Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility

[Chris is me]

Wow, this actually makes quite a lot of sense. So many issues are eliminated this way - teams not submitting to avoid losing to a perennial powerhouse, teams avoiding certain regionals that seem to give preference to local teams, etc. This way, if you're good enough to win, and you go to multiple events, you've got a great shot of winning. Best of all, you can actually incorporate the advice given by Chairman's judges into future presentations rather than waiting an entire year to act on suggestions. This should make the Championship Chairman's pool deeper and stronger all around as well.

[Renee Becker-Blau]

This is an excellent update, it will help increase quality competition at regional events and decrease feelings that teams "picked the wrong regional to submit at that year". It looks like HQ put a lot of thought into this as they also recognized that they will need to increase the number of judges at regional events.

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Best of all, you can actually incorporate the advice given by Chairman's judges into future presentations rather than waiting an entire year to act on suggestions.

It will also motivate teams to ask for clear, helpful, and insightful feedback from their judges. The judges will have to step up their game to match the higher expectations.

Great change. Good job FIRST.

[Allison K]

Overall I'm very pleased with the change. My one question is as stated the change is "every event." Does this include third districts?

[LeelandS]

This is going to lead to some serious friction during Week 6 events.

Teams trying to improve their Chairman's presentations and win the award (Either to be eligible for the Championship Chairman's Award, or just to qualify for worlds to begin with) will be very tense to win.

I can see this creating a great deal of disappointment for teams who bid for the award again in a late event, but fall short.

I'm on the fence with this. I like it since it means that teams won't have to decide what event they want to submit for, and that they can use the Judge's Evaluations they receive from their regional to improve. Not only does this help teams improve their presentations for the award, but it will be a valuable experience in learning about business presentations and speaking skills.

On the other hand, I don't like Chairman's Award being seen as an award that you can keep trying over and over for until you get it. I think that kind of devalues the award in the long run. When it's "One shot to win it all", I think teams appreciate the award overall much more. But now that we might be playing a game where teams pick events to allow them improve the most and better their chances of winning, I think this will make the award a little less prestigious. I don't think I really like the change.

Just a thought. Let's see how this goes first.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by LeelandS

This is going to lead to some serious friction during Week 6 events.

Teams trying to improve their Chairman's presentations and win the award (Either to be eligible for the Championship Chairman's Award, or just to qualify for worlds to begin with) will be very tense to win.

I can see this creating a great deal of disappointment for teams who bid for the award again in a late event, but fall short.

I'm on the fence with this. I like it since it means that teams won't have to decide what event they want to submit for, and that they can use the Judge's Evaluations they receive from their regional to improve. Not only does this help teams improve their presentations for the award, but it will be a valuable experience in learning about business presentations and speaking skills.

On the other hand, I don't like Chairman's Award being seen as an award that you can keep trying over and over for until you get it. I think that kind of devalues the award in the long run. When it's "One shot to win it all", I think teams appreciate the award overall much more. But now that we might be playing a game where teams pick events to allow them improve the most and better their chances of winning, I think this will make the award a little less prestigious. I don't think I really like the change.

Just a thought. Let's see how this goes first.

I think its more disappointing when your chairmans team works long and tirelessly year round only to have one shot and that's it. They and the team put a lot of time and effort into having only one chance. \

Its a good move by FIRST!

[DonRotolo]

Generally I see more positives than negatives, so it's a good change.

[Tristan Lall]

I'm alright with it.

The dynamics change a little bit—particularly with regard to choice of events, because there's now a bigger schedule-based component to the likelihood that a particular team will win the award at a particular regional.

Also, it's not clear whether a team can officially declare itself out of contention for a particular event, despite having a valid submission. (Telling the judges "take us out of contention" would probably suffice unofficially.) For example, a team might want to maintain a streak of several awards in a row at an event where they're expected to dominate, but the only workable schedule forces them to attend a preceding regional. (I don't think this is a particularly good idea, but I could see a team wanting to do it anyway.)

There's also the issue of judges estimating a team's probability to win at an upcoming event, and factoring that into their deliberations—the team that has the least chance of winning elsewhere might get a slight boost. (If this is objectionable, FIRST could simply state that this isn't a permissible judging criterion. Alternatively, maybe this is an equitable thing to do, despite the fact that it dilutes the idea that the award is won and lost based on the presentations at each event.)

[Jon Jack]

Originally Posted by LeelandS

I think that kind of devalues the award in the long run.

I think it does the exact opposite, actually. This actually helps advance the best Chairman's teams to the championship. In the past if you applied (and lost) at a "strong Chairman's regional" then you were done. At your second regional you could have probably beat any of the Chairman's Award competitors, but you couldn't apply at a second regional. Under the new system you now have a chance of winning the Chairman's Award at that second event.

In the end, I think you'll see an even stronger pool of teams competing for the Chairman's Award at the Championship.

The other thing to think about is that district events are scaled down regionals. If 12 teams (20%) at a 60 team event is competing for the Chairman's Award, then that means a 40 team district event would have 8. Now, things aren't distributed evenly so some events could have more some could have less. Under the new system you'll see that number jump. What's better for the prestige of the Chairman's Award? Winning out of a pool of 3 teams or winning out of a pool of 10 teams?

[JB987]

Originally Posted by LeelandS

This is going to lead to some serious friction during Week 6 events.

Teams trying to improve their Chairman's presentations and win the award (Either to be eligible for the Championship Chairman's Award, or just to qualify for worlds to begin with) will be very tense to win.

I can see this creating a great deal of disappointment for teams who bid for the award again in a late event, but fall short.

I'm on the fence with this. I like it since it means that teams won't have to decide what event they want to submit for, and that they can use the Judge's Evaluations they receive from their regional to improve. Not only does this help teams improve their presentations for the award, but it will be a valuable experience in learning about business presentations and speaking skills.

On the other hand, I don't like Chairman's Award being seen as an award that you can keep trying over and over for until you get it. I think that kind of devalues the award in the long run. When it's "One shot to win it all", I think teams appreciate the award overall much more. But now that we might be playing a game where teams pick events to allow them improve the most and better their chances of winning, I think this will make the award a little less prestigious. I don't think I really like the change.

Just a thought. Let's see how this goes first.

Just makes CA=EI opportunity (except EI comes with $$)

[themitchshow]

I wonder if teams in the district system will be allowed to submit at out of state Regionals? The post makes it seem like that, but since teams in the regional system aren't able to compete in districts it could come across as an unfair advantage for the district teams.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Also, it's not clear whether a team can officially declare itself out of contention for a particular event, despite having a valid submission. (Telling the judges "take us out of contention" would probably suffice unofficially.) For example, a team might want to maintain a streak of several awards in a row at an event where they're expected to dominate, but the only workable schedule forces them to attend a preceding regional. (I don't think this is a particularly good idea, but I could see a team wanting to do it anyway.)

There's also the issue of judges estimating a team's probability to win at an upcoming event, and factoring that into their deliberations—the team that has the least chance of winning elsewhere might get a slight boost. (If this is objectionable, FIRST could simply state that this isn't a permissible judging criterion. Alternatively, maybe this is an equitable thing to do, despite the fact that it dilutes the idea that the award is won and lost based on the presentations at each event.)

In response to the bolded-judging criterion should inherently/does inherently base everything off the materials presented to the judges-presentation, essay, etc...Now, in the current system, obviously, I'm sure for many judges their experiences with that team have some effect, if not a subtle one, which in my opinion is an unavoidable bias(generally positive towards the team submitting)

In regards to Chairman's eligible teams (defining that as teams that have submitted via STIMS), I assume that it will be based off signing up for presentation slots. If you don't sign up to present, you're out of the running

Originally Posted by themitchshow

I wonder if teams in the district system will be allowed to submit at out of state Regionals? The post makes it seem like that, but since teams in the regional system aren't able to compete in districts it could come across as an unfair advantage for the district teams.

I assume teams will be able to submit Chairman's out of district, as this change makes Chairman's an award that your eligibility is based off a)not winning won already and b)participating in the event. As of this year, MAR teams were able to submit out of district, and 2016 even won it at Buckeye.

[AllenGregoryIV]

I'm all for this change.

On the topic of improving Chairman's Award quality across the board. If teams haven't shared their submissions from last season it would be great if they added them to this spreadsheet. The more examples teams have, the better quality submissions we'll have from everyone.

[Akash Rastogi]

Great to see fantastic responses on FRC Blog.

Chairmans award
Submitted by Trolinsky Toll on Thu, 09/12/2013 - 17:15.
Ok that doesnt souns good, because winning the chairmans award means that the most reach team will win, that is not ok.

reply

Seriously, why do these idiotic posts get published? It only encourages others with absolutely no regard for spelling things correctly or even thinking about how narrow minded their posts sound.

Can we stop the comments that bad-mouth others from being published? This has happened before as well.

[Red2486]

I do like this for the most part. There are regionals that generally have strong Chairman's competition, but of course only one is selected. This will allow the true top tier teams to compete at Championships, despite their location.

One of the only cons I see with it is that it puts a lot of pressure on the Chairman's presenters. As a presenter, I feel a lot of pressure and have to put in a good amount of practice during the regional itself. I think it will make harder on the presenters, but will be better for teams and FIRST in general.