[BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

My God there are so many sentences with "special" sounding words! :yikes:

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

I got about 30% through the survey and quit. There's way too many questions.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

There's a question on every award but the Safety Award, and then one summary page at the end. I think they're trying to simulate the length of the awards ceremony.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

<sigh>

It took me 14 minutes to: start answering the questions, and then decide to scroll through the entire survey before deciding it wasn't worth the effort vs the amount of time it would take vs information collected.

I think I know what they are trying to do here, but this is a lazy survey.
The answer choices are all the same, regardless of whether it is an individual award or a team award. There is no acknowledgment that "winning" is a group effort. The questions about Finalist are the same as Champion (do teams really "try" to win Finalist trophy?) Why are some awards defined but most not? No questions about how some awards earn a slot at the CMP.

I have been a judge. I have been on a team as a mentor. I understand FIRST wants to take a look at revamping the awards. I just don't know what they are going to glean from this poorly worded, way too long survey that will really help them. There are other ways to do this that could provide valuable feedback. FIRST uses test teams and selected input for some areas of the program. IMHO they should be doing the same for this topic.

I will be interested to see the response rate. I have feedback. I just can't give it in this format.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

The survey goes a bit quicker when you get halfway into it and then realize that answering everything is not required. Still rather repetitious. I think asking the person taking the survey what their "Top 3" and "Bottom 3" with regards to each question would be a better way of finding out what's important.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

The survey was way to long. I did it, motivated only by the fact that as I was doing it, I came up with a better way to ask the same question.

I encourage all FIRST girls to apply for the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing. I found out about it through Bill's Blog last year, applied, and was the only sophomore to win the National Award. Of the thirty five national winners, over twenty of us were affiliated with FIRST, including a National Deans List Finalist. It was truly a great experience. In fact, Im typing this on the computer they gave me. It can really open young women to more opportunities, global organizations, more women like them, and free stuff!

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

My favorite was, "Has your team ever won an official FRC event?"

Answer: yes

"Do you feel winning this award was worth the effort?"
"How much effort did you put in to winning this award?"
"Does your team hope to win this award?"
"Does your team make a special attempt to win this award?"

Answer: Not at all. :p

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

I just finished the survey and it is no less than brutal. Mindlessly going through it took me about 30 minutes. I am sorry, but it really was a horrible survey. I don't think FIRST will get the volume they were hoping for, nor the insight they were looking for.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Here's a better format: Pick the 3 awards you think promote and agree with the vision of FIRST the most, and give us one detail from a dropdown of why you think they do that. Also pick the 3 you think don't accomplish this, with similar details.

Sometimes less is more.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

That was painful.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Agreed. The format is just brutal.

I gave up 5 minutes after I realized I was only 11% done

-RC

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

If they are looking at new technology stuff for potential use in 2015, good luck with that. A lot of development can happen between 2011 and 2015. It will be old technology by 2015. How long do you guys keep your Smart Phones before you're ready for the newest edition? 4 years?

Survey - I filled it out. Glad I had a couple of cups of coffee to keep me company. If we ask our team members (students and parents) to fill this survey out, they won't know a lot of the awards we've won or when. They also won't know what the awards are and what their purpose is. I would imagine that in September of the new year with the new season a few months away, that the members of many of the teams will not know all of the information needed to fill out the survey. But - it seems opinion-based anyway and everyone has one of those.

Jane

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Two years for me...but I assume that Apple has a long, long time invested in making sure my iPhone runs like a champ. I'd much rather FIRST ship us a control system that is less-than-cutting-edge but with superior performance in certain key areas (cost, field sync speed, robust construction and operation, and packaging with regard to the robot, not necessarily in that order).

And yes, long survey is long. I think they'll get more value from my comments than from the checkboxes.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

I had to see what everyone was talking about...and yes, the survey UI is dreadful.

They should probably have just put it all on a minimal number of pages, and employed a Likert scale.