2016 Minnesota State Champs

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

It changes a lot for those 8 teams (you knew that was coming).

Yes, but overall it doesn't change that much. Most teams that submit for Chairman's at a competitive level also have a competitive robot. So most of the teams that will qualify based off of robot performance will also qualify even if we don't include points for Chairman's. There will always be a few teams around the cutoff point that would change the ranking order no matter if we included Chairman's points or not.

FIRST is more than robots, that much is clear in the Vision and Mission Statement of FIRST. The extra points given to teams that submit for the award shows that we, as a State, support this Vision and Mission. If we want solely a robot competition, why don't we take away all points from non-technical awards and not auto-advance when a team wins Chairman's?

One other personal note about Chairman's being apart of the qualification for the MSHSL State Championship. The FTC State Championship was hosted in Bloomington this past year for a charge of $800 in custodial overtime fees. At the end of the year, the FRC team was contacted and told that they would need to pay $7000+ if they ever ran the FTC State Championship in the school again because the FRC team didn't participate. The FRC team was told that fundraising was not a valid way of participating, nor was volunteering. They were required to compete as a FRC team and host the event (which doesn't make any sense but I digress) I sent multiple emails on behalf of the team to support them in their outreach. I've quoted a portion of one of my emails below;

Typically with a sports team you participate in your events in order to advance to the next level/improve your record for a better position in playoffs. The end goal being qualifying for the MSHSL state tournament to represent your school and hopefully bring home a trophy, much like the Kennedy robotics team did back in 2012.

With robotics, there are a lot of similarities but also some differences. I'd like to bring to your attention the MSHSL ranking criteria for the 2016 FIRST robotics season, specifically the information regarding the Chairman's Award. Both the MN FIRST and MSHSL committees have elected to make the Chairman's award part of the qualification process for the MSHSL state championship (both (Coach A) and (Coach B) can attest to this) and an important part of the Chairman's award are the events we hosted this year and in years past. I'd like to explain a little more about the Chairman's award at this point, I've taken the paragraph below directly out of Section 6 of the 2016 FIRST Robotics Competition Admin Manual.

"The Chairman’s Award is the most prestigious award at FIRST, it honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST. It was created to keep the central focus of FIRST Robotics Competition on the ultimate goal of transforming the culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honor for science and technology, as well as encouraging more of today’s youth to become scientists, engineers, and technologists."

That is just a general overview of the award, however the criteria for the award state that you need to expand your efforts to include FIRST Lego League Junior, FIRST Lego League and FIRST Tech Challenge teams in order to create a full K-12 program. The events we hosted in Bloomington this year included over 10 teams with Bloomington students participating from K-12. In fact, over the past 3 years we have increased the number of FIRST Lego League teams in Bloomington from 1 to 9 teams this year at the direction of (Superintendent). Without a Bloomington event, the teams from the district would need to travel to other districts in order to compete, creating transportation issues for families who's students cannot afford it. One of the objective's (Superintendent) gave us was to increase the diversity of students participating and well as get more females involved in STEM activities.

Back to the topic at hand, why do I bring up the MSHSL state championship and the Chairman's Award? The events hosted in Bloomington go a long way to winning the Chairman's award, which is in addition to the fundraising it provides. The students on each team have to write an essay about their outreach efforts in their area as well as give a presentation at the regional competitions on the topic. In turn, this shows that the students on each team participate in the events in order to advance to the MSHSL State Championship, just like any sports team. Just because the team doesn't compete with their robot, doesn't mean they don't participate, which is different from the standard sports model. However, I am more than happy to provide examples or further clarifications at request.

The response I received from the District on this wasn't what I had been hoping for, but this goes to show that providing points for the Chairman's Award can go beyond just getting a team into the MSHSL State Championship.