Wow this is a really interesting thread, and the first time I have had a chance to read it. I like the points from both sides, but I was surprised to not really see this take on it yet:
Lets look at FIRST as a corporation (it really is now). What is the goal of a corporation? To get more customers. How do you do that? Produce a product that everyone wants. Now many may argue that the product is the FIRST teams themselves, and I personally agree. However, look at it from the perspective of these companies that are shelling out thousands upon thousands of dollars to support these teams. There may be individuals in the upper ranks of the corporation that "get" why the company is spending this money. But it is still a corporate world. Corporations still want tangible results. If they poured the money into a product, they often get cash back in the end. We (FIRST Teams) give them nothing but a warm and fuzzy [I will caviot this by saying that there are longer term or outside benefits such as students returning as engineers, or company marketing, but just on a year to year immediate basis its mostly the warm fuzzy]. So what is the absolute easiest way for a team to show its sponsor what it got out of the competition? An award. Teams can bring their trophies back to their sponsor who can then display them in recognition of the teams hard work. Without the trophies and banners, FIRST teams can easily be forgotten about or pushed aside.
Looking at another version of the business side of things, if you look at the big companies, a lot of them participate in programs to better the company (like the
Gallup Survey). One of the big things the survey focuses on is how the employees feel about the company, and one of their big things is "Recognition." They even have a question that asks "Were you recognized for doing a good job in the last seven days?" Many companies have small individual awards that supervisors can give at any time for good performance, hard work, or something like that. These awards often come with certificates and either gift certificates or money. Recognition means a lot to a lot of people. Now, not everyone needs physical or even verbal recognition. There are people who just knowing they did something good works for them. But for the rest of us, a little pat on the back, or something that we can hang on our fridge means a lot.
I have a few certificates that I have been given hanging in my office. Does the fact that the guy in the cube across from me has the same award hanging in his cube devalue mine? Heck no! I know the effort that I put in to get mine. There is a story with EVERY award, I know my story, I'm happy my hard work was recognized.
Moving on to some of the smaller notes on individual awards... I could go on and on about why each award is important, but I will just mention two of the ones already mentioned here. The spirit award is not simply for the team that screams the loudest. We learned this when we took the award in Toronto. Yes we cheered, yes we had camo pants, yes we had a great time... but the first thing the judges mentioned was "in the spirit of help the Rochester teams, this team hosted a pre-ship rally." That had nothing to do with how much we cheered. And the Entrepreneurship Award. I think this is a great new award. Most teams try to have a leadership team, or a student handbook, or marketing or such. All fall in the category of business. We lost several students this year because we touted the fact we were going to have a business sub team, and the business got lost in the hustle to do the engineering. The business aspect can be a HUGE part of a FIRST team. This is the side of engineering that doesn't have to do with the robot, but is real to the engineering world. So I am glad they finally brought this to importance in FIRST.
Now, onto the medals... If you don't care about yours, donate it to a team that had more than 25 people and actually wanted it. I have every one of mine since they started giving them out (yikes I think that goes back to 97!). I love every one of them. I will be honest, I don't look at mine as Olympic medals, they don't mean the same to me as the gold one we got for winning Toronto. But to me they are fun mementos of every year I participated. Pins are small and get lost, medals can hang on a wall and look pretty. Maybe medals are FIRST's equivalent of Varsity letters
A story to go with the medals. My rookie team's very first competition, the Finger Lakes Regional... My kids walked into this event having NO clue what the magnitude of it was. We scrambled, we fumbled, but our robot did alright. And then we won the rookie all star award!! The team went nuts. The kids wrote an email to everyone that Sunday, they wanted all of us to go to work and school wearing our uniforms (ugh I had already worn mine for three days and spent Sunday sleeping not washing it!) and they all wore their medals to school, and took turns carrying the RAS trophy through their classes. They were thrilled they were excited, and they were proud of both the medals and the trophy.
After our sixth trophy, the kids are desperately trying to get themselves recognized like the sports teams. Each sports team has their own wall or their own trophy case... but ours sit in a box upstairs. We are hoping that the school is proud enough of our team to recognize them like it has their athletes.
These awards mean a lot to a lot of people. Whether they mean something to you is up to you. But it means a lot to the corporations, and it means a lot to the students, and it gives many of us something tangible to set our sights on. I think its great that so many teams can be recognized for so many different things.
I say the awards are great. And I love that the Boilermaker brought back the fun awards and even got the teams involved!! We should all follow that lead.
Just my very long winded thoughts