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Unread 21-04-2003, 11:54
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Animation Woes

I think it is unfortunate that this year's "animation" award was a joke. No disrespect to team 967, but I wouldn't necessarily classify your video as an animation. I know that lots has been said about this subject, but I thought it was time for an adult's point of view.

This year's animation award started off with some new screwy developments. Being the Technical Excellence Honorable Mention award winner last year, we had high hopes. When we got the rules in our hands and saw that Autodesk had taken almost a month away to develop our animation. Little did we know, that wasn't the only thing they were going to mess with.

I think it is strange that they are giving less awards at Nationals now. I know that the regional awards adds more recognition to the teams, but is it really a better route? I guess, it could have been if Autodesk had supported it more. Our animation leader went to vote at our first regional (St. Louis) and he said that there was a little room with a tiny TV with the animations on auto-repeat. No one from Autodesk was present. Also, a team didn't even have to be at the regional to win the award. Team 74 (which I have never seen this animation) won several and Gunn Robotics also won a few. I don't really think that is fair. If you have to submit your chairman's award entry to ONLY 1 regional...the same should be for the animation. To top all this off, FIRST didn't even show the winning animations at most regionals.

I heard that someone confronted the man in charge of the animation judging and awards about a week before the first regional. They filled him in on the problems and loopholes in this year's animation rules, but he said that it was too late to change. Hopefully next year, the award will be more recognized and supervised. I'm pretty sure that no one from Autodesk reads these posts, so we need to make the extra effort to save this award. When FIRST has its annual forum, make sure that your team's representative has a list of complaints, comments, etc. to let Autodesk know what you think about their changes this year.

There is great power in numbers.