A few questions about the awards:

[May_Walter]

1. what exactly do we have to do in order to qualify for the engineering inspiration award?

2. where can we find the release forms for minors (for the chairman award video) in order to write their name and location ?

Thanks in advance,
Team #3083 - Artemis

[RoboMom]

Read the criteria for Engineering Inspiration Award here: http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...wards_RevA.pdf and here: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...nt.aspx?id=440 (release forms for Chairman's Award also here).

There is no special interview for this award, like for the Regional Chairman's Award process.

Also lots of suggestions in the NEMO paper "Judging Hints at the Regionals" under Competitions. http://www.firstnemo.org/resources.htm

[Phil Ross]

You can find the consent form here and information on the different awards here. The isn't one specific thing that you need to do to be qualified for an EI award (as far as I know). Sometimes I think of it as a runner-up for the Chairman's Award event though there is no interview for it.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by May_Walter

1. what exactly do we have to do in order to qualify for the engineering inspiration award?

Next to "Is there life out there?" the EI award is one of the great mysteries in life.
At some events it's the RUNNER UP CHAIRMANS AWARD and at others it's the SUPER ULTIMATE JUDGES AWARD (it can get you to the championships where a judges award can't). You don't interview for ir, not many people seem to know are really sure what you have to do or even what the criteria really is for the award in spite of FIRST having the criteria documented and I'm not sure if a HOF team has ever won an EI after getting into the FIRST Hall of Fame.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Next to "Is there life out there?" the EI award is one of the great mysteries in life.
At some events it's the RUNNER UP CHAIRMANS AWARD and at others it's the SUPER ULTIMATE JUDGES AWARD (it can get you to the championships where a judges award can't). You don't interview for ir, not many people seem to know are really sure what you have to do or even what the criteria really is for the award in spite of FIRST having the criteria documented and I'm not sure if a HOF team has ever won an EI after getting into the FIRST Hall of Fame.

A big mystery indeed.
I suspect the criteria is independent between regionals and championships, depending solely on the judges of respective regionals.
We've never won one at any regional we ever attended. You can imagine how happy/shocked we were to get one at CMP.

I was told once it was the runner-up to CA. But not always as last season, I've seen EI winners at a regional win CA somewhere else (1138) and Miss Daisy (341) who did not get a CA in 2009.

EI is the hardest to attain? how do you prepare for such an award?

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by waialua359

how do you prepare for such an award?

Your team documents for the judges the team's outstanding respect and appreciation for engineering and engineers, in your school and your community, including the extent and inventiveness of the team's efforts to recruit students to engineering, the extent and effectiveness of the team's community outreach efforts and the measurable success of those efforts.