[RyanMcE]

Like others, I see both sides of this one.

In 2001, my team's rookie year, we were thrilled to win the Rookie All-Star award at the Silicon Valley Regional. Then we found out the next day that another team had also won a rookie all-star award at the same regional. And yes, that did cheapen the experience, a little bit. But looking back at it I think overall, it was better for both of our teams to win the award, even it it was the same award twice.

However, there is definitely a balance, and I do feel that FIRST kind of teeters on the edge of too many. Looking at a regional list of awards at a smaller regional, anyone who doesn't understand how much work goes into the competition would probably think, "wow, its really easy to win an award." And of course if every team were to win something, winning something wouldn't mean anything. On the other hand, if only a handful of teams win anything, team attrition will likely go up. Winning awards - or even coming close, or knowing another team that does - definitely helps keep kids involved, which is what its all about. And certainly most teams deserve the awards they get for all the work they put in.

I'm thankful for this thread, and for the responses so far - I started out saying "yeah, for sure there sure are too many awards" - but now I'm not so sure. Maybe the best thing to do would be to change the number of awards based on the size of the regional - that way, it is equally "hard" to win an award at any given regional, and an optimal balance between meaningfulness of awards and number of awards can be more easily reached.