New Submission Format for Chairman's Award

[Jordan]

Aaron, just FYI, the new rules state "4 single-sided pages." Check out the file I attached to my last post.

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I really don't have an issue with the new rules. Granted, I feel bad for teams that have spent their time and money to produce electronic presentations for this year. Fortunately, my team has only begun to do this and can now stop.

The truth is, FIRST is realizing their weaknesses and is moving in the right direction. Everything they have published about the 2003 season is moving towards less expense and time, and that move needed to occur long ago. From streamlined regionals and the possibility of standardized chassis, to a new Chairman's submission format, FIRST is doing the right thing.

As we can see, FIRST and many teams are struggling because of the poor condition of our economy. Dean Kamen's mission has always been and will always be to have FIRST impacting every student in the world. It is now clear that this will not happen with the current format. It is unreasonable to expect every high school to have any type of team with a budget in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I do feel bad for the veteran teams that now will not have the opportunity to use their video software or custom machine their entire robot. However, the goal of FIRST would never have been reached without changes like these.


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Jordan McNerney
Captain, Team 166