[EricH]

Originally Posted by Karthik

I hear what you're saying Eric, and it does make sense. But the culture change awards still exist. Yes, they aren't worth as much when it comes to the point system, but they are still recognized and valued by the community. (As this thread clearly shows) My point is that the lack of points directed towards those awards, is not going to make people stop valuing those awards. As it stands in the non MI-FRC world, RAS, CA, EI are all rewarded with a Championship spot. Has this diminished the value of the Quality or Entrepreneurship Award? Have we seen Team Spirit disappear because there was no added bonus to the award?

Correct. They exist--but does the Regional CA (as opposed to the district CA) send a team to the Championship without the robot? Yes, if the team chooses not to send the robot. That doesn't happen. Does the District CA do that? Not necessarily.

Back in about 2003-2004, FRC had a points system to go to the Championship. Each award had a given point value. If you had more than x points, you could go. I might suggest that FiM look at those for an example. I don't remember complaints about the system, but I wasn't paying much attention at the time.

Karthik, the competitors value the awards. Does FiM? I assume so, because all the awards have a point value. Does FiM's valuation match the FRC valuation, or the competitors' valuation? It appears that the latter is not true. I don't know about the former. I would hope that I'm wrong, but as I said before, actions speak louder than words.