Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

How is getting the homework at the start of the build season going to help? All the teams are going to be busy at that time. He gave the homework out that the end of the season and gave 6 months (give or take) to do it when teams are supposed to be less busy and look at the results. imagine what would happen if he gave it out at the beginning of the season.

As Akash pointed out, nearly everybody watches kickoff. This is compared to the less than 20% of teams at or watching Championships, or the even smaller amount of teams that may stumble upon an assignment given at any other time of the year. Quite basically, Kickoff is the only time that FIRST can reasonably expect to reach the majority of participants in a way that is more meaningful and exciting than an email during the off-season.

Clearly the method they used last year didn't work, at least in terms of getting a ton of submissions, so something has to change-- probably from both sides of the equation. Yes, maybe teams should be more willing to jump into "non-essential" activities like Dean's Homework, but there are several things (which have been previously expressed more eloquently than I am able to previously in this thread) that FIRST can do to creating that sort of internal culture change.