Share or not to share CA submissions

[Rich Wong]

Originally Posted by RoboMom007

I'm hoping to dig up this thread again as it's more appropriate for my questions than all the other threads I've been in. Thanks Rich, for directing me.

Now that the Chairman's Award entries are 4 page electronic submissions, it would be wonderful to have a central depository that everyone can visit to see the Regional winners. Team 103 is to be commended for being so open with what they have done and what they continue to do. But most of the winners don't have their entry posted on their site; in fact many don't have working web sites. Information is power. I want to know what is going on around the country and beyond. I would love to hear about the innovative things being done and get ideas about whether they would work in Baltimore. This award is all about being role models. I guess it could be voluntary, but why wouldn't you want to publicize what you have done?

RE: the issue of "copying" another teams submission, well, isn't that in fact what we are suppose to be doing? I'm only halfway joking. I think this is a non-issue.

I'm drafting a letter to FIRST, but would love to hear whether I'm totally off base here, before I send it.

(Wow… an old posting from the past which still rings true)

As a mentor of many, many NYC teams, I enjoy reading other FIRST team CA submissions (winners and non-winners) and I encourage each team to create a CA submission every year.

Reading CAs always brings a smile to me because the it truly convey the team’s spirit and their hard work, not the robots they build. (It’s not all about the BOT!)


CA submissions are amazing positive role models to other students. When I show teams the CA of Regional Winners, they immediately become inspired because now they have an example, a direction, and the motivation.

It would be a wonderful idea for FIRST to collect the CA Submissions (winners and non-winners) and add them to the Team booklets they give out at the events (obviously with the permission of the teams). HINT, HINT!



added: I 2nd on what Redhead said too!

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by Rich Wong

It would be a wonderful idea for FIRST to collect the CA Submissions (winners and non-winners) and add them to the Team booklets they give out at the events (obviously with the permission of the teams).

LOVE that idea!

[RoboMom]

The process of putting together a CA entry is also a exercise that holds so much value. As all the NASA grant teams know, this is a requirement for receiving $$. Last year, the students on the team that had no huge role, not the tool or engineering or PR types, but rather the ones who wanted to be involved, well, they put together an entry. And they amazed me. They had to learn about all the team and all the dimensions. The entry may not have been of winning quality but the exercise was well worth it and got this group engaged in the team.
This year, one of the students had an idea to ask various people for a paragraph about the team. And what came back was letter after letter letting the team know what an impact they were having. Talk about a boost! They ended up changing the entry and mostly just including the testimonials. Regardless the entry, these letters would never have come without the idea to use them for the CA. I am a huge believer in this process.
ps. Team 007's entry will be on our website soon!

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by RoboMom007

The process of putting together a CA entry is also a exercise that holds so much value. They had to learn about all the team and all the dimensions. The entry may not have been of winning quality but the exercise was well worth it and got this group engaged in the team.
This year, one of the students had an idea to ask various people for a paragraph about the team. And what came back was letter after letter letting the team know what an impact they were having. Talk about a boost! Team 007's entry will be on our website soon!

Yes, that's our experience. It concisely expresses what the team has done and is about - and helps new members understand more quickly what's going on.

A white paper by Mike McIntyre that helped guide me when our team began that journey. link

Looking forward to seeing your entry.

and post the link to your entry here

[Rich Wong]

Originally Posted by RoboMom007

The process of putting together a CA entry is also a exercise that holds so much value. As all the NASA grant teams know, this is a requirement for receiving $$. Last year, the students on the team that had no huge role, not the tool or engineering or PR types, but rather the ones who wanted to be involved, well, they put together an entry. And they amazed me. They had to learn about all the team and all the dimensions. The entry may not have been of winning quality but the exercise was well worth it and got this group engaged in the team.
This year, one of the students had an idea to ask various people for a paragraph about the team. And what came back was letter after letter letting the team know what an impact they were having. Talk about a boost! They ended up changing the entry and mostly just including the testimonials. Regardless the entry, these letters would never have come without the idea to use them for the CA. I am a huge believer in this process.
ps. Team 007's entry will be on our website soon!

That's a GOOD idea!
Another idea used by one of my team:

They took last year's CA submission, change it into a booklet (folded 17x11 paper) and mail them to all pass, present and future sponsors.
They reported POSITIVE feedback from their existing sponsors.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by Rich Wong

They took last year's CA submission, change it into a booklet (folded 17x11 paper) and mail them to all pass, present and future sponsors. They reported position feedback from their existing sponsors.

Our ca submission has been an excellent way to communicate from our pits too. I'm letting everyone know, our local Kinko's is very supportive of nonprofits. The 2x3 posters usually $149 ea were on sale for $89 each, but she gave it to me for $49, and those posters are our ca submission hanging in our pits. The posters are laminated, on core board, and Kinko's gave me stickers for the back of the boards allowing us to hang the boards in the pits with zip ties.



*puzzled* What's position feedback?

[Rich Wong]

Originally Posted by Redhead Jokes

Our ca submission has been an excellent way to communicate from our pits too. I'm letting everyone know, our local Kinko's is very supportive of nonprofits. The 2x3 posters usually $149 ea were on sale for $89 each, but she gave it to me for $49, and those posters are our ca submission hanging in our pits. The posters are laminated, on core board, and Kinko's gave me stickers for the back of the boards allowing us to hang the boards in the pits with zip ties.



*puzzled* What's position feedback?

OOPS! (spelling error or just fat fingers)

Positive sponsor feedbacks-
The sponsors didn't know that the teams did so much.
They are also passing it along to other companies that may want to sponsor a high school team of future engineers.
They feel that their money was well spent.
They are encouraging more of the senior staff to visit the regional.
Talk to the students.
They are proud to be associated with a team.
Sponsor Bragging Rights!

Best of all: They took us out for DINNER!

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by Rich Wong

The sponsors didn't know that the teams did so much.
They feel that their money was well spent.
They are encouraging more of the senior staff to visit the regional.
They are proud to be associated with a team.
Sponsor Bragging Rights!
Best of all: They took us out for DINNER!

I can imagine all that from our sponsors too. They want to keep sponsoring our team cuz they see our team helping to spread the program. It's helping other local big guns to realize they need to step up to the plate more, to see the possibilities, to put their heads up and consider funding for the local regional...

I think our heavy publicity helps them be informed, feel and do all of that except

*whine* Didn't take us out to dinner!

[Nate Edwards]

We are always into helping other teams any way we can. Last year we gave our winning submission on paper to the Chairman's Team of Team #847 PHRED. This year they won the Chairman's Award. Our Chairman's Award Submission should be on our site next week. It currently is on vacation when it comes back ill be sure to post it. We also have our winning submission from 2003 online at our website www.wahsrobotics.com so check that out if you want and ill be sure to update you on when this years is up.
Nate

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by Nate Edwards

Last year we gave our winning submission on paper to the Chairman's Team of Team #847 PHRED. This year they won the Chairman's Award. We also have our winning submission from 2003 online at our website

Go ahead and post your 2003 app on this thread

cuz the thread was started in 2003, and it can remain a repository for people trying to find others' apps.

[SlickChicFallen]

I would personally be honored if a team tried to emulate our submission on their team.

Sharing of CA submissions +++

[SlickChicFallen]

Originally Posted by Rich Wong

OOPS! (spelling error or just fat fingers)

Positive sponsor feedbacks-
The sponsors didn't know that the teams did so much.
They are also passing it along to other companies that may want to sponsor a high school team of future engineers.
They feel that their money was well spent.
They are encouraging more of the senior staff to visit the regional.
Talk to the students.
They are proud to be associated with a team.
Sponsor Bragging Rights!

Best of all: They took us out for DINNER!

Yeah, our team is turning our CA submission into a sponsor dealie too, hopefully to encourage current sponsors to keep sponsoring, and to invite new sponsors into the game. Wonderful experience.

[KathieK]

This was my first year mentoring our team's Chairman's Award committee. It was a HUGE amount of work. I wasn't sure what a winning entry should look like. We had some minor difficulties with the electronic process (we tried converting it from the latest version of Word to the version that was required and discovered that it doesn't keep compressed image files so the file was huge and had to be re-done).

I would like to know what the other entries looked like that we "competed" against (I don't even know what other teams submitted entries at our regional). I'd also like to see the entries shown on the video screens at the Regionals, like the animation awards entries were, or made available for viewing at the regional somewhere.

Although we did not win in our regional, we accomplished a lot just by going through the process. I would have liked to have been able to make a video of the presentation and interview process (we had three students make the presentation so I wasn't in the room) so we could critique it for next year. I wish there was time to actually meet with the judges afterwards to get more feedback - I know that's hard to do but we received two sentences of feedback and that's not much to go on for bringing the team to the level we want it to be at. I would like to see the winners' entries posted on the FIRST web site so we can emulate what they are doing that makes them worthy of winning this prestigious award!

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by KathieK

I would like to know what the other entries looked like that we "competed" against (I don't even know what other teams submitted entries at our regional). but we received two sentences of feedback and that's not much to go on for bringing the team to the level we want it to be at. I would like to see the winners' entries posted on the FIRST web site so we can emulate what they are doing that makes them worthy of winning this prestigious award!

One of the best ways to see the competing apps is to get the ball rolling and post yours here , hopefully others will follow.

judge feedback from our last year's chairman's app

IMO, delphi could post the winner's entries with the winner's cooperation.

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by Redhead Jokes

One of the best ways to see the competing apps is to get the ball rolling and post yours here , hopefully others will follow.

judge feedback from our last year's chairman's app

IMO, delphi could post the winner's entries with the winner's cooperation.

Cheryl, what a great idea. Thanks for offering to help me post Team 007 entry. I'll also try to have the students get it on our website soon.