FRC Blogged- District Award Allocations and Kickoff Taping

[dag0620]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I can see I'm going to have to adjust my vocabulary. Until now, I thought FIRST was calling the areas running a district model "Regions" -- the Mid-Atlantic Robotics Region, the Pacific Northwest Region, etc. I've been very careful to follow that usage. Now, however, it seems they're being labeled "Districts".

Except I thought that was what they called the smaller areas within a larger region hosting district competitions. I'm confused.

I feel like lately Region and District have been used interchangeably, at least in the community. I've heard the Championship event tier in a district system called the District Championship and the Region Championship. Just like I'm still not sure if I'm technically in the New England Region or New England District. Even though the local entities have somewhat settled this, there is clear inconsistencies across FIRST with this.

While I understand this isn't exactly the most pressing issue at hand, it wouldn't hurt for FIRST to come out with a standardized set of terms to settle this and avoid a little confusion down the road.

[Nathan Streeter]

I'm glad FIRST gave some sort of directive on this... but also think it's real cool that they gave individual districts some leeway too.

For New England, I'd personally say 3 Chairmans', 2 EI, 2 RAS, 6 Dean's List.

Have the award qualifications to Championship been announced/standardized? I apologize if I'm failing to remember a piece about this from the Standardized District Point System announcement. Basically, do the Chairmans', EI, and RAS winners at DCMP all auto-bid to CMP? Also, do the DCMP Winners also get an auto-bid?

I would agree with auto-bidding the three FIRST culture awards, but I am personally not in favor of auto-bidding the DCMP Winners... If they don't get enough points by winning DCMP, they probably shouldn't be going (last year in Michigan the lowest-place team to qualify for CMP by points had 133 points. Winning DCMP gives 90.) One could argue this makes it a fairly irrelevant point... I'd have to quietly agree and sit down. :-)

Originally Posted by MamaSpoldi

I for one am very sad to see the reduction in the number of Dean's List Finalists being sent from the Districts as well as the Woodie Flowers Finalist. ... This is a very large reduction (more than 50%) even if you take into account that mentors and students from outside of NE would/could have won some of those spots in previous years.

While I do agree that it feels wrong to send so many fewer DL or WF finalists, they are approximately in line with the other awards... 1 Chairmans', 1 EI, 1 RAS, 2 DL, and 1 WF would go from each Regional before. Now that is scaled up by 2-4 from Regionals to DCMP awards. Except WF... this little part surprises me personally and I do agree that we should be able to send 2-3 Woodie Flowers' Finalists. That said, I do agree with wanting to send only 50% as many award winners to CMP... I'm sure the pool of candidates at CMP is tremendous! Whittling it down a bit more beforehand has got to be helpful from a CMP-standpoint.

Originally Posted by MamaSpoldi

I just feel that these awards are about celebrating those among us who are role models. Granted these people do not make choices based on how it will look to an awards committee, they do what they do because they believe in the message of FIRST. Reducing the number of these awards just leaves us with less to celebrate.

It is about celebrating the role models around us... and I had this same objection until I tried thinking about it in more dimensions. I think this celebratory aspect is actually being improved by the advent of districts... In New England there will now be 9 Chairmans, 9 EI, 9 RAS, 18 DL, and 9 WF winners... at the District event level. This pool will get paired down a bit more at DCMP before joining an enormous pool of applicants at CMP that are paired down even more. FIRST went from 2 tiers of awards to 3 tiers. We're upset that the "DCMP-tier" is smaller than the "Regional-tier," when they've also made the lowest tier bigger. All-in-all I think this is better... More people will win awards, then there will be another level of distinction (winning at DCMP), before the FIRST-wide winners are determined.

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by MamaSpoldi

I for one am very sad to see the reduction in the number of Dean's List Finalists being sent from the Districts as well as the Woodie Flowers Finalist. I just feel that these awards are about celebrating those among us who are role models. Granted these people do not make choices based on how it will look to an awards committee, they do what they do because they believe in the message of FIRST. Reducing the number of these awards just leaves us with less to celebrate.

The way I've always looked at it is that it is irrelevant to send more than one Woodie Flowers Finalist to the World Championship from the District Championship. Only one person can win the Championship Woodie Flowers award, so why send three or four from your district when you can just send the best one?

But that's just my opinion, I get the idea of celebrating all of the wonderful people involved with FIRST, but that's why all of the nominees are called down at the district event that they are nominated at, and (at least in the past in Michigan) all of the Woodie Flowers nominees are called down to the field at the District Championship before the winner is announced.

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by P.J.

The way I've always looked at it is that it is irrelevant to send more than one Woodie Flowers Finalist to the World Championship from the District Championship. Only one person can win the Championship Woodie Flowers award, so why send three or four from your district when you can just send the best one?

Given that every judging panel is different and who best embodies the Woodie Flowers award is a bit of a subjective thing, I see why it would be viewed as an advantage to send more than one person... I'm guessing it's anything but a clear-cut decision who the single best Woodie Flowers Candidate is at the DCMP level. If the DCMP panel prefers a heavier team-level commitment but the CMP panel weighs involvement throughout all of FIRST more heavily, there's an easy example of where sending two or three candidates would be helpful.

That said, I don't envy the job of the CMP judging panel for any of these awards... it's got to be exceptionally difficult to come down to a single winner! Having fewer candidates get to that level can't make it any harder to decide on the single best nomination.

[P.J.]

This is true, I was just suggesting what their thought process might have been.

[Jessica Boucher]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

Have the award qualifications to Championship been announced/standardized? I apologize if I'm failing to remember a piece about this from the Standardized District Point System announcement. Basically, do the Chairmans', EI, and RAS winners at DCMP all auto-bid to CMP? Also, do the DCMP Winners also get an auto-bid?

This is actually covered in the Standard Points Document:

Chairman’s Award winning Teams at the District event level get automatic byes to the District Championship, where they will compete both with their robots and for the District Championship Chairman’s Awards. Winning a District Championship Chairman’s Award will earn the Team a slot at the FIRST Championship regardless of their final rank in their district.

Engineering Inspiration and Rookie All-Star Award winners at the District event level will compete at the District Championship level for those specific awards, even if they do not rank high enough to compete with their robots.
Winning one of these awards at the District Championship will also earn them a slot at the FIRST Championship regardless of their final rank in their districts.

[Carolyn_Grace]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Anyhow, to te obvious game hints:
That incorrect apostrophe is surely a game hint. Coupled to the ellipsis, it is clear to me that there is a grammar element to this year's game, specifically punctuation.

Quick! Every team recruit an English teacher mentor!
1529 and 3176 are sure to dominate this year.

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace

Quick! Every team recruit an English teacher mentor!
1529 and 3176 are sure to dominate this year.

Team 910 has one of those as well. I knew I would come in handy eventually

[MamaSpoldi]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

It is about celebrating the role models around us... and I had this same objection until I tried thinking about it in more dimensions. I think this celebratory aspect is actually being improved by the advent of districts... In New England there will now be 9 Chairmans, 9 EI, 9 RAS, 18 DL, and 9 WF winners... at the District event level. This pool will get paired down a bit more at DCMP before joining an enormous pool of applicants at CMP that are paired down even more. FIRST went from 2 tiers of awards to 3 tiers. We're upset that the "DCMP-tier" is smaller than the "Regional-tier," when they've also made the lowest tier bigger. All-in-all I think this is better... More people will win awards, then there will be another level of distinction (winning at DCMP), before the FIRST-wide winners are determined.

From what I see from the submission criteria right now, it looks like neither the DL or WF will be awarded at the individual district events. It looks like they will only be awarded at the DCMP event for each district. This truly reduces the visibility of these awards and the number of people who will get recognition. Personally I have never been at an event where the WF nominees were brought onto the field before the award was given... and even more so the DL nominations are not recognized either, only the finalists selected at each Regional.