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Although I respect and admire teams that strive to win the chairman's award, I have never been a strong proponent of it, and here's why:
The mere existance of a team is great, and the existance of that team works towards the purpose of FIRST, which is to inspire kids about science and technology. Even if the team has zero community outreach, no interest in helping start other teams, and huge budget, that is a great thing! All the students on the team are having the opportunity to take part in an amazing project. Certainly it is not an ideal team, for an ideal team would have a greater influence on the community other the students on the team. I give any team that exists at all two thumbs up at accomplishing what FIRST is all about.
For this reason, it baffles me why anybody would even consider making chairman's award mandatory. When I read the idea just now, I was shocked. There are so many great teams out there who have no shot at winning the award, but do an incredible job inspiring the students who are on the team. It is not right to ask the team to do more than they already are. Well, I take that back. It is OK to ask, but it not ok to require.
Two hypothetical scenarios to consider:
1) A team exists that always builds an amazing robot, does a great job inspiring its students, and does an outstanding job in the community showing what engineering is all about. However, nobody on the team is interested in the chairman's award, because the students and mentors do not care about winning an award, but rather making a difference in their community. This is the ideal team, 100% altruistic to the purpose of FIRST.
2) On the other end of the spectrum, we have a team that struggles to even exist. Every year they spend up until the very last days of registration struggling to find enough sponsors to know they can exist for another year. The team has no engineers, and only a single teacher who knows nothing about robotics to make everything come together. But the students have a great experience. Even though they have no shot at winning, they learn a ton just through investigation and experimentation during the 6 week building period. After the season, they again return to getting enough money for the next year.
In both cases, the existance of the team is great. And in neither case, do I see requiring the team to submit a chairman's award beneficial. In fact, in the second case, requiring a chairman's award might make the team feel that perhaps they are not welcome in the FIRST community, because they are not able to influence anyone outside of their own team about science and technology.
Certainly, for those who care about winning the award, the existance of the award is great motivation for doing good in the community. However, for the rest of the teams, submitting the award is a waste of time.
- Patrick
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Systems Engineer - Kiva Systems, Woburn MA
Alumni, Former Mechanical Team Leader - Cornell University Robocup - 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 World Champions
Founder - Team 639 - Ithaca High School / Cornell University
Alumni - Team 190 - Mass Academy / WPI
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