I hate to point this out, (especially here) but I really don't think the team with the most features, or the best forums, or the coolest flash animations should always win this award. I think this award was designed for more than just that, and I think the one's that win this award should be the teams that use thier site, have a simple layout and design, and information about thier team and FIRST easily accessible(like on the main page).
I think this is somewhat like the animation award -- it should be an advertisement for FIRST and for thier team. Many of the sites have no information about FIRST or their team and yes, sure they're cool looking, but someone trying to find information will just leave because it's to hard to navigate
If you look around at the sites, there are quite a few that are just a forum and login screen (well, plus a little bit more
). Of what use is that to another team, a possible sponsor, or anyone else seeking information -- very little. On the other hand, there are those other sites out there that have an information page, but the team never ues thier site site, that's just as bad. I think the sites should be somewhere in between, not just both halves of the site slapped together either, a site has to contain both, and integrate the two.
The other big thing is effort, I don't think a site that was rather obviously slapped together with forntpage and a forum system should really get is award. Some sites it's very obvious that team members have put many long nights of proggramming into their site, and why should they be beat by a team that spent 20 minutes on it as a afterthought. (unless that twenty minutes made a
very good site)
I believe the ones that should win this award are the teams that have put effort in to thier site, advertise for FIRST and thier team, have a rather simple layout for those seeking knowledge, and are actually used by the teams.
PS: The whole student design thing should be an issue, but that shouldn't detract from a perfectly good site, just so long as students did spend a good deal of time working on it.
Anyway, i'm done spouting.
(and please note, our team website isn't really a good example of what i think will win this award, but i'm working on that
)