Has anyone noticing changes in Regional Chairman's Award, now that you can compete at

[Wendy Holladay]

Just putting this out there wanting others thoughts. This last weekend the team my daughter mentors competed hard for RCA at their home regional. Last weekend they competed at an away regional. They won Engineering Inspiration at the away regional, nothing at home.

At both regionals, the RCA winners were amazing. They had fantastic material. But did the changes in the RCA rule (you can compete in every regional) change the outcome? Both RCA winners at those regional were not local teams. Both had won RCA several times before, but at what could be considered their home regionals.

If you are, like I am, at what would not be considered a difficult regional, Bayou, is your "home team advantage" now lost for RCA competition? My daughter told me that typically 10-15 competed for RCA at the regional, last week there were well over 30 and the interviews had to run into Saturday.

The outcome of Bayou is often greatly influenced by what week Lone Star is. We have great Lone Star friends, but our local teams know that when the Texas powerhouses attend, I think it makes for a great regional, many others think, ok, we can't win there. Is RCA now the same way??

For the record, I welcome the change and think it's a good one. I would also make the same change to Woodie Flowers and Dean's List. So if anyone is still reading, what are your thoughts on this change?

[Jay O'Donnell]

I think the change is fantastic. It shouldn't be about "home field advantage". The award should go to the most deserving teams. Having two events to interview was also a big plus for 1058. We had a perfect score at our first event, but lost to a great team in 3467, and were told to add something to make our presentation a little more memorable. We took that advice and won the Chairman's award at our second event over some very good teams. I welcome the change, because I want to see the most deserving teams win.

[Karthik]

I've been a big proponent of this change both prior to it occurring, and now after seeing 5 weeks of the change being in effect. I'm glad that the game theory of where to submit Chairman's is a thing of the past (a game that benefited those who had inside information on where teams were submitting, and hurt teams who didn't have the same network of knowledge), and that we'll no longer see worthy Championship Chairman's contenders get eliminated because they had the misfortune of submitting at the same event as another Chairman's powerhouse. I also think that this benefits every student presenter, as more presentations provide them with more interactions with judges, and more feedback on their process. I think this will drastically improve the quality of submissions as we go forward. The only downside to all of this is that the Chairman's Judges are now incredibly busy. Frankly, I have no idea how they can keep up with events where there are 30+ submissions to judge.

[PayneTrain]

I have to say that I have personally seen nothing but great results from the new rule. 422 won its first ever RCA in 15 years at its second regional in Virginia. At the Alamo Regional, where 624 really strutted there stuff, the student presenters on 422 received great feedback from the judges and words of encouragement for the next event, and I really believe that made the difference for them. Another team competed at Virginia Regional for its first event, 1086. They did not win the Chairman's Award there, but I'd reckon they were able to take the feedback there and turn it around for an RCA win in Cinicnnati this week.

The change makes it easier on FRC as a whole to recognize the best teams possible for their work instead of playing oddsmaker for submitting the award. In addition, teams don't have to sit on our feedback for a whole season now but can instead improve the presentation over the course of days.

[Jacob Bendicksen]

I think that the 'home field advantage' is certainly gone. From a presenter's point of view, I love it, because you just get more presentations to perfect your pitch. We're going to three district events, and while it certainly wasn't fun to lose at the first two, the presentation should be really strong at OSU this weekend. If we end up moving on into the later rounds of Chairman's, we'll have more presentations under our belts, be more comfortable in the judging room, and just have a better presentation, period.

[Wendy Holladay]

thanks for the replies. as i said, i am for this change. and the extra presentation practice cannot be overestimated. as to the feedback, our experience has been that the feedback gives actual tasks you should do, and therefore typically cannot be changed during the season, but gives you direction for the next one.

so am i to assume you would be in favor of making woodie flowers and dean's list also competitive at all regionals the team attends?

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Originally Posted by Wendy Holladay

so am i to assume you would be in favor of making woodie flowers and dean's list also competitive at all regionals the team attends?

Yes, and for the same reasons as Chairman's. My only concern would be that (as pointed out above for Chairman's), the judges would be even more overloaded than they are now.

Now that I think about it, there might be some drawbacks here. The judges would be stretched even further, and likely wouldn't have as much time to really deliberate and consider the pros and cons of 30+ individuals (and I bet it would be higher than 30 at some events). If they're spending more time talking with nominees and less time deliberating, something might get missed, and then someone very deserving loses out on an award.

Then again, someone probably made the same argument for the Chairman's decision. I'm in favor of the change, just worried about the judges' workload.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Wendy Holladay

thanks for the replies. as i said, i am for this change. and the extra presentation practice cannot be overestimated. as to the feedback, our experience has been that the feedback gives actual tasks you should do, and therefore typically cannot be changed during the season, but gives you direction for the next one.

so am i to assume you would be in favor of making woodie flowers and dean's list also competitive at all regionals the team attends?

I'm definitely pro this change. In Texas we have already had two well deserving teams win (624, 1477) that in previous years may have had some students discouraged from trying since they only had one chance and hadn't ever won before.

The home field is definitely gone. As Karthik said you used to have to pick which regional you submitted it. I know when we went to Bayou last year there was almost zero chance of us submitting against Combustion during Rachel's senior year. That just seemed like a really bad idea. They had a long streak going, experienced presenters and have done a ton of work in the state. If we get to go back to Bayou in the future (when it's not on the same weekend as Lone Star) we'll definitely be submitting.

We submitted at Dallas this year and the feedback was very helpful. We have been working on improving for Lone Star this weekend. Iteration is never a bad thing.

Expanding this to Dean's List and Woodie Flowers would be great but we need to find a good way to have multiple judge groups to deliberate between candidates. Something like video taping interviews and watching the top contenders together as entire group.

[waialua359]

When the new change was suggested to the HOF teams, I was a proponent of such a change and very glad they did.
There are TONS of great teams that do TONS of great things with their program, beyond robot build/competitions, in changing the culture of their community, State, and FIRST.

The new implemented changes will raise the bar at each event and the competitors that each team must face vs. each other. Teams that fail to win at their 1st event, will be even better at the next.

In the end, the winner at CMPS, will be the best FIRST has ever had, because the process forces teams to dig deeper and work even harder to earn the highest award in FIRST.

As I mentioned in another thread, I'd like to see FIRST award division CMPS Chairman's Awards. If FIRST truly believes that the RCA is the "highest" award a team can earn at any event, then why aren't we celebrating it with blue banners the same way we do with Robot competition winners?

*As a HOF team, we are not oblivious to the improvements that we see from teams across the World. This inspires us to continue to do more and more and more. While we are no longer preparing for RCA presentations, we do it in the form of other areas we never had the chance to do in the past in our pit. Examples include documentation of our Engineering Design process, revisit our business/sustainability plans, Outreach to our school community, and analyzing the impact the program has on our former students since we now have many graduates of our program.