[Jeff Waegelin]

I think if FIRST and Autodesk are serious about promoting the Inventor award, they need to institute a regional-level award. I know that many teams (mine included) simply disregarded the Inventor award because it's a lot of work, with a very slim chance of winning any recognition. If there were to be a regional Inventor award, however, we would focus our design process on Inventor from the beginning, so that we could have a quality entry to submit at regionals. I would be willing to bet that the number of Chairman's Award and animation submissions have increased (relative to the number of teams competing overall) since those awards were brought to the regional level, and I believe Inventor could benefit from the same change.

On another note, I like the idea of having a "Design Award", where teams could sumbit CAD drawings and models in the program of their choosing. This may be hampered, however, because of Autodesk's major software donations. On the other hand, the SolidWorks corporation has been a FIRST sponsor for two years... maybe their involvement could aid the development of a Design Award.