What does the Chairman’s Award have to do with a robot contest?

[Bill Enslen]

OK, Nate, how would you propose to settle the eventual discussion about which robot was the National Champion, if there were two National Events?
My reasoning for FIRST to pick up the travel costs of the National Champion competition teams and their pit crews was that by the time a team finishes competing in Nationals, their budget is totally spent. The cost of 72 team members (12 from each of the six National Champion teams) would be less than $75,000, assuming a sufficient amount of time elapsed between Nationals and the Super-National. With FIRST having a surplus of $800,000 last year, that amount could easily be absorbed.
An alternative could be to stage the Super-National from the previous year at one of the two Nationals the following year. Any takers on that one?

[AdamT]

I'm not sure about that one either....

As much work that is put into these robots, most of them won't last any longer then 75 rounds. I know that by the time our competitions are over, and we finish doing all of our PR work with taking the robot around and doing demonstrations, the robot only works at about 25-50% efficiency in comparison to the robot at it's best.

I know that our team isn't a national winning team...yet...but I'm not sure that even all of the national winning teams could have their robot last that long if they go through what teams like ours do.

Maybe we just are rough on our robot....

But this isn't the point. I think that part of the fun of a national competition is getting to see all the teams, east coast AND west. I would be sad to see this opportunity be lost because of a successful program...

[Bill Enslen]

Adam, You make a very good point regarding the robots' ability to function at peak form past the Nationals.
In another thread, someone from the Detroit / Pontiac Michigan area suggested using the Silverdome for the National Competition. Perhaps we should be looking for a site that can accomodate all the teams that want to attend, and keep it to a single event.
Nate, what do you think about moving the event away from Disney?

[Amy Beth]

Originally posted by Bill Enslen
Adam, You make a very good point regarding the robots' ability to function at peak form past the Nationals.
In another thread, someone from the Detroit / Pontiac Michigan area suggested using the Silverdome for the National Competition. Perhaps we should be looking for a site that can accomodate all the teams that want to attend, and keep it to a single event.
Nate, what do you think about moving the event away from Disney?

I would have no problem with moving the event to a larger locale, but the fact remains that FIRST wil always continue to grow. When FIRST has come to every highschool in the ocuntry, do you still propose that we attempt to find an arena big enough? It will never work, Bill. There is no way that every team can continue to compete agains every other team in the country, so we may as well try to find a solution now, IMNSHO

[Bill Enslen]

Amy,
What we are seeing this year is FIRST's first attempt at keeping the National competition a single event while limiting the size of the event. What I believe FIRST was trying to do is to allow every team the opportunity to experience the National Competition and also have the best robots from the Regional Events be there. That isn't working out so well this year, as at least one Regional Champion team (157) doesn't have the money to go to National.
I know it would increase the cost of participation for every team, but perhaps the "prize" for winning a Regional would be for FIRST to pick up the costs for sending a 12-member competition team and pit crew to National. This would ensure that all of the Regional winners were able to compete at Nationals. For some teams (not ours) this would be a the only way they could ever hope to go to National, because they simply don't have the funds to travel. There are some very good teams out there with very limited funding.
Those are my ideas. Others are free to (and will) disagree.
Bill

[Shawn60]

In my opinion it is not about the robot contest at all. It is about building people, creating relationships, and helping others. Of the many different areas that a team can get involved in, the actual competion is not even in the top 5 of importance on my team. Don't get me wrong. We love the building and the competition but it is not the primary reason we come back year after year. It IS about the Chairman's Award.

Shawn Hardina
Teacher
Team 60

[Eric Bareiss]

I think you guys are interpreting the question wrong first off. I think that we all know that this isn't just about robots, that should be a given, no one even has to say it.

That having been said, Ed brings up a good point, that most of you missed. The robotics portion of FIRST is simply a means to an end. Unfortunately the means has little to do with the ends. Robots being the means and learning how to be team players being the ends.

What Ed is asking is why do we reward teams who do outstanding non-robotics things, with a robotics related reward? If you got straight A's in high school they give you a scholarship, they don't put you on the football team.

[Koko Ed]

Many people who question the vadality of the Chairman's award, probably have never had anything to do with the award and probably mostly dealt with the construction of the robot mostly. So obviously they see the reward as absolutely an overrated aspect to the game or even perhaps as unecessary btu it is a real part of FIRST even if they have done a poor job of incorporating it into the fabric of the competitions til the reward ceremonies (how exciting is reading a four page essay in the middle of a competition?).
The best example of the Chairman's award in practice is what the Technocats did last season in CHicago gave team 909 one of their extra robots, which had a robot with a non-working drive base and they as a team decided to assist this other team. Not only did they give them the robot but thier choice actually cost them a match as they lost to their own robot. Such self-sacrafice is the true spirit of FIRST.
Now not every team will do it and not every team is expected to do it and there are some teams in FIRST who may look upon this action from confusion to contempt to disgust and wonder why help others when they are down. It is competition after all and the point is to win. But to simply look at FIRST in the aspect of wins and losses is just to make FIRSt a sport. Nothing more and nothing less. If that's all Dean aims for then why bother having the kids involved. Just put the task to the engineers and let 'em rip.
Every team that has won the Chairman's award is a model FIRST team that is a great influence on the landscape of the FIRSt community regaurdless of whether or not they build good robots year in and year out should be respected for who they are not questioned for why they are at the championship, taking up a free spot from a" more deserving" team that's good at building robots.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Many people who question the vadality of the Chairman's award, probably have never had anything to do with the award and probably mostly dealt with the construction of the robot mostly. Technocats did last season in CHicago gave team 909 one of their extra robots, which had a robot with a non-working drive base and they as a team decided to assist this other team. Not only did they give them the robot but thier choice actually cost them a match as they lost to their own robot. Such self-sacrafice is the true spirit of FIRST.

True words.

Last year our mentor LeRoy found himself to his surprise free from needing to help with our robot. So on his own he looked up the bottom 5 teams, and checked if they needed help. He ended up asking 10 bottom teams, and 1/2 wanted help. He wasn't even letting anyone on our team know. I found out. I followed up learning what LeRoy was doing, the results, and I'm the one always bragging about what he did - he keeps it low key.

One of the teams he helped with a problem that we'd been having had won no matches at So Cal Regional then he solved a problem for them.

Their next match was against us and they won.

D'oh! I went and gave that rookie mentor a hard (j/k) time about that. We had a great time and LeRoy's task has become a tradition for us now - check the bottom teams.


I've been asked yet again by newer mentors/students, why spend time on the crate, why spend time on the mythology of our team... I rediscovered a paper yesterday at the shop that I'd found online when we began the journey to the Chairman's Award. This is the paper that helped guide me. My copy of this paper had paint on it, I had some trouble making out some words, and I had to retype it to post on our web.

fyi, the #'s he mentions in the article are team numbers.


Why go for the Chairman's Award?

[Rich Wong]

Originally Posted by Redhead Jokes

True words.

fyi, the #'s he mentions in the article are team numbers.


Why go for the Chairman's Award?

This is great!
Thanks for sharing the document, I'm forwarding to all the team I'm associated with at NYC. It will help my effort in getting more teams
to add Chairman's submission to their FIRST work.

[Denman]

I see a problem with them making the chairmans award regional, it makes it not as nearly as much prestigious as it was. We used to believe that winning the chairmans award would be much better than the actual competition, but if its now spread out accross however many regionals there are, it just doesn't make it as wanted as before.
We have spent a lot of time this year trying to make a decent "portfolio" for it and have held days with things like robot wars people in and various other bits.

[Aignam]

The Chairman's Award is given out regionally, then the regional winners are again judged at nationals to determine a National Chairman's Award winner, making it just as prestigious, if not more prestigious, as ever.

[Sally]

I most sincerely apologise for the behaviour of Denman. 759 regard the chairman's award as really prestigious as it's the one which really embodies the spirit of FIRST. I'd also like to point out that we most certainly have NOT been building up a "portfolio" for this. We've been doing work in the community because we want to and we want to spread the word of FIRST and FLL throughout the UK. That, and we've really really enjoyed all the activities we've participated in this year
I'm quite hurt that a not very active member of the team (who isn't an operator btw either..) has come on here and posted that sort of thing, I hope everybody hasn't been given a bad impression of our team, we're all very nice really

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by Denman

I see a problem with them making the chairmans award regional, it makes it not as nearly as much prestigious as it was. We used to believe that winning the chairmans award would be much better than the actual competition, but if its now spread out accross however many regionals there are, it just doesn't make it as wanted as before.

*rhetorical* Not as wanted? IMO the point is wanting chairman like behavior spread out across many regionals, and that there are so many teams out there, winning regionally helps narrow the field at nationals.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by Sally

I most sincerely apologise for the behaviour of Denman. I'd also like to point out that we most certainly have NOT been building up a "portfolio" for this. We've been doing work in the community because we want to and we want to spread the word of FIRST and FLL throughout the UK. That, and we've really really enjoyed all the activities we've participated in this year
I'm quite hurt that a not very active member of the team (who isn't an operator btw either..) has come on here and posted that sort of thing, I hope everybody hasn't been given a bad impression of our team, we're all very nice really

I hope you have been building a portfolio. I don't see anything wrong with that. The process of building documentation of all your team's doing with the intention of a chairman's award application helps focus on chairman like behavior.

All teams have less than active members who aren't operators, and who don't quite get the concept of the chairman's award. They are in process too.

I can't imagine a team with only less than active members who aren't operators, so I don't assume the whole team has the same opinion as one member.

Hope to see you at nationals. Intrigued and tickled to hear you guys are working hard at spreading the FIRST program in UK. We are always rooting for our international members, and dreaming of some day attending a regional overseas.