Voting at Nationals

[David66]

At both regionals I attended (Great Lakes and West Michigan) FIRST had trouble getting teams to vote on the Website award. I intend on bringing my teams website down to Houston for all teams to view. Would it help any if I got disks burned with ALL the team websites on it for teams to view. Would this encourage you to vote? Let me know.

Please visit: www.willowrunrobotics.com

[Brandon Martus]

I don't think there is a website award at Houston..

[Jon K.]

No there is no website award at nationals this has been brought up before.

[AJ Quick]

Heck... if you want them to vote, just give them a ballot.. most teams never found them in the awards manual.

[Powers]

yeah, I never knew that each team voted for that, was totally clueless, and im a driver and one of the leaders of the team (although i dont get much info from the other school of our team).

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by AJ Quick
Heck... if you want them to vote, just give them a ballot.. most teams never found them in the awards manual.

I'm confused about a couple of things.

In both So Cal and Phoenix, if I remember right, the ballot wasn't in the registration packet. In So Cal I asked for the ballot and suggested we get them passed out to all teams, but was told if they need one they'll come up and ask for one. If I had pursued making sure each team had a ballot, they probably hadn't perused the webs ahead of time (as our team member had) to make his decision, and all the teams receiving the ballot last minute at regionals may not even peruse webs at the regional, and voted for whatever - not what I would have wanted.

In AZ the ballot was the ballot off this document page 27

In So Cal the ballot handed out was page 29.

Our team plans to bring these issues up at the team forums after competitions.

[Amanda Morrison]

On Saturday at Grand Rapids, there was a team giving out semi-ballots... which basically stated that you would vote for their team for the website award - not quite a ballot. I can see getting people to vote, but maybe not biased for a certain team.

I'm not sure if they won or not, but regardless, FIRST needs to get a definate scoring system down, or at least more publicity for it. I don't think I'd run up to another team and ask for them to vote for my team for the Chairman's Award, so why would you do that for the Website Award?

[David66]

Here's another question. Most of the website winners I have seen (although thats only about 7 or 8) have been text only, or more than 80% text sites. Is this really what people like? Personally I believe it presents a boring front with little room for fun and exciting features.

[AJ Quick]

Originally posted by amandabean
On Saturday at Grand Rapids, there was a team giving out semi-ballots... which basically stated that you would vote for their team for the website award - not quite a ballot. I can see getting people to vote, but maybe not biased for a certain team.

Didn't the voting take place Friday before Noon? Kinda late on that one.


The ballots were in the awards manual, but a lot of teams didn't know about the award, or anything that has to do with it.

[Amanda Morrison]

Because of the way the voting worked this year, FIRST should probably just have the judges vote at the competition for the Website Award. This way, you have non-biased people judging for all the right reasons - not one team getting all of their fifty members to vote for a website they spent an hour designing.

If the website award were to be judged the same as the rest of the awards, I believe that they would end up with a more prestigious award and give kids that are more interested in computer technology a chance to show off their skills.

If you can spend time building a robot, show it off, and win and award for your design, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to build a website, show it off, and win an award for your design.