Awards and Trophie alternative

[bEdhEd]

Originally Posted by BlueLipstick

Am I not correct in saying that manufacturing many different models of trophies and medals would cost more than manufacturing the one standard award style?

I'd have to agree, unless the funding for trophies per event was done independent of FIRST, as I stated with the possibility of having teams volunteer their time/donate materials for a single design for their local event.

But yes, a universal mass produced design for all of FRC is more economic, and isn't efficiency a big part of engineering?

[jvriezen]

Originally Posted by bEdhEd

I'd have to agree, unless the funding for trophies per event was done independent of FIRST, as I stated with the possibility of having teams volunteer their time/donate materials for a single design for their local event.

But yes, a universal mass produced design for all of FRC is more economic, and isn't efficiency a big part of engineering?

The original proposal had the benefit that FIRST didn't pay for the trophies (willing teams build them) and neither FIRST nor event planners had to do very much, other collect the trophies, get a group of willing team reps together to pick which ones to use, and get the unused ones back to the teams. Event staff would also have to affix FIRST provided brass plates to the chosen trophies.

Costs and manufacturing were 'crowd sourced' out to the teams so no one organization has to deal with anything substantial in volume. Anything that leads to a custom design to be mass produced will be worse than the status quo in terms of costs/logistics.

I would clarify the proposal so that district championships and CMP(s) would still have traditional FIRST provided awards. Or maybe this proposal would make sense only at district events and not regionals. Maybe a handful of district events or an entire single district would be a good place to 'pilot' something like this.

[waialua359]

There is already enough off-season events to have specialized, unique trophies.

The trophies being the same style and uniform at all regular FRC regionals, district competitions, and the Championship is fine as is.
If teams want more than 1 per award, they have the option to purchase them already.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by jvriezen

The original proposal had the benefit that FIRST didn't pay for the trophies (willing teams build them) and neither FIRST nor event planners had to do very much, other collect the trophies, get a group of willing team reps together to pick which ones to use, and get the unused ones back to the teams. Event staff would also have to affix FIRST provided brass plates to the chosen trophies.

The bold part is the first problem.

Let me put it this way: You're asking teams to volunteer to do something that a) might not be used, b) takes time, probably a lot of time, and c) has little or no benefit to the teams that do it. You're asking event staff to essentially do an extra round of judging to figure what's "good enough", AND then to figure out which of the "good enough" ones go to which award, AND do some assembly.

And then you run into the problem of teams NOT volunteering... which means you've got to make and ship the trophies anyways, just in case.


You're going to have to come up with a much better incentive for the teams to volunteer in the first place--for the vast majority of teams, it just isn't worth the attempt. (If you're thinking of requiring submission--the rookie teams and a fair number of veteran teams aren't going to be able to, no matter what you do.) And then I believe I hear the Judge Advisers and Volunteer Coordinators calling you--they want you to do the judging/assigning/assembling, something about they're shorthanded again. "Willing team reps" means, in most cases, "mandatory volunteering", which if you can probably guess really means that you get UNwilling team reps.



This proposal makes sense for precisely two places: Offseason events (which do their own awards anyway) and team-awarded peer awards (which individual teams decide to do, build, and do).


That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing a competition for trophy design, and having trophies MADE locally, if that could be arranged. Just not made by teams--leave that to the pros.

[Sperkowsky]

Not to mention isn't the most expensive part by far on First trophies the Brass plate?

[pmangels17]

HQ provided trophies sound good to me. Teams pay their registration fees directly to FIRST, and from what I understand, events don't get a lot of that money. So, frankly, I'd rather have my registration money fund my trophy than the event committee that's already trying to make ends meet.

[IKE]

What are thoughts on a "traveling Cup" style trophy? Think Stanley Cup style trophy.

[Knufire]

I'd be down for some nicely made anodized sheet metal trophies, a la VEX.