Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Laaba 80

Don't you think this is a little extreme? Around 40 teams were able to send in a robot unveil video for the top 25 premier 3 days after ship day, and over 100 were made at some point last season.

That said, I really hope FIRST utilizes some of the awesome unveil videos that are already being produced. Who wouldn't be interested after seeing one of 118's videos? Maybe the next homework assignment should be to make a robot unveil video.

Robot reveals are
a) not always FIRST quality submissions (truthfully, I'd say fewer than 5% are)
b) "made themselves" because everyone builds a robot and puts it on some kind of field at some point in time
c) not outreach events. This video required a worthwhile non-robot activity, and outreach footage requires an outreach activity worth documenting, properly documenting the event, and having enough footage from the event to create a submission FIRST-quality
d)made during a time where students are not taking AP exams, state exams, and finals, prepping for graduation, and teams are not changing the guard in leadership and starting to fund for their next cycle.

I don't know about your team, but whenever I've been on a team making a submission for something, you put the award submission/robot/chairman's video/judges handout/etc. through a battery of criticism and scrutiny. Keep in mind that these are things that we should be doing and try to do properly every year. This is different than an ideal target but not one without any pitfalls associated with not doing it. Sure it's something that, if I was on a team, I would want them to do it, but teams easily can find other priorities that range from recruiting to funding their next season, or those priorities become problems that find them.

To document whatever cool thing you're doing, you would need not only the people actually heading up the activity/event/thing to follow through on the plan, you need to have people there almost specifically to properly document it. Then if you have these standards in place for all other FIRST submissions, you put through the ringer, all over the summer.

Say I'm making excuses (I don't know who for, I am not actively associated with a team), say I'm totally off base, but, well...

Just like the ancient trifecta of worn-out debates on Chief Delphi ("mentor-built" robots, adults as coaches, and building a second robot for practice) these are all totally optional things that teams have the luxury of choosing to forgo if they wish, or are backed into a corner by a dearth of the resources necessary to even consider any of these decisions (low mentor availability, low revenue), and I'm pretty sure we've all resolved to reach a loose consensus of "Whatever you do in your team is your business."

Yet here, we have seen even more extreme debate over an even smaller issue. I guess you could call that the status quo here, I guess you could say ignorance is a two-way street, and I guess everyone could talk in circles for weeks on end about how their position is superior empirically, morally, and Dean Kamen himself came down from Mt. Sinai to preach the exact words you speak... but at the end of the day, whatever you do on your team is your business. I'm confident FIRST will still be here tomorrow even though few teams did their Dean's List homework. Teams will still be out in their community and in their build spaces.

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Also, just because it's been bothering me, all I have to say about this

And out of 3,800 Jr. FLL Teams, none submitted an entry. 0%.

is this: