What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

What sets apart an all-star rookie team? And what tips the scales?

I'd be curious to know as well.. what do you all think about letting the non-rookie teams at a regional vote for who is the all-star rookie team and factoring that into the scale?

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

Now this -- this is a great question.

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

This is a lot better post than your first one.

Robot preformance is only a small slice of what counts. All the non-technical stuff (community outreach, fundraising, relationship with sponsors, spreading FIRST message, organization, planning, spirit...) plays a large role. The issue with having teams pick the rookie all star is that they, for the most part, don't know what a team does outside the event. The judges are the ones that come around to talk to your team or listen to your chairmans presentation to learn about what your team does 365 days a year opposed to what your robot does 3 days at the event.

Congrats on your Rookie Inspiration award. Looking foward to seeing your team next year.

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

Madison, stop doing that to me LOL (inside joke) (you beat me to posting again LOL)

I'll answer your second question first.
I would say no, do not make it a popularity contest.
The judges have a better idea what to ask and what to look for.

IMHO,
The award is more than just how you do on the field. It is how you got there. How well do you tell your story? What obstacles did you have to overcome? Did you show that you know the meaning and purpose of FIRST?

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

Rookie All-star is a way to recognize new teams that really get the culture of FIRST. A strong candidate for the award would manage, while still brand new, to not just build a robot, but also start to explore the entrepreneurship, business plan, community outreach, and other aspects of the program. A Rookie All-star winner has made a good start on the sustained effort it takes to win Chairman's.

I think the current judging process for this award is working well. Other than teams that have actively mentored them, most of the teams at a regional (particularly visitors for whom this is not the home region) are not going to be that aware of what a rookie has done in their community. It's largely the same reason Chairmans is selected entirely by judge's panel. It's easy to see at a regional whose robots are working well - it's all out there on the field. Seeing who is doing the other parts of the culture of FIRST well really takes a different kind of attention, and those other parts of the culture are what the award is about.

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

I'm kind of torn by that concept... to me a Rookie Team is a team that that is new to US First, they may have started their season 12 months before the first season kick-off, or started two weeks before the kick-off... hence both these teams haven't had the same time to work with the community... Heck just a rookie teams ability to get started is showing a huge effort in working with the community... at least where I live it is....

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...ookie+All-Star

1.Rookie All-Star Award – to recognize outstanding achievement by a first year team;


http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...nal_Awards.pdf

Celebrates the rookie team exemplifying a
young but strong partnership effort, as well
as implementing the mission of FIRST to
inspire students to learn more about science
and technology.

Rookie Inspiration Award
Celebrates a rookie team for outstanding
effort as a FIRST team in community outreach
and recruiting students to engineering.

Does anyone else think this is kind of confusing... as the Rookie Team Criteria is (arguably) different than the awards section, and in my opinion the Inspiration Award and All-Star award sound almost identical with the exception of the young but strong partnership effort.....

Also on your comment about what they are doing with-in the community doesn't that sound more like the inspiration award? "community outreach"?

I mean so does strong partnership.... which is why I find this confusing.. it almost sounds like these are "almost" the same award but at 2 different levels of expectation, if that makes any sense?

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

So this discussion is leading me to another question... then what is the difference between these 2 awards?

Rookie All-Star Award
Celebrates the rookie team exemplifying a
young but strong partnership effort, as well
as implementing the mission of FIRST to
inspire students to learn more about science
and technology.

Rookie Inspiration Award
Celebrates a rookie team for outstanding
effort as a FIRST team in community outreach
and recruiting students to engineering. -Isn't this working within the community and basically what the team does to promote US First and it's ideals and goals outside of competition?

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

So question for you... is a team that has members and mentors that have already participated in US First truly "Rookie"... doesn't that give them an unfair advantage.. if their mentors and some students have already participated in first I would think they should "that really get the culture of FIRST." as they have first hand knowledge and experience....

I agree with your statement.... I also think that a Rookie team's interactions with other teams is important and should count... like you said it's really hard for Judges to know what visiting teams are doing in their communities... I think part of it needs to be walking around the pits and observing the interactions of students and mentors, and between teams, and talking with the teams... finding out their story, how they work, how they got here etc... what their past experience with US First has been (if any), length of time the team has been around.... how many students, how many mentors... etc.... etc...

Don't get me wrong guys.. I'm just trying to offer up some ways to clarify and improve the system..

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

You can see the difference in the wording. The RI is the rookie team that "is getting there", the RAS is the rookie team that "is there"

RI = outstanding effort
RAS = exemplifying

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

If your a Rookie Team (at least in my experience)... your NEVER going to "be there" your first year.... coming in... we'd seen video of the games, but never of the pits... there is nothing in the manual about the social aspects of the game, it was the volunteers and safety inspectors that informed us about that... We knew from reading the manual that we couldn't apply for a Chairman's award, but missed that we should apply anyways... as did we have to make last minute adjustments to our robot (as did nearly every team have to make last minute adjustments as well)....

I agree not all Rookie Teams are equal... but hopefully we are all "Getting there" some closer than others"..

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

Wow... found yet another definition....

http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...-%20Awards.pdf

Rookie All Star
This award celebrates the rookie team
exemplifying a young but strong
partnership effort, as well as
implementing the mission of FIRST to
inspire students to learn more about
science and technology.

Rookie Inspiration
This award celebrates a rookie team’s
outstanding success in advancing
respect and appreciation for engineering
and engineers both within their school,
as well as in their community. (Interesting to note that a lot of you have been talking about how the RAS award includes working with the community, but in this text (which is taken from the actual PDF manual) the RI award mentioned working with the community, the RAS specifically seems to be more geared to working more with the students and inspiring them and having a strong partnership effort)...

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

A good veteran team's support. Rookie teams that have an experienced team's or mentor's support tend to succeed. Take the team from Australia at BAE last year. They had support of two phenomenal mentors with years and years of FIRST experience who in fact won the mentor award for their efforts.


Aussie Aussie Aussie....

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

Yes.. but not all of us live near nor receive the support of veteran teams... I would think that a team that succeeds without that experience and help is all that much more exceptional of a team...

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

I should state... we did receive LOTS of support and offers of support from numerous teams in the form of questions answered.... but with just six weeks to build for a rookie team its hard to travel 90 to 120 minutes away to go see another team....

Heck we didn't have our robot ready to actually practice until the day before the ship date.... I know I'm biased... but what this team accomplished with absolutely no prior experience of anyone on our team with US First, the fact we literally started the team the day of kick-off, and the fact we fielded a robot that was described by numerous teams and volunteers as a "non-rookie quality robot", that hung numerous tubes at all levels, attempted ubertube autonomous mode every round, and twice got our mini-bot at least on the pole... Lets not even talk about the jaguar that burst into flames and started a pretty major fire in our robots electronics bay 2 weeks before ship date... Not to mention in that time frame me and my fellow students came up with a video, a web site, marketing materials, an animation, and found 11 sponsors to get us to that Regional... All I'm saying is our accomplishments speak for themselves... if anyone considers these things not "All Star" qualities, because we didn't exist earlier and go volunteer at another event, or submit a chairman's award submission... well respectfully we can agree to disagree.. :)

Re: What makes an all-star rookie team?
 

It seems that your team did a lot and should be very very proud of that fact. Maybe you didn't do a great job explaining to the judges all the things you have done and what you accomplished in such a short time. The judges don't know what you did and why you are deserving of such awards if you do not tell them.

At the end of the day though, you can't rely on awards to justify your hard work and feel good about what you accomplished. As long as your team gave your best effort, it shouldn't matter if you win any awards. They're nice, but if your relying on awards on validate your success, your FIRST experience won't be as great as it could be.