[David Brinza]

I agree that "gaming the system" is not the best way to go, but in this case, it's an indicator how broken the implementation really is.

Team 980 didn't have time to do the team collaborative approach to writing and approving the essays. But even if we did have the time, we don't think that is necessarily the best approach for determining and submitting nominees for this award.

Here is the Team 980 rationale for believing the Dean's List award is the purview of mentors not the students:

A "consensus" submission might turn the Dean's List award into a popularity contest within the team - not a good thing. Even worse, debates might arise among team members (remember, we're dealing with emotional teenagers who are as sleep-deprived and burned-out as the mentors) that actually harm the team. The Dean's List Award should be the mentors' opportunity to identify students that delivered above and beyond expectations. These students might be very shy, very driven, and/or even very "weird" in the eyes of their peers. An adult mentor can easily push aside the "petty stuff" and get to the heart of the matter for the Dean's List award: contribution, commitment, capability, and creativity.

A socially-adept student might contribute to team spirit and perhaps boost the number of students on the team. But I much rather have a student that takes on the design challenges and is committed to work creatively to meet those challenges. If this dedicated student isn't a Facebook friend with other team members, that student shouldn't be penalized in consideration of this award.

This year, no LEGAL mechanism existed in FIRST for mentors to make awards submissions. FIRST must address that next year. FIRST also should give due consideration to teams that did all they could to submit their Dean's List nominees on time - even if it was done by e-mail or FAX to HQ, or created a temporary "fake" account to submit the award.