Quote:
Originally Posted by pfreivald
I am of the opinion that if you are not striving for that most important of Blue Banners -- the Chairman's Award -- then you are not being all that you can be as a FIRST team, and that your students and mentors aren't getting everything out of the experience that they could be.
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I'll preface this with 2 statements:
1. By "you" I mean "putting you in our shoes for a second".
2. We don't have a single banner. Yet the lack of banners is hardly an indicator of impact.
So you strive for the CA blue banner 1 year. Then you do it again for another 3-4 years, only to never be told why you're not good enough for the #1 spot in CA. The judges comments are all positive or vague. Your outreach is so insane the school board took it over because they didn't want you dealing with so much responsibility. The sheer numbers of people who've gone through programs your team started is somewhat unbelievable. Your programs have been recognized nationally with multiple awards, your DOE-approved STEM curricula have been implemented in multiple other states, 1/4 of your alumni still mentor or volunteer in FIRST, 50% of your students learn so much they get paid internships over college students, you've started the FRC/FTC/FLL teams that FIRST encourages for growth, and you/your team have been interviewed for 4 books, 2 TV shows, and featured in a couple of (mostly local) print articles. Out of breath yet?
In the end, you forget about the blue banner. The blue banner is an obsession that makes you feel like some puppet master is dangling a carrot just to play mind games with anyone who's interested. What really matters is impact, and that impact worth far more than the fabric or even the symbolism that a CA banner is made of. This becomes even more evident when you realize that an increasing amount of teams & regional events means that there is less chance you'll be noticed amongst the many interviewing for the award.
Which is why this year, we're striving for a robot banner. Woohoo!