[Dan Zollman]

(I sent this to Jane in a PM earlier.)

Hi Jane,

Thanks for doing this to try to get the regional animation awards back.

I want to add that the elimination of regional awards will discourage teams (especially those with less experience in animation) from creating an entry when they know that there will only be one winner out of all the FIRST teams. Regional awards also provide feedback and identification of teams who are the best in the animation area. Identification of more of these teams is helpful to newer teams seeking animation advice and provides more models. Identification at the regional level means that teams in every region are able to meet successful animators from local teams.

Second, I think that a petition signed by FIRST students and mentors would appear kind of "out of the blue" to Autodesk, especially if the community has yet to bring our concerns to their attention for the first time. Perhaps it would be more effective to frame this as a letter or sign-on letter. It also might help to contact FIRST Headquarters about this (if nobody has done this yet). There could be reasons for this big change that we haven't considered, or reasons to change what we're asking.

Thanks,
Dan