Chairman's Award Iteration

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Red2486,

I'd be very interested to see this data. In general I'm curious to see how many RCA winners this year won at their first, second, or third event.

In addition, I'd be curious to see how many teams submitted at each event. I know this is a harder data point to capture, but perhaps if someone were to crowd source the data collection via a Google Doc, we could get a decent snapshot of submission rates.

125 won at #4

Iterated content and presentation based on feedback at all events.

[kmehta]

604 also submitted at two regionals, San Diego and Silicon Valley.

At SD, our feedback form was medium to high in the various categories. One thing that we got marked on low was our written submission, which we were concerned about since there was no way to improve upon that in between regionals. For SVR, we made modifications to our presentation based on some of the feedback we had gotten.

Our SVR feedback form was drastically different however. Everything was in the full category, including the written submission which had an exclamation mark after it. We're still confused about that since that was the only thing we didn't change in between regionals.

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by Karthik

In addition, I'd be curious to see how many teams submitted at each event. I know this is a harder data point to capture, but perhaps if someone were to crowd source the data collection via a Google Doc, we could get a decent snapshot of submission rates.

I made a Google doc for this data and started a new thread here as to not hijack this conversation about iteration between submissions.

Anyone willing to share data, please head over there with data and discussion on this point.

[safiq10]

The Devastators 2950 completed our very first Chairman award ever and we submitted at 2 different regionals. (Dallas and OKC) We lost both time but we learned a lot in between!

In dallas we did absolutely horrible, we showed our chairmans video and kinda rambled on for a few minutes... Our feedback sheet mainly was telling us that we shouldn't show the chairmans video and instead try a different approach. We did however get credit on our social media saying we are the most active team on twitter and facebook at the competition.

Then in OKC we learned from our mistakes and created a http://prezi.com/x_nk4qky5rj5/?utm_c...py&rc=ex0share (online presentation). We brought to laptops in and did a presented by giving one laptop to the judges that we controlled using the second laptop. It gave us a more organized approach. The judges told us we need to find more problems... I am going to take that as a win. Besides that we scored fairly well.

I attached our chairmans and linked towards our presentation. http://imgur.com/a/89idc

[Jacob Bendicksen]

We had a pretty interesting experience with iterations. After our presentation at Oregon City (first district), we got some minor feedback from the judges that wasn't too hard to fix for Wilsonville (the second district). However, at Wilsonville we got some...let's just say "constructive" feedback, and we realized that a total overhaul would be the only way to be competitive at OSU (our third and final district). We spent all of spring break rewriting the presentation, and the judges at OSU absolutely loved it - they said that they were surprised that we hadn't won earlier.

Going into district champs this weekend, I was cautiously optimistic about our chances - I knew we had a powerful presentation, but we had only done it once for judges. However, we talked with them about our process (one of them was a judge at Oregon City), and after we won this afternoon (still freaking out internally) one of them told me that our iterations were part of the reason that we won.

Probably the biggest lesson that we learned from all of this is that you have 10,000 characters and five minutes - you don't have to say the same things.

Also, while losing isn't fun (especially twice in a row), it makes you better. I believe that if we had won at Oregon City or even Wilsonville, we would not have won this afternoon. I know it's a bit too late for this season, but next year all of you should keep in mind: don't give up after the first event. It'll make you stronger.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by kmehta

604 also submitted at two regionals, San Diego and Silicon Valley.

At SD, our feedback form was medium to high in the various categories. One thing that we got marked on low was our written submission, which we were concerned about since there was no way to improve upon that in between regionals. For SVR, we made modifications to our presentation based on some of the feedback we had gotten.

Our SVR feedback form was drastically different however. Everything was in the full category, including the written submission which had an exclamation mark after it. We're still confused about that since that was the only thing we didn't change in between regionals.

We had an interesting experience with this as well. In San Antonio, the judges expressed concern that our executive summaries were bullet points that didn't give enough context to the impact. It was a critique we found curious because that is the way a number of teams try to efficiently pack their executive summaries. In Virginia, it was never mentioned negatively. When I see the exact quotes in front of me I can relay them here.

One thing the multiple submission thing has me wanting: can FIRST provide more uniform/in depth requirements for feedback and offer that feedback digitally through a typed document printed out and saved to the flash drive you submit a video with?