[Jacob Bendicksen]

Originally Posted by Hot_Copper_Frog

• Regional and District Championship winners have their essay/executive summary and chairman’s video posted online. It was strongly encouraged that winning teams submit a practice presentation video as well, though not every team took part in that.
• The team is allowed an extra two minutes to present, if they so choose (5-7 minutes), though the 10 minuted total limit stayed the same.
• A mentor was allowed to sit in on the presentation session without counting against the 3-presenter limit. The mentor was theoretically allowed to film the session, but from what I understand that wasn’t true at all events.
• No formal feedback from the judges at any event.

• Love it. It encourages accountability in the submission, since teams know that the community can and will read their submissions, and it's a great resource for less experienced Chairman's teams. This is pretty clearly a great change.
• The extra two minutes was great for us - we have a lot to say, and it gave us a little more time to say it. Nice to have more space to convey your message. Less Q&A could sometimes hurt though.
• I'll combine these last two points. I'm very opposed to these two changes, especially since the first was used to justify the second. Here's my take: our head mentor attended all three presentations that we gave, at the district, district championship, and championship level. He's awesome - the team wouldn't exist without him, and he's been a valuable source of feedback for the presentation team all year. That being said, my presentation partners and I know the presentation like the backs of our hands, and as a result, by the time we present, the amount of presentation feedback that we need is minimal. The feedback that we need is feedback from the judges, outlining our strengths and weaknesses from their perspectives, and since our mentor, as great as he is, is not a judge, we cannot get this kind of feedback with the current system. That's all there is to it - mentors provide great presentation feedback, but since they aren't judges, they can't give us judge-specific feedback, which is what we need in order to improve.

I believe that if as many teams as possible contact HQ and tell them about this, we can get feedback forms back for next year. So don't just stand there - email FIRST!

To sum things up:

• Great
• Great
• Needs to change