Chairman's Award Concerns

[Dale]

Teams that have won have tended to do a very good job of documenting their accomplishments with thank you letters, event invitations, photographs, media clippings... in fact, I would tend to say that for true RCA contending teams the issue is not one of "how do we embellish our accomplishments", but rather one of "which ones do we leave out" due to space and time limitations. We have never been in need of "fact checking" due to the documentaiton provided by teams, but do go through the top few applications with a fine-toothed comb. I can't speak for my colleages on the panel, but if a team were found to be playing fast-and-loose with the truth it would be a quick and easy way to eliminate them from contention.

I'm delighted to hear that the judges in Seattle take their duties so seriously. I'm not sure all regionals Chairman panels dig into the claims made by their top contenders or even how they would do that for out of the area teams. Just the suspicion by students that some claims are exaggerated is reason enough, in my opinion, to let the sunlight in.

Hopefully the Chairman's award is really about what you do in your community, not how you communicate what you do in ten minutes. Teams worried about having their writing style copied are worried about the wrong things.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by emusteve

When our kids made their presentation, the Judges told our kids to "Be more original, and DON'T COPY TEAM XXX!"

When our kids made their presentation at a past regional in another year, the Judges told our kids to "do more community outreach"

Originally Posted by dtengineering

in fact, I would tend to say that for true RCA contending teams the issue is not one of "how do we embellish our accomplishments", but rather one of "which ones do we leave out" due to space and time limitations.

So this year we added back in what we took out in a previous year. If you watch what we said between 0:25 and 0:30 here in this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-4FA5RBWVg

And we handed them the stack of documents that proved it. It was really annoying having dropped from a prior presentation because of lack of room, time, space, and then being told we didn't do enough community outreach.

The list of events is over a 3+ year period, which was fully disclosed. We will probably do about 30 events this year which is impossible to insert into a RCA submission without a supplemental volume dropped onto the judges desk.

One of my frustrations, Feeling your pain man !

[mathking]

When we do events with other teams, and this is a lot of our events, we try to stress that to the judges. Our off season event is co-hosted by most of the central Ohio teams, with 4-5 teams all doing a lot of work. We did a rookie kit bot build in cooperation with 3262 from Northland High School and we did a series of demonstrations at the eTech Ohio conference in cooperation with 3264 from Metro High School. We try to get thank you letters,pictures and/or video from our events, in order to document them.

I just told our presentation team to record a practice session for our presentation so that we can put it on our YouTube channel. I think we will plan on trying to do this every year. Hopefully we can include it in the iBook as well. I do want to stress to those trying to learn from the videos that while the formal presentation is important, the Q&A with the judges afterward is just as if not more important.

[JaneYoung]

A Judge for one of the FLL events in our FIRST community shared an incredible story with me this weekend. It brought home the depth of the Judges' desire to see the teams at their best or to 'catch' them at it. It brought home the understanding of the wealth of experience and knowledge that the Judges bring to the table. It brought home the passion that the Judges share among themselves and with the teams during their competitions.

I understand why some folks would like to have an element of Peer Judging in determining the Chairman's Award but I think about the discussions that constantly plague ChiefDelphi regarding mentor led/student led teams and mentor built/student built robots. It makes me sad to think that there are those who want to treat the Chairman's Award with that same mentality, ignoring the caliber of the Judges and what they bring to the event in the way of perspective, knowledge, insight, enthusiasm, and focus.

I've followed this thread closely and my thoughts haven't changed. They are:

1. Continue with your team development and impact on the community - however your team views community

2. Document the process
- create videos and materials for short programs/introductions/interviews
- create videos and materials for longer programs/introductions/interviews
- have them archived and organized, ready to access
- keep your documentation current
- continue to monitor and improve in your team's growth and development

3. Share your knowledge and experiences with other teams, helping them to continue to grow and develop

4. Document the process

Many of us are losing the trust element that is built into the program. The bridge this year has shown us that we have a long way to go to fully understand the importance of the trust element. Micromanaging the Chairman's Award will not do anything of benefit towards helping to balance the bridge on the field or off the field.

Jane

[mathking]

OK, I am going to paste our Chairman's essay here, and try to show what documentation we provided to back it up.

Ten years ago, 20 students came together because of their passion for science and technology. Today, over 70 students meet 5 times a week to use that passion to build a robot. The original advisor said, “In 2003 when we moved everything from Scioto to Coffman after the season, it fit in the trunk of my Camry. With plenty of room to spare.” Now, looking at our shop, our equipment couldn’t fit into 20 Camry’s. Our focal point is to never forget where we came from and why we first started.
OK, no real documentation here. I was that mentor, and you pretty much have to take my word for how much stuff we have. We do have a couple of pictures of the shop with our documentation, so you can see a lot of the equipment we have.

FIRST is all about spreading science and technology. This year we accomplished this with our outreach projects at our community recreational center and mall. At our rec center, we demoed last year’s robot and had videos and a poster for community members to interact with. We had many kids come up to us and ask us questions—the big robot drew them in, and the technology behind it kept them interested. We heard kids, many of whom had had no prior experience with this type of technology, repeatedly say, “This is sooo cool!!” We knew that this meant that a passion for STEM had been ignited. Watching these kids enjoy our robot was a great reminder that being a FIRST team is more than building a competitive robot.
We made a video of two groups of kids coming up to our robot, asking questions and having team members (including the essay writer) answering questions about the robot.

While at our rec center, we told all of the kids we talked with to join LEGO leagues in the Dublin elementary and middle schools. This is how young members of the community can get involved. Members of our team mentor the 25 middle school teams, that our booster group supports. Realizing the importance of teaching kids at a young age, team members give up their time in order to foster a love for STEM in the kids.
The number of Dublin FLL teams is documented, and we have a number of pictures of mentoring. I think we have at least one picture from each of the past six years. We included a couple pictures we took with one of our FLL teams last year at the Championships (there were an Ambassador team). We also had some pictures of the FLL District event we co-host with our boosters.

The mentors of our team have a tradition of going above and beyond by inspiring us to discover the solutions ourselves. When we ask a question, they respond with a question so we can figure out how to fix the problem on our own. Our student-built robot could not be completed without their expertise and dedication to the team. We find one of their best assets is that so many are FIRST Team 1014 alumni. They know and love this team, which demonstrates the impact FIRST robotics has had on them. This is beneficial because it keeps us in line with the spirit our team had 10 years ago. Mentors from that first year never cease to remind us of why we are here.
Difficult to document. We do have a list of all of our student alumni which we update each season, including what they did after graduation. We were helped this year because a couple of our alumni were at the QCR with other teams they mentor now.

One of our previous mentors left us to start a team in California, but he didn’t leave the FIRST Team 1014 family. Our team has been helping his FIRST Team 4144 with all that we can by using Skype and multiple telephone calls. In this same spirit of helping, our team focuses on starting up new teams. We held a training day to teach rookie teams and new members of veteran teams, including ours, about wiring, programming, mechanical systems, the Chairman’s Award, and mentoring. FIRST Teams 3324, 677, 4142, 4145, 3591, 3484, 1317, 3262, 1008 attended, along with our own team. This past year we also demoed our robot at St. Charles to spark interest there, which we did successfully. We helped them start FIRST Team 4269 this year, and they were mentored by our Ohio State sister team 677 this build season.
We had a thank you email from St. Charles thanking us for coming to do the demonstration. We had a number of pictures from our training day, and a couple of thank you email letters from team mentors. We dropped the ball on having an email from 4144, but we did have that mentor, back on spring break, attending the regional.

Our team co-founded CORI (Central Ohio Robotics Initiative), with whom we held a kick-off day this year. On this day we teamed up with FIRST Team 3262 to help rookie teams 4145, 4269, 4085, 4142, 4121, and 4283 construct a kit bot. CORI’s goal is to start new robotics teams in Central Ohio, which is a value FIRST Team 1014 has had from the beginning.
We had a number of pictures of this event, with a focus on getting the attending rookies teams as well as team members from 3262. It would have been even better if we had been at the same regional as 3262, but they went to Buckeye.

We also make an effort to reach the kids of Dublin during eWeek. We send over 2,000 kits to all 4th and 5th graders in the district including lesson plans for the teachers, always pertaining to STEM fields. This year, we had kids build a “roller coaster” for a marble in order to explore concepts pertaining to energy. We also have the kids working in groups to encourage collaboration and coopertition.
We had copies of the lesson plans, a couple thank you emails from teachers, and a video of the previous year's activity being done in a classroom. We should have video of this year's activity being done when we go to competition next year.

The Dublin community has taken an interest in us as well. We were filmed by the community TV channel to demonstrate what FIRST is. We participate in Dublin’s 4th of July parade, where we distribute any left over eWeek kits that we have and demonstrate the robot. We have bins around the community to collect old cell phones and encourage recycling technology. Also, we get involved in the Dublin Coffman dodgeball tournament, which this year is trying to raise $6000 for Pancreatic Cancer. Our robot will shoot dodge balls during the finals in front of the school. At events like these, the community realizes how important technology is. And, more importantly, our team realizes how important it is to reach out and use our talents in situations that aren’t STEM-focused to help society and spread science and technology.
First off, full disclosure - the dodge balls DO NOT exactly fly out of our robot. More like dribble. They are too soft and not quite large enough. We had a copy of the TV spot, pictures from the parade and of the many recycling boxes.

The partnerships we have made with the companies Buildmore and Tubular are very important to us. Buildmore donates their workshop to us so we can use tools, such as the CNC mill they own, and Tubular is the company we send the plans for our chassis so they can weld it. Since the 2002 team, our partnerships have expanded. This year we have even gained some help from EWI, the Edison Welding Institute, where some members of the team took welding lessons. Relationships with these companies amongst many others encourage us to build our best robot ever.
We have some pictures here, but need more documentation.

For 10 years now we have been FIRST Team 1014: Bad Robot. We have become a highly competitive team in the arena, getting better and better technically every year. However, in this is not what we pride ourselves most. Rather, it’s how we’ve kept our focus throughout all the ups and down. Taking this year to reminisce over the last 10 years has served to keep our focus on our future. FIRST robotics is not about having a winning robot—it’s about using our skills in science and technology to improve our community, and about spreading the word that science and technology are important. As of now, FIRST Team 1014 has 10 years of building robots and sharing our technological values under our belt, and for the next 10 years we plan to continue and expand our traditions.

This year having the iBook really helped with the documentation process. While we did not include things like copies of letters, pictures and videos to document things are on the iBook, and so easy to show to judges. I also note that we had a number of things that we did not put in the essay, or did not put in the presentation. For example, the essay made no mention of co-hosting the Connect A Million Minds Invitational (June 23, 2012 - Dublin Coffman High School, only $50, air conditioned, spots filling up fast), the Dublin FLL District tournament or the new Dublin Engineering Academy which a cooperative venture with Metro High School (3264).

[Red2486]

The CocoNuts Team 2486 will be presenting their Chairman's Interview Presentation to any one who is interested at Championships. We will be presenting at lunch on Thursday, and the location is TBD.

We want everyone to know what we do and to be able to ask us questions about any of our work. We also want to invite other teams to present if they would like to and if time allows.

We will be posting flyers in the pits, and I will post as soon as we have decided on a location. We really hope to see everyone there!

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Red2486

The CocoNuts Team 2486 will be presenting their Chairman's Interview Presentation to any one who is interested at Championships. We will be presenting at lunch on Thursday, and the location is TBD.

We want everyone to know what we do and to be able to ask us questions about any of our work. We also want to invite other teams to present if they would like to and if time allows.

We will be posting flyers in the pits, and I will post as soon as we have decided on a location. We really hope to see everyone there!

Lunch on Thursday is the same time as the "Chairman's Award Chat 2012 - Panel Discussion with Championship Chairman's Award Winning Teams"

A lot of teams interested in Chairman's award stuff will be there, you might want to find a time that doesn't conflict.

[Red2486]

Oh darn. I'd forgotten about that! We will probably reschedule then for Friday at lunch. Sorry about that.

[Red2486]

We will be doing our Chairman's Award Presentation Exchange at 10am in the upstairs area of the America Center. We hope to see you there!