Historic FIRST data wanted

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by Q. Sheets

The problem I find with your sources is that though the sources say 1992-1999 and 1992-2000, the only data from the 1992-1994 seasons ever put on the FIRST website were the lists of teams and sponsors.

Yea, we both have run into that roadblock since those are the same sources you're referencing. That's why the original sources are linked, so people can see what data was contributed by those sources if they are interested in doing the same digging.
Hopefully you'll turn up some new sources. Teams/mentors from that era have given me a few of the awards, but no one ever seems to remember what anyone else got.

Originally Posted by Q. Sheets

The discrepancy listed in the AllAwards spreadsheet, actually looks like an error of miscommunication. It read, "2005 Indiana Boilermaker: Entrepreneurship claimed by both 868 & 234 (234 has the trophy though)." When looking at the official results, 868 won it at Boilermaker and 234 won it at the Florida Regional (which the award at that event isn't even listed on their website).

234 told me they have the trophy from winning it at Boilermaker.
I only listed that discrepancy because I haven't heard from 868.

Other discrepancies that have been reconciled are not noted in that spreadsheet. Obvious ones such as when teams are listed as winning awards at Regionals the team didn't attend (2003 animation was a notable exception since teams didn't have to attend to submit).
When you start reconciling and cross checking you'll start seeing those.

[Q. Sheets]

Team 45, Technokats, had a press release from just after the 1994 competition that lists all the award winners.

Note: I did email FIRST to see if they happened to have an archive with press releases from 1992 and 1993. Michelle Normand (the most helpful lady ever) emailed me back saying they were unable to find any going back that far.

If any teams have paper archives they can scan and post, it will be appreciated. Maybe we can help FIRST build an archive.

[Andy Baker]

All,

The TechnoKats have just updated their website and there are a bunch of documents in their History Project page. This may help.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

[Mark McLeod]

Great!
Glad to have that back, and with more historical records than ever!
P.S. I like the picture of the Kit of Parts from 1992 and a partial list of awards (without winners) tells me I'm missing at least 4 more awards (I have 9 winners from various sources).

A lot of the team lists and awards info was extracted from some of your stuff that filled in missing holes and contributed as secondary sources to help in validating the FIRST data.

[vic burg]

108 *might* have something. I'm not sure though, since the system we had was from awhile ago. We had a pretty awesome system, SOAP (don't know if anyone remembers it, it's been a few years since it was done). I know you check out TBA (The Blue Alliance) and they have a lot, or FIRSTwiki might have some. But again, not sure.

[MagiChau]

I think I found the site from someone on Chief Delphi. This site has a copy of most old game manuals. Didn't see it posted yet so hope it helps.

http://www.first-a-holics.com/competitions/

[Mark McLeod]

The latest TechnoKats History Project had some of the game manuals I was missing.
Still missing Awards from:

• Non-Manchester regionals in 1996 & 1995 (Charlotte, NC & Dallas, TX). Missing those event team lists, too.
• 1992 partial awards (have 9, but at least 4 others are unknown)
• 1993 partial awards (have 4, missing at least 7 others)

Missing Game Manual from 1994

[Q. Sheets]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

The latest TechnoKats History Project had some of the game manuals I was missing.
Still missing Awards from:

• Non-Manchester regionals in 1996 & 1995 (Charlotte, NC & Dallas, TX). Missing those event team lists, too.

Are we sure these events happened? I found evidence that NC was planned in 1995, but no evidence of it occurring. For example, in the planned documentation, two P&G teams (Aiken HS & Walnut Hills HS) are set to attend NC and not NE; however in the official document, they attended NE.

This wouldn't have been the first time FIRST wanted to expand and wasn't able to do so. Though expansion would have been nice, maybe it wasn't completely feasible.

[Mark McLeod]

I think it's pretty obvious based on the registered team list.
You're suggesting that a lot of the teams that went to Championship didn't play in a regional event beforehand, and some registered teams never played anywhere.
Two years in a row?
Doesn't seem like a terribly reasonable suggestion, but it was a small competition then.

This is what I meant about validating our data.
We have to find as many different sources as possible and reconcile them.
That will tell us what's missing and what's just wrong.
The registered team list tells us we're missing fully half of the awards given out in 1995 and 1996.
With the lists we have we know which teams might possibly still have the event results hidden away, so we can try contacting them directly to see if they have records stuffed in the bottom of a drawer someplace, or an original mentor/student who might remember some details.

Take 1995 for example:
Non-Manchester teams playing at Championship 1995:
6, MN
43, MI
45, IN
74, MI
81, IL
83, WA
98, TX
108, FL
120, OH
129, TX
141, MI
148, TX
161, MI
171, WI

(removed as irrelevant and way too bulky)

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

You're suggesting that a lot of the teams that went to Championship didn't play in a regional event beforehand...

This was not uncommon in 1995/1996. I don't think the concept of a "regional" or "championship" really existed as far as many of us were concerned.

Take 1995 for example:
Non-Manchester teams playing at Championship 1995:
74, MI
141, MI

I was the driver for 74 in 1995, and 141 was our "cross town rival". I can confirm that both of these teams played only at the Championship at Epcot in 1995. 74 also only attended the Championship in 1996 (I'm nearly certain this is true for 141 as well). It wasn't until the Midwest Regional was formed in 1997 that it became feasible for us to attend a regional event.

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

This was not uncommon in 1995/1996. I don't think the concept of a "regional" or "championship" really existed as far as many of us were concerned.

I definitely confirm this. Back in the late 90's, a few teams would show up to to the Championships without playing in a previous event. In order to make the Championships a more quality event, FIRST began to require that teams attend some Regional event. I am not sure, but I think this requirement started happening in 2000 or 2001.

Andy B.

[Mark McLeod]

It sounds like Nationals was just another event back then.
Maybe we're not missing awards from '95 and '96 after all.

So do you guys think that some teams dropped out rather than travel and play anywhere?
I would have expected the enrollment to fall rather than rise the following year if teams found it so hard to reach an opportunity to play, but we do have teams in the UK, Turkey, etc. facing the same issues today I suppose.

Was it more of a science fair atmosphere in the beginning where teams might just work at home and not compete at all?
Maybe registration was only a matter of paying for the Kit rather than competing?

P.S. I love historical perspective

[Q. Sheets]

Mark, you may want to update your spreadsheets.

I love when revisiting overlooked news articles pays out with information of value.

Here are the 1992 Award Winners:

Champion - [126] NYPRO/Clinton High School
Chairman's - [191] Xerox/Joseph C. Wilson Magnet High School
Most Creative Design - [126] NYPRO/Clinton High School
Best Offensive Round - [190] WPI/Doherty High School
Best Defensive Maneuver - [146] Kiwanis/Manchester West High School
Most Photogenic - [??] Advanced Animation/Rochester High School (Vermont)
Best Sportsmanship - [111] Motorola/Wheeling High School
Best Team Spirit - [191] Xerox/Joseph C. Wilson High School
Play of the Day - [131] NH Technical College/Central High School
The Ultimate Keeper - [45] Delco/Kokomo High School (I'd call this one a Judge's Award)

Note: The article did not list the finalist.

Source: Google Doc / PDF (Orig)

[Mark McLeod]

Good find from the TechnoKats archives.
It confirms most of the awards I had, but there are a few conflicts that have to be reconciled-different teams have a claim on the Best Offensive and Best Defensive awards and I think Sportsmanship is contested too.

There seemed to be three finalists in 1992 and 1993.
4 teams played in the final match and we know who they were, one winner and three finalists.
45 has the Finalist trophy and it's mentioned in one of their other news articles that they came in third.

[Q. Sheets]

I am giving this topic a bump because it's been a little while… and because more data would still be good to have.

I used all my spare time yesterday to prototype FIRST Chat's new design with 2 vs. 2 matches and decided to use the 2004 Great Lakes Regional. Little did I know I would end up spending the whole day looking for surrogate match trends for the seasons before it started being explicitly defined in the manual and looking for elimination match teams and results. Now that yesterday is done and past, I still haven't found what I was enmeshed looking for.

Please, find and post more historic data because a complete archive is a happy archive.