[FRC Blog] The Woodie Flowers Award and Two FRC Championships

[Hallry]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 6/2/16: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...-championships

The Woodie Flowers Award and Two FRC Championships

Today's Guest Blog Post is written by Dr. Earl Scime on behalf of the Woodie Flowers Awardees.


With FRC expanding to two championships in 2017, the issue of awards has been on everyone’s minds – including the Woodie Flowers Awardees. FIRST has announced that there will be a Chairman’s winner at each championship and clearly there will also be a winning alliance from each event. The Woodie Flowers Award (WFA) is a unique award because there is no “competition” for the award by the teams attending championships. The WFA is given to a single mentor chosen from the pool of all of that year’s regional and district WFFA (Woodie Flowers Finalist Award) recipients as well as renominations from previous years. It is only by incredible luck that the WFA recipient has happened to be attending Championships the past few years. We note that even with two Championships, there is no guarantee that an awardee will be in attendance at either event. Therefore, Dr. Murphy (the award’s founder) and the Woodie Flowers Awardees have decided to maintain the uniqueness of the Woodie Flowers Award and continue to select a single worldwide recipient each year. Because the selection process is sequential, in other words, awardees must first be recognized at regional or district championship events, there is very little time before Championships to organize travel for the WFA recipient. In fact, in the entire history of the WFA award, the recipient has never known they were selected until the announcement at Championships. The WFAs will continue to try to maintain the surprise of the announcement while working with FIRST on a strategy to get the recipient to at least one of the championship events for the presentation. We also note that the WFAs themselves are also unlikely to be attending both championships, so the award ceremony will also have to evolve. The WFA and WFFA are deeply cherished by all those honored to have been so recognized and the WFAs look forward to maintaining the singular nature of the Woodie Flowers Award while working with FIRST to make the presentation of the award a memorable experience for the teams and mentors.

[bkahl]

Only one final winner?

Wow, what an idea!

[Justin Montois]

Originally Posted by bkahl

Only one final winner?

Wow, what an idea!

"The WFA and WFFA are deeply cherished by all those honored to have been so recognized and the WFAs look forward to maintaining the singular nature of the Woodie Flowers Award..."

I used to look forward to the singular nature of the Championship too.

[jwfoss]

Originally Posted by Justin Montois

"The WFA and WFFA are deeply cherished by all those honored to have been so recognized and the WFAs look forward to maintaining the singular nature of the Woodie Flowers Award..."

This seems to be in line with how the WFFA has been handled in the districts vs. the Chairman's award. While I agree with a single WFA winner for each year even with 2Champs, I still disagree with having only one WFFA per district while their are four Chairman's Awards (at least here in NE). With more areas moving to districts the number of WFFA winners will continue to decrease.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by jwfoss

This seems to be in line with how the WFFA has been handled in the districts vs. the Chairman's award. While I agree with a single WFA winner for each year even with 2Champs, I still disagree with having only one WFFA per district while their are four Chairman's Awards (at least here in NE). With more areas moving to districts the number of WFFA winners will continue to decrease.

While I agree with not liking only having one WFFA per district, maybe there's a good reason behind it. Perhaps they want to cut down on the number of submissions they have to read for WFA, since it builds on itself every year?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

While I agree with not liking only having one WFFA per district, maybe there's a good reason behind it. Perhaps they want to cut down on the number of submissions they have to read for WFA, since it builds on itself every year?

I don't like it either, but at Champs Woodie told us the insane number of essays they had to read through this year... It's a lot of work for the past WFA winners to get through all of that. Personally, I would prefer to see another tier added for district events instead - recognize one semi-finalist at each district event with a paper certificate, then the semifinalists are the ones that are up at the district championships, with one finalist picked from among them. It's a little more work for the WFA winners to read through those each week, but reduces the load during week 7. It would allow for a little more recognition without dramatically increasing the judging load.

[jwfoss]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I don't like it either, but at Champs Woodie told us the insane number of essays they had to read through this year... It's a lot of work for the past WFA winners to get through all of that. Personally, I would prefer to see another tier added for district events instead - recognize one semi-finalist at each district event with a paper certificate, then the semifinalists are the ones that are up at the district championships, with one finalist picked from among them. It's a little more work for the WFA winners to read through those each week, but reduces the load during week 7. It would allow for a little more recognition without dramatically increasing the judging load.

Call it a DWFFA and it seems like a good plan to me, perhaps have the districts do this first pass judging and the WFA do the upper level judging?

[Michael Corsetto]

Question:

Which is more important?

1. Keeping the WFFA and WFA awards "exclusive" and "singular" in nature

OR

2. Recognizing and celebrating one accomplished mentor at every FRC event

I'll throw my hat in the ring that option #2 is FAR more important.

This decision, and the decision to only give out WFFA's at the DCMP level, gives me the impression that the WFAs are holding on to a failing architecture that cannot adequately recognize deserving mentors. I really dislike split champs, but I dislike split champs without a WFA even more.

The "prestige" of the award does not merit excluding many events from celebrating a deserving mentor.

-Mike

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Question:

Which is more important?

1. Keeping the WFFA and WFA awards "exclusive" and "singular" in nature

OR

2. Recognizing and celebrating one accomplished mentor at every FRC event

I'll throw my hat in the ring that option #2 is FAR more important.

This decision, and the decision to only give out WFFA's at the DCMP level, gives me the impression that the WFAs are holding on to a failing architecture that cannot adequately recognize deserving mentors. I really dislike split champs, but I dislike split champs without a WFA even more.

The "prestige" of the award does not merit excluding many events from celebrating a deserving mentor.

-Mike

While I hate half champs almost as much as you do, and I think I agree with you on this, the arguments you've made for the WFA could be applied to Chairman's, the robotics competition, or half champs as a whole.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Gregor

While I hate half champs almost as much as you do, and I think I agree with you on this, the arguments you've made for the WFA could be applied to Chairman's, the robotics competition, or half champs as a whole.

I think I could see how my point could be applied to half champs, so let me clarify to highlight the difference in thinking.

I believe WFFA and WFA are a essential component of every official FRC event.

I do not believe going the CMP is an essential component of every FRC team's four year cycle. But that has been already, so lets not go there.

Hope that makes sense.

[FrankJ]

Please don't take this as disparaging Woodie Flower award winners. They are all amazing. Nor even the process really. But the whole thing is sort of a meh to me. For every Woodie Flower award winner there are a plethora of mentors deserving of the award. Many on them mentor teams that the members don't know enough about the award to write an effective application. The density of Woodie Flower finalist between regionals and districts is another disparity. The award is not part of district events already. As for as I know it has nothing to do with how well the team performs either. I don't see awarding one or two annually materially effects this other than keeping the award a little more exclusive. The head scratcher is going to when to award it since there is not a final ultimate event

Once again please don't see this as whiny or too critical. It is more of an observation. All the Woodie Flowers winners or finalist that I know are great people and deserving. Woodie is one of my heroes.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

Please don't take this as disparaging Woodie Flower award winners. They are all amazing. Nor even the process really. But the whole thing is sort of a meh to me. For every Woodie Flower award winner there are a plethora of mentors deserving of the award. Many on them mentor teams that the members don't know enough about the award to write an effective application...

This is very true. We all love WFA, but I wonder if what we're discussing here is the ad hoc struggle to scale the old selection system. Having it run by WFAs is great, but it imposes particular limits on the process (and I won't claim to know what they all are). Is the committee and community still convinced that the original approach is strongest, or are we facing practical limitations of the system? For instance, if we wanted to add a DWFFA or send more DChamps WFFAs, is the debate philosophical or also practical in being able to vet enough nominations quickly enough? We tweak little aspects of the Chairman's process every few years. Is it time to open similar discussions with the WFA committee?

[Paul Copioli]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Question:

Which is more important?

1. Keeping the WFFA and WFA awards "exclusive" and "singular" in nature

OR

2. Recognizing and celebrating one accomplished mentor at every FRC event

I'll throw my hat in the ring that option #2 is FAR more important.

This decision, and the decision to only give out WFFA's at the DCMP level, gives me the impression that the WFAs are holding on to a failing architecture that cannot adequately recognize deserving mentors. I really dislike split champs, but I dislike split champs without a WFA even more.

The "prestige" of the award does not merit excluding many events from celebrating a deserving mentor.

-Mike

Mike,
You and I are usually aligned in our beliefs about all things FRC, but you and I could not be further apart on this one my friend (at least based on your quoted post).

First, let me explain our rationale on the district champs WFFA. Quite the contrary to your claim about us holding on to a failing architecture we were trying to think way beyond the regional model. Our decision to celebrate 1 WFFA at the district championship was made when there was only 1 district championship (Michigan) and on the heels of a year that Michigan had 3 WFFA due to their three regional events. We were trying to set a precedent that once everyone has a district championship then each would have 1 winner that would represent their set of districts. Obviously, we hold true to this principle today. We thought (and still think) that one winner from each region makes sense if someone came into the program once we are all in districts. Now, the claim from you and others that we recognize less mentors today than before is just plain incorrect. The WFAs have set direction that at every district event the nominees at that event for the district champs are to be called down on the field and recognized. The ONLY difference between this process and awarding a winner at each district is the trophy. Otherwise, ALL of these nominated mentors get recognized. In the old Regional system only the selected winner gets recognized.

We realize that some districts do not call every nominated mentor down to the floor and we are working to set clearer direction on this as it is our strong belief that every nominated district mentor should be called down to the field to be recognized.

This means that once everyone is doing the district model every single mentor that was nominated will be recognized.

Holding on to a failing architecture? I don't think so.

Paul

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

Now, the claim from you and others that we recognize less mentors today than before is just plain incorrect. The WFAs have set direction that at every district event the nominees at that event for the district champs are to be called down on the field and recognized.

For what it's worth, this isn't what has happened at both NE events I went to. Names are shown on the screen and people are asked to stand for applause, and then the ceremony continues. No one is called on by name or called to the stage. If it's the WFA committee's intent that ceremonies at district events are more substantial than this, that's not what's happening. It just feels like a passing announcement thing and certainly not even close to the recognition a regional WFFA would get. The District Championship WFFA award feels exactly like a regional WFFA award; these two things together make it really feel like there is less recognition of mentors in districts and not more. Maybe if ceremonies are tweaked so WFFA nominees are brought to the floor and called by name at districts, the feeling of recognition will be spread around more.

I know lots of thought has been put into the WFA process and it's hard to criticize it from the outside, but I just wanted to point this out.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

For what it's worth, this isn't what has happened at both NE events I went to. Names are shown on the screen and people are asked to stand for applause, and then the ceremony continues. No one is called on by name or called to the stage.

Sometimes not even this has happened historically--no standing or no slide at all--at least not at a major ceremony. Not pointing fingers and it's possible it does occur at a less visible break, but overall I wouldn't say there's much recognition in the ways I've seen on average.