[dsmoker]

This is a great thread, and something I have thought about for years, ever since we started submitting for Chairman's in 2007. I don't think we'll ever win the award. We are a small team, and just not capable of the kind of level of outreach that I think Chairman's demands. But I'll tell you this - when we started this process back in 2007, we did very little outreach. Now, we do robot demos regularly at schools, museums, corporations and community events. We mentor FRC and FLL teams. We volunteer at FLL events and last year sponsored our own FLL event, which we plan to do again this year. We just learned that we are getting a grant to start new FLL and JrFLL teams in our area next year as well. We volunteered with our sponsor Comcast to help rehabilitate homes in need of cleanup and repair, and are planning more such community projects. We have stronger relationships with our sponsors, doing demos at their offices and inviting their representatives to attend competitions (which they do). We attend off-season competitions, which we didn't do before 2007, and operate year-round instead of just from January to March.

Did we do any of this to WIN the Chairman's Award? No. We did it to make our team a stronger, better team, one that does more than just build a robot together. Has it made us a stronger, better team? Clearly.

Will we ever win the Chairman's Award? I don't know, and I don't care. What we will do is continue to work together and grow as a team, giving our students a variety of experiences they wouldn't have had otherwise. That's what I care about. If in the process we happen to win the Chairman's Award, or any of the other awards that I think just submitting for Chairman's puts you on the radar for (like EI, which we won in 2010), then great. That's just icing on the cake.