Frank Answers Fridays: July 19, 2013: What Happened to the Animation Award?

[ablatner]

Only 50 teams? The decision makes much more sense now.

[cbale2000]

Look at it this way, two fewer things to make awards ceremonies take so long.

I'll admit, the animation competition was one of the key things that got me involved on my team initially, until, of course, we realized that no one on our animation team had any idea how to use 3DsMax, and I got involved in other areas of the team.

Honestly though, the fact that there were only 50 teams that submitted animations in 2012 doesn't really surprise me.

[Kevin Leonard]

Gosh what a fantastic question! Worded so nicely, and by such a handsome student
I'm rather glad this question got answered, though I think my team would have preferred the response "We're reinstating the animation competition!"

Oh well. Community Awards. Idk what that means. We'll see.

[lynca]

The animation category has always had a low number of entries but those teams do amazing work. I'm glad 116 was able to keep a competition going for animators.

Sadly the website award has suffered a different type of fate.
The website award was also eliminated in 2013 and I would guess at least 10 teams at every regional were submitting website designs (at least 400 websites total).

Websites are a unique way to keep team history and relay the story about FRC. Taking away the website award has reduced the incentive for team's to document.

The social media award is a very different criteria and really does not emphasize on documentation, but more on number of followers.

Given the likely future of non-robot awards, maybe its time for a community driven website award.

[Celia]

My friend and I restarted our team's animation in 2012. We taught ourselves 3DS Max to the best of our abilities (read: not very well) in three months and were very proud of what we had accomplished come that February. We spent the entire post- and pre-season improving our skills only to find out that next December that our entire skill set had been eliminated, leaving little turn around time to join a new subteam.

Thank you for the further explanation as to why the award was cut. We appreciate it. At the time, there wasn't much being said about it. Thanks for dedicating a Friday to the animators We look forward to the new award.