Chairman's Supplemental Materials?

[Riverdance]

We're looking to revamp our approach to the Chairman's Award. In the past, we've submitted along with our essays a scrapbook-y type binder with pictures from our season (which has since been abandoned because it was awful), a presentation board, news clippings, reference letters from our community contacts, and even a student-produced ÜberBots comic book to the judges along with our required materials. We feel, however, that something is missing somehow from our presentation and were wondering what others give to the judges to look over in order to supplement their submission?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Riverdance

We're looking to revamp our approach to the Chairman's Award. In the past, we've submitted along with our essays a scrapbook-y type binder with pictures from our season (which has since been abandoned because it was awful), a presentation board, news clippings, reference letters from our community contacts, and even a student-produced ÜberBots comic book to the judges along with our required materials. We feel, however, that something is missing somehow from our presentation and were wondering what others give to the judges to look over in order to supplement their submission?

I'm including a link to what 125 used this year. To us these are disposable and we don't expect them back from judges. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3R...R00/view?pli=1 All of this goes in a folder with our logo on it and is handed out. They're provided as a reference source only.

Putting on my other hat, remember to read what is judged for the award.

[Red2486]

I think one of the real challenges with providing supplemental materials for the judges is finding the line between an overwhelming amount of information and a helpful amount of information. That being said, here are a few things I know my teams/other teams have done:

-List of outreach events
-List of media mentions
-Newspaper cut out of articles about your team
-Calculation of hours spent volunteering/doing outreach/working
-Calculations behind large numbers in submission (i.e. teams mentored, # of people reached)
-Team member/community member testimonies/letters
-Scrapbooks
-Pictures
-Team infographic

Something that I think is important to remember is that you should provide enough evidence/support to cover anything in your submission, but you should point judges in the direction that you want them to go so they aren't overwhelmed. I find the simplest way to do this is simply sticky tabs or highlighting the most important things. However, I always tell my students that if they mention something in their presentation (i.e. a team written mentoring guide or curriculum) they should provide a paper version for the judges.

[Jacob Bendicksen]

We usually give the judges a nicely formatted copy of the essay/executive summary/photos (with our team fonts, etc.), buttons, stickers, and a program book. We put a decent amount of time into the program book - it ends up being ~30 pages of pictures and text, and it's a great way to give the judges a better idea of what we do. We actually put an identical book on the marketing kiosk in our pit so anyone can look through it.

Andrew does have a point, though - there's no guarantee that they'll look at the materials at all. I always half-jokingly say that the *thud* that the materials make when you set them down on the table is more important than the actual contents - if they're impressed by how big your binder is, then you're good.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Jacob Bendicksen

We usually give the judges a nicely formatted copy of the essay/executive summary/photos (with our team fonts, etc.), buttons, stickers, and a program book. We put a decent amount of time into the program book - it ends up being ~30 pages of pictures and text, and it's a great way to give the judges a better idea of what we do. We actually put an identical book on the marketing kiosk in our pit so anyone can look through it.

Andrew does have a point, though - there's no guarantee that they'll look at the materials at all. I always half-jokingly say that the *thud* that the materials make when you set them down on the table is more important than the actual contents - if they're impressed by how big your binder is, then you're good.

Big binders are like big trucks...

If you can't present your information quickly and easily perhaps that's something you should focus on. Judges don't have time to read 30 pages of fluff. Distill it down to the story you're trying to tell, the judges will thank you.

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by Riverdance

a scrapbook-y type binder with pictures from our season (which has since been abandoned because it was awful

I respectfully disagree that it was awful (at least the version of it I'm familiar with from a few years ago) - it even helped to win a Chairman's award back in 2010. I think it's nice for internal use too. However, fresh ideas are always a good thing.

[mathking]

We try to have a quick summary of accomplishments, initiatives and the like on one page. That is as much for the team as it is for the judges. A few years back we started an iBook which we published to the iTunes store. It has chapters for each season as well as for our outreach efforts overall, our off-season event, highlighting our alumni and other things. We are using it as a living document, updated each season. It helps us preserve and appreciate our history. We have a laptop and/or an iPad that the presentation team takes in to show the judges (and it allows them to browse) and we have one set up in the pit. As I said, this is as much for our team's benefit as for judges. We have a fairly large team and we have been doing FRC since 2003. So the iBook helps connect current members to the past.

[MysterE]

Hello all -

I like to think of everything in terms of Chairman's Award as a pyramid. We give them stages of information and allow them to choose what they want to use.

At our first stage is our giant binder with the following:
A) Chairman's Information (Essay, Exec Summary, Script of Presentation)
B) Member, Alumni, Mentor, and Alumni Reports. These are both a one page pictogram showing growth and the like as well as in the case of members, alumni, and mentors; individual write ups about each member.
C) Event Summary Reports: A writeup and image from every event we've ever done. If something is multi-year we generally use one summary to talk about it unless there has been growth between.
D) Media and Social Media Report - Infographics that show our media growth and social media growth year by year.
E) Media Summary - Includes every news article, online writeup, company publication . . . you get the idea.
F) Letters of Recommendation - We try to get Letters of Rec. from various people from a wide variety of places (Our School, School Board, State Boards, Companies, Etc.)
G) Appendix - Includes any proclamations or supporting data that we may have.

The next level is our Judge Packet

This is a much simpler packet that generally follows our theme for the year. It generally summarizes the above information in 3 to 5 pages as well as includes the Chairman's Info.

The final level is our Swag

This is always a gift that directly relates to our theme. This year it was a 3d printed stack of totes, last year we didn't really have one. The year before last we used the seed of Giant Red Oaks. They are as small as a grain of sand.


Anyway, hope this helps :-)

[Rameesha]

FIRST Team 1241 offers assistance to teams in all aspects of FIRST including FRC awards. If you contact us at rhssrobotics@hotmail.com we would love to help!

[AJCaliciuri]

Team 1305 puts together an Information package, mainly for Judges, but are also handed out to sponsors and members of the public, including a few different items:

• Chairman’s Photo (Photo of Presentation Team)
  
• Chairman’s Essay
  
• Chairman’s Script
  
• Dean’s List Essay 1 & 2
  
• Woodie Flowers Essay
  
• Team History
  
• Executive Summary
  
• Team Structure (Hierarchy)
  
• Team Poster (of all of our Members and Mentors)
  
• Business Plan

In addition, we also put together a few seperate booklets & binders:

• Our Annual Chronicle (Gives a complete rundown of what we've been up to all year)
• Alumni Testimonials
• Book of Etiquette (Training tool for our new members on how to act at competition, outreach events etc)

Sometimes, we'll make additional material on a year to year basis, following the theme for our Chairman's Presentation

[Riverdance]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

I respectfully disagree that it was awful (at least the version of it I'm familiar with from a few years ago) - it even helped to win a Chairman's award back in 2010. I think it's nice for internal use too. However, fresh ideas are always a good thing.

I didn't necessarily mean awful like quality wise it would just have required a lot of updating to use for the present team. It was ultimately decided that it would have been too much work to scrapbook the entire thing over, though we did consider doing a similar thing over again.

[cadandcookies]

After the 2014 season I posted the "scrapbook" that we created for Chairman's that season. I would probably do a few things differently if given the chance, but I think it turned out looking pretty nice and conveying a lot of important information. You can find it here. If you have any questions or would like some of the source graphics, I'm always willing to talk Chairman's!

I believe the most important thing about what you're giving to the judges, both in physical form (books, swag, whatever) and verbally is that you need to have been passionate about creating it and it needs to tie back to the core of the Chairman's Award-- creating a measurable impact. So do what feels right for your team-- we created that book because another senior and I wanted to put a lot of work into that.