Quote:
Originally Posted by Broboraider
in simple terms:
If team A goes to Regional X and gives their presentation and win EI at Regional X and if they went to Regional Y instead and gave the same presentation they gave at Regional X then they might win RCA at Regional Y
|
Except, a team does not give a presentation for EI, only for the RCA/DCA.
The EI is judged by a different set of judges that talk to the teams in the pits. Of course the process of submitting for the RCA/DCA does likely improve the focus of that message, as it means a team is at least practicing how they present delivering their message to the judges. Now I am not saying that the RCA/DCA judges do not provide input or insight for the EI discussion, because of course they do. But the entire group of judges must agree in deciding who gets the (other than RCA/DCA) team awards and the robot awards.
It is NOT a given that a team is considered for EI or RCA/DCA because they have won the other earlier in the season or for EI specifically because they submitted for the RCA/DCA. While the same students that present for RCA/DCA may talk to both groups of judges, the flow of the conversation is very different. Often it is different students that did not present for RCA/DCA in the pits talking to the team judges. Different groups of judges talking to different students from a team that get similar strong engineering inspiration message from that team is what greatly improves the likelihood of getting a team award. The same thing can be said about being impressed by the robot design and engineering for the robot awards.
As has been mentioned before, if a team wins both in a year, that is because they have a strong program. Heck, it doesn't even matter if they have a good robot. FIRST is about more than robots, right? A team that wins either RCA/DCA or EI have inspired students, that do a good job of conveying that inspiration, the why and how they were inspired, and in turn how they inspire those around their team.
It is those students that inspire the judges to give them the awards.