Record Number of EI Award Wins

[AJCaliciuri]

Hey CD,

I often see on here who in FIRST has won the most RCA's, Regionals, or just Blue Banners in general.

However, I was wondering which team holds the record for number of Engineering Inspiration Award wins.

We (Team 1305, Ice Cubed) just won our 8th at Waterloo this weekend and I couldn't find a thread that touched on the subject.

[sanddrag]

For Chairman's, it seems a common theme is starting and mentoring other FIRST program teams (FLL, FTC, FRC) especially in distant/remote areas.

Is there a common theme for winning EI? I'd love to hear from some if the EI winners on what they think helped win it for them. The Awards manual is very vague, and the judging process for it is a big mystery to me.

[Koko Ed]

EI is the most mysterious award in FIRST.
Is it the runner up Chairman's Award?
A souped up Gracious Professionalism award that gets you to the championships?
Is it something completely different?
I have yet to have anyone give me a straight answer about the award and how you go about getting it.

[Joe Ross]

As of last year, team 141 had won 10 EI awards. See Team 358's spreadsheet http://www.team358.org/files/frc_records/AllAwards.xls

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

EI is the most mysterious award in FIRST.
Is it the runner up Chairman's Award?
A souped up Gracious Professionalism award that gets you to the championships?
Is it something completely different?
I have yet to have anyone give me a straight answer about the award and how you go about getting it.

EI is a near term RCA. RCA focuses over multiple years with emphasis on recent stuff. EI focus on this year and last year. That is the primary distinction.

I guess another distinction is RCA is judged by RCA judges, EI is judged by the pit judges.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by rsisk

EI is a near term RCA. RCA focuses over multiple years with emphasis on recent stuff. EI focus on this year and last year. That is the primary distinction.

I guess another distinction is RCA is judged by RCA judges, EI is judged by the pit judges.

Well that makes things a little more clear.
Thanks.

[waialua359]

EI is definitely a mystery.
We have never won it at a regional level.
Only at CMPS.
We tried for CA at CMPS back in 2008, so I'm not sure how it's decided by pit judges.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by rsisk

EI is a near term RCA. RCA focuses over multiple years with emphasis on recent stuff. EI focus on this year and last year. That is the primary distinction.

I guess another distinction is RCA is judged by RCA judges, EI is judged by the pit judges.

Sort of this.

In my experience EI is judged differently at different regionals. At North Star, for the past few years, it has definitely been "runner up Chairman's" (in 2012 1816 won RCA and 2220 won EI, in 2013 2220 won RCA and 1816 won EI), while at least at Northern Lights this year, it seemed to be judged quite differently.

I've always been curious about the distinction, but I'm loath to say it's as simple as that universally.

As to why it's so ambiguous-- my guess would be that it's intentionally made to be a flexible award so that different regionals can use it as it suits them. I may be very wrong about that (it isn't like I have any magical insight), but that would be my best stab in the dimly illuminated room.

[Bryce Paputa]

I don't think the intent of EI is really to be a runners up to chairman's, because back in 2006, the championship had both chairman's honorable mention and EI (http://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2006cmp). It does seem that it ends up as second place chairman's a lot of the time though. As for record numbers, http://www.thebluealliance.com/insights has some of them.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

EI is the most mysterious award in FIRST.
Is it the runner up Chairman's Award?
A souped up Gracious Professionalism award that gets you to the championships?
Is it something completely different?
I have yet to have anyone give me a straight answer about the award and how you go about getting it.

I love that it is an award that should be sponsored by J. J. Abrams. You get it for doing the right stuff -- and it's vaguely defined so you can't go out and try to explicitly win that award. You can't win the Chairman's Award without a laser focus on checking the boxes. I don't think a team in recent memory has won the Safety Award without striving to be over-the-top in how visible their safety practices are. Very few teams accidentally win the team spirit award without making it an explicit goal.

It seems to me that if you build a sustainable winning program, EI will just kind of happen. There are no explicit requirements, but your team's practices and attitudes will just shine through to the judges in all the right ways.

[Cynette]

Originally Posted by rsisk

EI is a near term RCA. RCA focuses over multiple years with emphasis on recent stuff. EI focus on this year and last year. That is the primary distinction.

I guess another distinction is RCA is judged by RCA judges, EI is judged by the pit judges.

I'm not sure I totally agree with this. From what I've heard, the focus is on promoting the field of engineering in your team. As such it is a bit more focused on how a team has promoted the technical aspects of FIRST -the impact of engineering mentors on the team directly (college and career selection of students), the promotion of engineering careers by the team, the spread of the love of STEM to younger kids in promotion of engineering careers, that sort of thing. RCA may capture a piece of this, but is much broader in scope. RCA is about spreading the impact of FIRST which may or may not include the STEM focus.

It is judged in the pits, and may also not be as concerned with years of continuous effort. FIRST has said time and time again that is not the RCA runner up award.

[Conor Ryan]

I think Chairman's is cool, but EI pays a lot better.

[Red2486]

I have always viewed EI and Chairman's as very different awards, although I do believe at some events it is judged as the "runner up to Chairman's". To me I see EI and CA teams having different... selling points I guess? To me an EI team focuses in using FIRST to inspire students for the purpose of becoming engineers. I see CA as an award for changing the world through FIRST. It is Avery subtle difference, not that EI teams aren't changing the world as well, I just think CA focuses on your external impact and EI focuses on the internal.


In 2012 my team won EI at the Utah Regional and RCA at the Arizona Regional. When they announced us for EI, they talked about our team growth, how we design and manufactor our robots at school and how most of our mentors come from the international engineering company WL Gore. Each time we have won Chairman's, the announcement focuses on how we are from an extremely rural area, how we provide STEM opportunities, our FIRST program growth, and how we have changed the culture in our region to one that celebrates STEM. These are obviously two very different explanations for an award, and they help outline what each award really means, at least at those events.

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

EI is the most mysterious award in FIRST.
Is it the runner up Chairman's Award?

I can guarantee that it isn't. Our Chairman's feedback form said "We had you as runner up for the RCA."

We didn't win EI.

[Woetie]

Here is a link of what FIRST had to say when we won the E.I award @ the NC regional this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgytu7Ea7Fc
The E.I. Awards starts @ 9:24:00.
They clarify what they mean with the E.I. award.
The way I see it is that it isn't only your outreach but also building a robot that has that inspirering factor since they say that it takes passion, knowlage and insperation.
Hopefully this will help you understanding what the E.I. award is about.

Wouter Levering
Mentor of Team Rembrandts
2014 NC Regional Engineering Inspiration Winner
2013 NC Regional Rookie All Star Winner