Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility

[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.

[PayneTrain]

Every other part of the team has the ability to improve throughout the competition season, now the Chairman's presenters do as well. This puts a lot of the gamesmanship of the RCA behind us because it's all obsolete. At least on the East Coast, you're either in a model that will already have you present at least twice in a year, transitioning to a model that will have you present at least twice a year, or you're stuck having to choose which 60+ team regional you put your bid in. The award is already significantly more difficult to win than it was 5 years ago purely because teams learned what was needed from them to win it trough trial and error. Now we're introducing more chances for kids to learn.

[cadandcookies]

I'll join the voices expressing approval with this change (though I might be a little bit biased because I'm the Chairman's Lead on my team).

In particular I love the opportunity to iterate our presentation and shore up what the judges suggest we improve on. I also like that it means we'll be able to compete against more (and stronger!) teams at each of our regionals. I'm looking forward to the level of competition going up!

In my opinion, more (positive!) competition is nearly always a good thing!

[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.

[Karthik]

This is a great change. One of the more ridiculous things that has been going on with Chairman's submissions over the past few years has been the jockeying of teams to try and submit at "the right" event. Teams avoid submitting at certain regionals/districts because of the perceived strength of other submitting teams. By allowing teams to submit at multiple events, this issue becomes moot.

[CENTURION]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Great to see fantastic responses on FRC Blog.



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.

Calling other FIRSTers "idiots" isn't GP.

How do you know that post wasn't made by an overseas student or mentor who didn't learn english as a first language?

EDIT: Didn't notice that the user's name was "Trolinsky Troll", but I think some of what I said still stands; Regardless of the username, the comment still seems to voice a real concern.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by LeelandS

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.

You mean that it isn't that already? For some teams, that's what it is, save that the process is over years and years (or until the team throws in the towel).

[AllenGregoryIV]

Now that this change has happened for the Chairman's Award, will we see this for the Woodie Flowers Finalist and Dean's Lists Finalists Awards as well? Having to decide where to submit any award seems outdated all of a sudden.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by CENTURION

Calling other FIRSTers "idiots" isn't GP.

How do you know that post wasn't made by an overseas student or mentor who didn't learn english as a first language?

EDIT: Didn't notice that the user's name was "Trolinsky Troll", but I think some of what I said still stands; Regardless of the username, the comment still seems to voice a real concern.

The username is what prompted my post.

The comment voices a concern Frank already addressed, and is something that has been beaten to death thousands of times in FRC.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by CENTURION

Didn't notice that the user's name was "Trolinsky Troll"

You got to pay the Troll Toll

[thefro526]

This move has me really impressed. If the powers that be are willing to make such a major change to the Chairman's award (for the better, too) I can only imagine what other rules will change as time goes on.

I have never been on an active Chairmans team (but am now on an HoF team, who'd have expected that?) so I can only imagine the feeling that presenters feel after they don't win the award. This is a huge positive for FRC, even if only to keep those who truly do work towards the CA for the right reasons inspired and passionate. I sincerely hope that this change leads to the most deserving team being picked, rather than the team that was lucky enough to shop for the right event.

This Frank guy is getting me more and more excited for 2014.