager and have had several inquiries from the first community. The position is posted here

25 days until the 2010 Kickoff
See you there!

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

The Sections are now available for viewing.

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

Haven't read the full awards section yet, but it seems the new Autodesk Award(s) is basically the same as it previously was, but with additional products allowed in conjunction with the existing ones. It's one award, but with two categories, one for Inventor and other 3D Design products (only awarded at CMP) and one for animation (Maya and/or Max, and additional products) awarded at Regional and Championship level. :D

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

Hmmmmmm

Coopertition Award, the award will be granted to the team that earns the most Coopertition bonus points during the competition

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

Unless I read section 5 wrong, the following awards will be given at the division level at the championship:

• Engineering Inspiration Award
• Entrepreneurship Award
• Excellence in Design Award
• Gracious Professionalism™ Award
• Imagery Award
• Industrial Design Award
• Industrial Safety Award
• Innovation in Control Award
• Judges Award
• Quality Award
• Rookie All Star
• Rookie Inspiration
• Team Spirit Award
• Website

That is quite a few awards to be given at the division level. Maybe this was done to save time during the championship finals?

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

Most of those awards being given at the divisional level would be awesome, but I also saw that the WFA was listed as a Divisional award. What's up with that? Not having a single winner for each of these awards takes away much of the pride that comes with winning something at CMP.

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

Thats where I am also. But in reading the descriptions of the awards it is not clear. It is a big change if this is true and kinda takes away the prestige of winning one of these awards at the championship level.

Additionally I wonder how this will change the way they distribute teams into the divisions. I would hate to think that one division is much stronger for and award than another. As an example the 2nd best site in Curie is better then the one that wins in Newton because of a random distribution of teams.

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

Coopertition bonus points. That doesn't exactly sound subjective like a safety token or something. Interesting award...

It feels weird not having a National EI or Rookie All Star award. Takes away from the "best in the world" aspect of a lot of these awards, but I guess the webcast won't run so long now?

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My guess would be that there was a mistake; that the wrong columns were checked on the chart and these are supposed to be CMP awards. Note that they have the Founders Award listed as division level as well, which doesn't make any sense.

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Good point. That, paired with a WFA per division sounds like a mistake. Guess we'll just wait and see.

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

Is this going to be the award for the team that scores the most for its opponent... or more likely has something to do with a unique aspect of this years game.

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

Coopertition Award, the award will be granted to the team that earns the most Coopertition bonus points during the competition

Do I smell another Co-Opertition FIRST style game?

-Nick

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

To me, these Coopertition bonus points sound like something similar to safety tokens. Instead of being given for safe practices, they might be points awarded by the judges based on how much a team....*insert verb for coopertition here*

Or it could have something to do with the game, but that's a discussion for the game speculation threads.

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

Notice that the Coopertition Award is awarded by Performance, not Robot Performance as in the other categories, or "Judges" as most of the team awards are categorized.

So is this a crossover type of award, some combination of team/machine performance?

Re: [BB]: News and News
 

That would make it very similar to the GP award. It's gotta be something different. And it can't be based just on an element of this year's game, what would it be given for next year if it was?