Quote:
Originally Posted by bEdhEd
We view EI as a Chairman's runner up. I'm not implying that the award itself is of "close" value, just that getting IE is a step closer to getting Chairman's. If you read my post carefully, I only claim that my team has gotten close, not that IE itself is close. A lot of the things we present for Chairman's is considered for IE. I did not claim that international outreach was required criteria. It surely is not, but from what I have seen, it's a trend and it is increasingly difficult to contend with teams who do international outreach.
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We've always viewed EI much the same, and been told that by folks doing the judging.
With regards to the original quesion: the difference between 2005 and now.
In 2005 if you had a dedicated team of students who worked their butts off for several years running and did every event that came their way locally etc, started some teams etc, then you had a good chance of snaring a chairman's award.
Now? Look at the resumes of some of the recent winners. Starting 2 or 3 FRC teams and a couple of FTC and Lego teams each year along with local outreach and even reach across state lines simply doesn't do it anymore.
I believe 27's Washington initiative put them over the top. They had the resume for a long time, but there's a number of teams who have a similar resume of doing dozens of *big* off season events, and pulling in huge numbers of people. Starting teams. etc. The stat that always struck me with Simbotics was the '45' Vex teams started in one year.
These really aren't things that students alone are going to be able to pull off. They need mentors fully dedicated to winning a chairman's as well. Beyond that, you need the connections to organizations that can help you make that change - and then you need the money to fund the travel (or get some very kind sponsors who do it).
So that's what changed. To win Chairman's now you need an incredible resume and then you also need a huge initiative of some sort - be in national or international. Many of those ideas are going to need financing to pull off. You need mentors and students dedicated to winning it - mentors that quite literally will work year round to do it. Every one of these things is something teams can develop with extremely hard sustained effort.
The level of the chairman's 'bar' has raised geometrically between 2005 and now. Look at the last 3 year's winners, find out everything you can about what they did, replicate it, then substantially improve on it. You'll realize that it's not something that happens in 1 year, or even 3 years.