The Evolution of Chairman's Teams

[MysterE]

Hi all,

I know we are all neck-deep in build right now but I had a question that I am hoping might clarify to the community what is generally necessary to win a RCA.

How has the image of what a Chairman's team changed over the last five to ten years? What was expected of a team in 2005 or earlier compared to 2010 and so on?


Best -
Daniel

[ayo_christina]

I tell any team that wants to win this award to have a genuine cause that they are devoted to. Teams should work as a whole and share a common passion while promoting their ideals throughout their community and FIRST. The days of throwing a food drive and a fundraiser are gone and this isn't the purpose of this award. Teams should be motivated and get emotional about it!

I really believe teams have to go big here, often moving the focus from the robot to their mission. Build season is only a short period of the year and the most inspiring RCA winners devote their entire year to other causes.

Essays from 2015 winners are a huge resource and share common threads.


http://www.firstinspires.org/node/4881

[bEdhEd]

Nowadays, at least in California, it takes international outreach to have a chance at the Chairman's Award. My team has been to China to start robotics programs for middle schoolers. Some other areas of the world I know teams in California have gone to is South and Central America (e.g. Brazil, Mexico) for outreach efforts. 604 has 8 Regional Chairman's Awards and they have the most in California. Looking at their program would give anyone a good idea of what a Chairman's quality team is. My team has gotten so close to Chairman's, winning Engineering Inspiration at Sacramento in 2013 and 2015. Maybe this year will be our year.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by bEdhEd

Nowadays, at least in California, it takes international outreach to have a chance at the Chairman's Award. My team has been to China to start robotics programs for middle schoolers. Some other areas of the world I know teams in California have gone to is South and Central America (e.g. Brazil, Mexico) for outreach efforts. 604 has 8 Regional Chairman's Awards and they have the most in California. Looking at their program would give anyone a good idea of what a Chairman's quality team is. My team has gotten so close to Chairman's, winning Engineering Inspiration at Sacramento in 2013 and 2015. Maybe this year will be our year.

I want to point out that EI is not officially "close" to Chairman's.

Nor, do I know of any criteria that requires "international outreach" to win.

[bEdhEd]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I want to point out that EI is not officially "close" to Chairman's.

Nor, do I know of any criteria that requires "international outreach" to win.

We view EI as a Chairman's runner up. I'm not implying that the award itself is of "close" value, just that getting IE is a step closer to getting Chairman's. If you read my post carefully, I only claim that my team has gotten close, not that IE itself is close. A lot of the things we present for Chairman's is considered for IE. I did not claim that international outreach was required criteria. It surely is not, but from what I have seen, it's a trend and it is increasingly difficult to contend with teams who do international outreach.

My apologies for not being clear on that.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by bEdhEd

We view EI as a Chairman's runner up. I'm not implying that the award itself is of "close" value, just that getting IE is a step closer to getting Chairman's. If you read my post carefully, I only claim that my team has gotten close, not that IE itself is close. A lot of the things we present for Chairman's is considered for IE. I did not claim that international outreach was required criteria. It surely is not, but from what I have seen, it's a trend and it is increasingly difficult to contend with teams who do international outreach.

We've always viewed EI much the same, and been told that by folks doing the judging.

With regards to the original quesion: the difference between 2005 and now.

In 2005 if you had a dedicated team of students who worked their butts off for several years running and did every event that came their way locally etc, started some teams etc, then you had a good chance of snaring a chairman's award.

Now? Look at the resumes of some of the recent winners. Starting 2 or 3 FRC teams and a couple of FTC and Lego teams each year along with local outreach and even reach across state lines simply doesn't do it anymore.

I believe 27's Washington initiative put them over the top. They had the resume for a long time, but there's a number of teams who have a similar resume of doing dozens of *big* off season events, and pulling in huge numbers of people. Starting teams. etc. The stat that always struck me with Simbotics was the '45' Vex teams started in one year.

These really aren't things that students alone are going to be able to pull off. They need mentors fully dedicated to winning a chairman's as well. Beyond that, you need the connections to organizations that can help you make that change - and then you need the money to fund the travel (or get some very kind sponsors who do it).

So that's what changed. To win Chairman's now you need an incredible resume and then you also need a huge initiative of some sort - be in national or international. Many of those ideas are going to need financing to pull off. You need mentors and students dedicated to winning it - mentors that quite literally will work year round to do it. Every one of these things is something teams can develop with extremely hard sustained effort.

The level of the chairman's 'bar' has raised geometrically between 2005 and now. Look at the last 3 year's winners, find out everything you can about what they did, replicate it, then substantially improve on it. You'll realize that it's not something that happens in 1 year, or even 3 years.

[Alex2614]

Originally Posted by bEdhEd

We view EI as a Chairman's runner up. I'm not implying that the award itself is of "close" value, just that getting IE is a step closer to getting Chairman's. If you read my post carefully, I only claim that my team has gotten close, not that IE itself is close. A lot of the things we present for Chairman's is considered for IE. I did not claim that international outreach was required criteria. It surely is not, but from what I have seen, it's a trend and it is increasingly difficult to contend with teams who do international outreach.

My apologies for not being clear on that.

I want to point out that NOTHING you say in the chairman's room, nor any of your chairman's submission items or chairman's binder is seen by ANY of the other judges, including judges deciding Engineering Inspiration. The only way any of your chairman's information is seen by any judge outside of the chairman's room is if you give it to them in the pit area. The chairman's judges aren't even allowed to discuss with other judges what they saw in the chairman's room, so they have absolutely no say in who gets EI.

Also, not only are the awards judged by two completely separate groups of judges, the awards are actually quite different, if you look at the official FIRST descriptions of the awards.

Engineering Inspiration:

Celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s
school or organization and community.
■ Extent and inventiveness of the team’s efforts to recruit students to engineering with particular
emphasis on the most recent year’s efforts. Measurable success of those efforts.
■ Extent and effectiveness of the team’s community outreach efforts with particular emphasis on
the most recent year’s efforts. Measurable success of those efforts.
■ A commitment to science and technology education among the team, school, and community.
■ Achievement of the FIRST mission and ability to communicate that at the competition and away
from it.
■ Efforts are ongoing, not strictly concentrated on the build and competition season.

Chairman's:

The Chairman’s Award is the most prestigious award at FIRST, it honors the team that best represents a
model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST.
It was created to keep the central focus of FIRST Robotics Competition on the ultimate goal of transforming
the culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honor for science and technology, as well as
encouraging more of today’s youth to become scientists, engineers, and technologists.
The concept of the Chairman’s Award includes Regional and District Championship Chairman’s Awards,
which enable FIRST to recognize more teams for their exemplary efforts in spreading the FIRST message,
as well as their talents in organizing materials for their presentations.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Alex2614

IThe chairman's judges aren't even allowed to discuss with other judges what they saw in the chairman's room, so they have absolutely no say in who gets EI.

Do you have an official source on this? I've never seen it in any documentation. I have no idea it's true or not, but if it is, it would seem strange to me that the judges wouldn't be allowed to share the information they learned during the presentation.

[MysterE]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Do you have an official source on this? I've never seen it in any documentation. I have no idea it's true or not, but if it is, it would seem strange to me that the judges wouldn't be allowed to share the information they learned during the presentation.

I believe this may also be a regional to regional thing. I know at the Bayou Regional this is true - coming from the Head Judge himself. The RCA judges do not go through the pits at all and make all decisions based on what they learn in the Interview Room and in the Essay and Executive Summary.

But I've also been to regionals where our presenters have seen RCA judges walking around the pits.

[dsmoker]

As a mentor who has been supervising our Chairman's team since 2007, I want to weigh in here. I think, just as there are many approaches to succeeded on the field, there are many approaches to succeeding in the Chairman's arena. I don't think that you need the resources to do international outreach. As other posters have stated, I think it's important to pick you areas of focus and concentrate on them. What kinds of outreach do you want to do? What is important to you as a team?

We have a comparatively small, inner-city team. We're not, and probably won't ever, have the resources to go to China or any other country to do outreach there. But there's a huge need right in our own backyard, and that's what we've chosen to address. When we started this journey with our first submission in 2007, I told our students we're doing this NOT to win the award, but to grow as a team, year-round. We started with simple things - shake-the-cans at local grocery stores to raise money and spread the FIRST message, demonstrations at local schools, libraries, museums, etc.

Flash forward to 2016 and we're hosting an FLL tournament for the third straight year, mentoring an FLL team, helping a team in the Netherlands by shipping stuff to them, translating documents for a 3-D printing project (we have many students who speak multiple languages) and making blankets for kids in the custody of the Department of Children and Family Services. Things I never thought we'd be doing nine years ago. Plus, we continue our grass roots efforts, demonstrating the robot at the typical places listed above but also at fairs, parades, festivals and even a camp for children with cancer.

My message - striving for the Chairman's Award is not one-year thing. It's a long-term process, with rewards that go well beyond the blue banner. And you don't need to be big, flashy or international to win, as demonstrated by our team, which has won district Chairman's Awards in 2014 and 2015 and a district championship Chairman's Award in 2015.

[Alex2614]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Do you have an official source on this? I've never seen it in any documentation. I have no idea it's true or not, but if it is, it would seem strange to me that the judges wouldn't be allowed to share the information they learned during the presentation.

Yes and no. I've talked to several judges and also an ex head judge. You will not find official documentation on this, because the FRC judge training information is only available to judges. But judges will tell you that the Chairman's judges are not supposed to talk to other judges. Chairman's judges are not supposed to share information. Even if they were, they rarely have enough time at an event anyway, especially given the number of teams submitting at a given event increasing with the rule change last year allowing presenting at multiple events. In fact, the only information RCA judges are allowed to share with other judges is "hey, this team is the team we selected for RCA," and the other judges may use that information to decide on other awards (i.e. if a team wins RCA, but the EI judges selected them for EI, the EI judges will select another team instead). But that's the extent of the information that is shared.

Originally Posted by MysterE

I believe this may also be a regional to regional thing. I know at the Bayou Regional this is true - coming from the Head Judge himself. The RCA judges do not go through the pits at all and make all decisions based on what they learn in the Interview Room and in the Essay and Executive Summary.

But I've also been to regionals where our presenters have seen RCA judges walking around the pits.

Yes, RCA judges CAN walk around the pits and talk to teams. However, they are not supposed to get information from other judges. They are only allowed to gather information that they collect themselves. So you will sometimes see RCA judges walking around the pits if they have their selection narrowed down to a couple teams, to get some more information. However, they cannot solicit information from other judges, and likewise Chairmans judges cannot give information to other judges. In other words, everything that goes into the selection of RCA comes only from the information the RCA judges themselves collect from the team in the submission, presentation, pit interviews, and their own research (i.e. looking at your website, etc).

My point was that NOTHING you say in the Chairman's room is given to other judges at the event, including those judging for EI, and vice versa. They don't even have access to your chairmans submission (essay and questions) unless you give it to them in a handout (which we sometimes do).

This further proves that the two awards are in fact separate from each other. In fact, before the rule change allowing submitting for RCA at multiple events, we usually won EI at events where we did NOT submit for Chairman's.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Alex2614

This further proves that the two awards are in fact separate from each other. In fact, before the rule change allowing submitting for RCA at multiple events, we usually won EI at events where we did NOT submit for Chairman's.

I'm pretty sure Talon 540 won the EI in Virginia by specifically NOT submitting for the RCA in 2013 and 2014.


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If shaking the stigma of EI being referred to a second place chairman's is important to people, has anyone proposed giving EI winners a hot pink or neon green medal instead of silver compared to Chairman's gold?

[Alex2614]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I'm pretty sure Talon 540 won the EI in Virginia by specifically NOT submitting for the RCA in 2013 and 2014.


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If shaking the stigma of EI being referred to a second place chairman's is important to people, has anyone proposed giving EI winners a hot pink or neon green medal instead of silver compared to Chairman's gold?

I thought having two different award names with two different judging criteria and two different sets of judges was enough to not make that assumption.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I want to point out that EI is not officially "close" to Chairman's.

Nor, do I know of any criteria that requires "international outreach" to win.

On one, having overheard discussion of RCA vs EI among judges, they are considered "close."

International outreach may not be an official criteria, but universally in California seems to be becoming a de facto standard.

[bEdhEd]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

On one, having overheard discussion of RCA vs EI among judges, they are considered "close."

International outreach may not be an official criteria, but universally in California seems to be becoming a de facto standard.

Mr. McCann, yes! Thank goodness someone else confirms the trend in California with international outreach.