2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[Carolyn_Grace]

Originally Posted by SarahBeth

I agree with this, completely. We submitted for the first time this year and it was very very overwhelming and it took reading the manual many times to figure out exactly what we were going to be judged on, and trying to figure out what the presentation judges were looking for - and even THEN I missed the fact that there's another release that needs to be signed for your DVD to be shown if you win, which is IN the manual but kinda buried.

Some clarification would have been so helpful throughout the process. Thankfully, we were able to talk to some teams who had done it before and they were happy to help us out - and it was an excellent experience all around for our kids. Now having done it once, doing it again hopefully won't be that daunting and we won't be rehearsing our presentation at 11pm the night before in the hotel lobby. (I swear, my students wanted to kill me for the fact I made them do it in front of people)

I love the Chairman's Award, but I definitely think that it needs to be revamped. When FIRST announced some changes with Awards this year, I was uber excited to see what they had improved for CA, and sadly it was not enough.

The award needs to be more accessible for teams, and teams who submit need more consistent feedback and recognition in some way.

I think that the video should either be judged or taken out completely.

I believe you should be able to submit CA at every district/regional that you compete with your robot at, but only be allowed to win at one event.

Overall: the fact that the Chairman's Award exists at all is outstanding, and I commend FIRST for recognizing teams in this way.