Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

I know this is an old thread but I always ponder about the Chairmans award when ever it comes around....

-The Chairmans award is a tricky thing. If you were to ask 100 teams what they should do to win this award they would give you all unique answers. Some may even say that you do not "win" chairmans, you earn it. It is given to the team that helps their community through FIRST the best.

After reading alot of this thread there was alot I agree with, and alot that makes me wonder. Although chairmans is suposed to be an award for teams who are not trying to win it, thats not what chairmans is. In a perfect world this award would be given to the perfect team and there would be no need for essays and presentations. The judges would watch over all the teams and see who was truely real and who were just trying to fake it. We are not in a perfect world. Chairmans teams need to prove to the judges through presentation and essay that they are indeed deserving of this award.

-Now, trying to be a chairmans winner is right and wrong at the same time. It is wrong to try to win chairmans so be a chairmans winner, agree.
It is wrong to try to achieve what chairmans stands for to be a chairmans winner, disagree.

If a team looks at the chairmans award and says, "I want to be a role model team in FIRST and I will push my self to do so" there is nothing wrong with that. There is a fine line between teams "trying" to win chairmans and "trying" to achieve the reality of what a chairmans team is suposed to be. I find myself stressed all the time when it comes to chairmans. Not because the bar is too high or because I dont think we can win, but because I love what chairmans stands for. I see the international outreach that Daisy brought and I believe we can do even better. I stress in finding new ways to spread what I believe in, which is FIRST. I want more people to know about what we do so I go out and find ways that will let them know. Not because I want to win the chairmans award, but because I want to be what the chairmans award stands for. A team that other teams look up to. A team that represents FIRST. Because how can we spread FIRST if we are not even deserving the title of representing FIRST. So when people say that you shouldent try to win chairmans they are right and wrong. You should not try to win the award just to win it. But if a team puts the same amount of effort trying to become a team that represents FIRST then they should "try" to win this award. The bar is being raised because people are "trying". When the Falcons played the movie clips or when Daisy went international it was because they were trying to spread what they love.

-And I will be ever so happy if I lose but I deserved to win, rather then winning but deserved to lose, because BEING a chairmans team is alot more important then WINNING the chairmans award.

Thanks for listening :D

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

If that was true they wouldn't give out the award.

I see what you're going for, and agree to an extent. The teams whose sole reason for doing "Chairman's activities" is the award are not likely the best candidates to receive the award, and I've often said things along those lines. But using the award as a goal, benchmark, and motivational tool (ie, trying to win the award) for the "Chairman's activities" you conduct is perfectly acceptable.

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

Now, granted i am from a fairly young team, but I don't think that we've ever looked at the chairman's award and said I want to win that.
Instead, we've looked at the team's who have won, all of the incredible things they had done and said WOW...I want to make an impact like they are making an impact. I don't believe that the chairman's award should be sought after just for recognition...if that's all it's for I think the point is being missed. BUT I do agree with what Ike from team 33: The Killer Bee's said:

"Just like FRC is not solely about the robots, and the robots are the hook, the Chairman's award really isn't about the award, but the award is the hook. "

You see this at every competition...the team that win's although they know they did their best, aren't expecting to win it. How do I know this? The team's reaction when their description is read and when their number/name is announced.
This year our team was very honored to be one of those teams for the very first time. I remember the night before, and going into the presentation (we were all nervous as heck but that's what pushes us harder for some strange reason) the 3 of us presenters decided our goal was to show the judges the steps we were taking to reach our goals, and the progress we were making in reaching them. We weren't looking for the recognition, rather the feedback. What can we do to become a more well rounded team? Is this just our style? Maybe...

So to answer the question is the bar raised to high I think is irrelevant. There is no bar...as our business mentor told me numerous times throughout this season "At the end of the of the day, it doesn't matter to me what 2 judges think, we know how far we've come and that's all that matters." In other words, the team should do it because they want to improve rather than be better than somebody else.

When we did though we cried like babies and it felt amazing, I believe any chairman's winning team regardless of level will say the same thing.

So, to round out my random thought process here.... for those that choose to set a bar (which I guess we all do if we do if we set goals...)

Others don't raise that bar for you.....they inspire you to raise it. :ahh: Think about it.... :)

Thanks for listening to this pile of thoughts. :)

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

can we adopt some children from third world countries and get them to join our team. We need more students.

putting that in a sentence sounds very bad.

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

We put in a chairman's award presentation not because we believe that we will win it in any given year, but because it focuses us as a team on tallying up what we have and have not done this year in terms of making the world a better place, and serves as a launch pad for community service for the coming year.

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

I am thinking the same thing. We do what we can to excite the community about FIRST and STEAM. We promote all levels of recycling and, over the course of the past 4 years, have kept over 6 tons of materials from the landfill (approx 1/4 of it e-wastes.) Those two things keep us busy and make us visible in the community. Yes, we have overcome many obstacles - those of you who have teams in rural, impoverished areas can really relate to that, I'm sure. But when you compare our stats to those in urban areas who start 10+ new teams a year, run countless events, and manage to attract $$$$ we come up short every time.

We aren't going to start a bunch of new FIRST teams at any level, simply because we have learned the hard way that there are few adult volunteers in our community that are willing to work with kids consistently. It's heartbreaking to start an FLL team, only to see it die after a couple of years. We struggle to keep the 3 mentors we have, and one will retire this year. Our kids work hard to help bring relevant STEAM activities to our school and community, but our manpower is limited.

Doing the Chairman's Award is a great way for our team to focus on their many achievements and successes. It also helps our team develop more speaking and leadership skills. Finally, even though we don't do a professional job on the video, the students end up with a great presentation we can share with civic groups and our sponsors later on. It's never a waste of time, even though we will likely never win the Chairman's.

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

Wow! Quite the thread revival...

...but glad it was revived, because this is great advice.

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

We had an issue with that. My friend and I were freshman on the team this year and we really wanted to do chairmans but the entire year the people who had been on the team previously said they had never submitted it and tried to convince us not to because they said we wouldn't win anyway. We kept working on doing more outreach and doing the chairmans essay, executive summaries, and video just on our own time instead of during practice since they didn't want us to, even though they told us we should just not do it. We finished it all barely on time (literally submitted it 13 seconds before the deadline) but we got it in. At competition, we actually ended up winning the judges award for all of the outreach we did. We are going to continue to submit chairmans and hopefully continue to improve with our outreach and presentation. Hopefully the rest of our team will start to realize the importance of chairmans and put more of an effort into it. It was a cool experience winning an award for our efforts and we hope other teams will be able to experience this as well. We also started to help our team realize and realize ourselves that it's not just about winning the award, it's the effort and the difference you make that is the important part.

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

This year, we applied for chairman's for the first time since our rookie season in 2004, because we had been focused on community service for a number of years and we wanted to share that with the FIRST community. While I don't regret encouraging the team to apply, I currently feel neutral about the experience and the award. I am leaning toward not having the team go through the process again. Here are my reasons.

1) The type of work that we are doing doesn't seem to fit the model. Our team is using their skills in STEM and fundraising to meet needs in our community, and it makes a difference, and I'm really proud that they are doing this. But I am unclear on whether it is what the kind of stuff that the award is intended to honor. Not saying that what I see Chairman's winners doing is bad (clearly not); it's just not quite our style, I guess.

2) I thought that going through the application process would help the students better understand and appreciate what they are already doing, but I don't think it actually did that for them. They like doing the service work anyway, and keeping a tally seemed more to be a distraction than a focusing tool.

3) kind of related to #1, I'm not sure that there isn't an element of self-promotion for FIRST that goes into what is judged to be good Chairman's work. FLL is great of course, but it's pretty clear that no one is going to win the award if their team doesn't start or mentor FLL. This is a bad comparison, but it's just a little like the Coke company giving a humanitarian award to a person for saving a remote village from dying of thirst by providing them with Coke products.

4) the effort to make the video, write the paper and executive summary, and prepare the presentation was a distraction for some of my best students, who have told me that they regret having agreed to work on it. They would rather have had their hands in the robot and the service work, and I don't blame them.

5) Probably the biggest deal: I am guessing on all of this. Is the bar set too high? How would we know? Without direct feedback, all I can go on is what other teams share, and on stuff from the past. Kids are now feeling disappointed and frustrated; not because they didn't win, but because they don't know if what they worked so hard on telling the community about was just shouting into the wind.

Anyway, those are my current thoughts on the matter. Thanks to whoever revived this topic.

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

After four years of submitting for Chairmans Award, we won it at the Bayou Regional. Did we do all of the outreach we did to win? No. Did we use the criteria of what a Chairmans Award team is supposed to be? Heck yes.

I think what most people don't realize is that a regional level, a Chairmans Award is definitely reachable. It's simply about finding a niche and filling it. Our team's success is based on firsts. We started the first offseason in the Bayou Regional, the first FTC Qualifier in the state, the first official Kickoff in the state. . . And so on. If you were to have asked me last year if winning a Chairmans is possible for every team. . . I'm not sure. But looking back, I can see our learning curve. You have to find your own magic. You have to determine what makes YOUR team worthy to be called a Chairmans team.

Now... Looking to the World level. We know that winning this year is a pipe dream. If it weren't then we'd already be done and we have so much farther to go. Still, It's not beyond our reach, just currently out of our grasp. It's not about what any other team has done either. It's the magic that we bring. What magic does your team bring? What makes your outreach distinct? What is it about your team that makes people stop and take notice? If you haven't figured that out yet; that would be the first step. Let's face it. Everyone does demos. Everyone talks to politicians. Everyone does a lot of things. . . But what do YOU do? Where is YOUR heart?

It's not impossible. It's hard. And the tears of the struggle will be made all that more sweet from the striving.

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

This part of your post caught my attention.
I think in some respects, winning at a regional level can be more difficult than at the Championship level.


And I could go on for hours as to why.
The only thing I will say is that for us personally, winning any categorical award at the Hawaii regional is much much harder than it was when we started participating there at the inaugural 2008 event.

Congratulations to all that have won it this season and good luck at the Championships.

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

My views have changed since this thread was started. I don't think the bar for outreach, education and scope of STEM is too high at all. In fact, there is much more to be done. FRC teams may remain the same size forever, but the programs that FRC teams start can grow and become their own self-sustaining entities. It takes incredible leadership, vision, diversity of thought and work ethic to get to that kind of level, however.

The bar is high with respect to the students writing and concisely presenting everything that has been done in a compressed format. That, combined with inconsistent or misinterpreted feedback makes it feel the bar is 'too high' I suppose. Yet I've learned that the success of outreach efforts and program growth never hinges on a single one thing a small set of individuals do in a judging room. Regardless of CA, ideas and programs which are full of merit at their core will continue to move forward.

Man, I can't believe I was the guy who typed some of the tangential vitriol. I am sorry Rich :-/ It was a weird high-pressure low-results time in my life. Just goes to show that 5 years ago, I didn't know Jack (and I probably still don't).

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

I agree that each team needs to find their magic, but it helps if your wizard is well-versed at making a professional video.

I'd like to know if there are any teams out there who have won the CA in recent years that haven't had a great video. Yes, I realize there's a requirement that one be posted on youtube, but it also says this can be a converted powerpoint show (which is what ours was.)

I know Skunkworks won it at our Philomath district meet last weekend, but they didn't show their video (which was a surprise) but I bet it was pretty awesome.

For us, it's a lesson for teams/mentors: don't assign someone to make the video who isn't invested in the team. Because we had a student in our robotics class who didn't get engaged in any aspect of build, our instructor (we have 3 mentors, one is our robotics class instructor) assigned it the CA video-making to him. It was a complete joke and (fortunately?) violated youtube copyright policies (so we were able to take it down and redo it before competition.)

As faculty member, I do cringe when I see some of the videos that I know present grossly exaggerated claims of "rescuing high risk kids." Some teams really do that, I'm sure, but I find it difficult to believe some of the stats. I had to chuckle when I saw the comments above about rescuing 3rd-world students to be on the team, because some of the videos have gotten pretty close to ridiculous. I hear students coming out of the interviews saying "I pulled that statement right out of my ....."

We do the CA because we are a NASA sponsored team; however, I feel it is a worthwhile project that we will continue to do every year that we are able, simply because it helps us focus on our achievements and make a great sponsor video.

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

We won at Queen City in 2012 with a video whose sound track was completely messed up, so they ended up playing it silently.

We will always work to try to win the Chairman's Award, but I always tell the kids that when someone else wins its OK. It just means the message of FIRST is being spread even more broadly. We try to win because to win requires engaging everyone on the team not only to get involved in outreach, but to remember why the team exists in the first place. This year one of my team leaders for next year told me that when we were discussing all of the things we do that he hadn't realized we did half of the things we do. We have a big team, and tend to have a lot of irons in the fire. The kids know the big stuff we do every year, but there are lots of projects we get asked to help with that just a few kids do. The process of getting the submission ready is also our way to make sure each group of students is immersed in our core mission.

Re: Chairman's Award -- is the bar too high now?
 

Great Quote from a Great Team !