Template for working on 2005 Yearbook

[dhitchco]

One of the things each team has to do is to fill-in the yearbook pages via the TIMS system.

In the process of getting all the info together, I thought it would be good to have a "fill-in-the-blank" template to pass-around to get team concensus.

It's in the white paper section of the forum HERE and can be downloaded directly as an EXCEL spreadsheet HERE

[Jessica Boucher]

This is a great idea. Good job!

Also....now, I've never had to fill one of these out before, but..."Percent of School (not just team) Students Receiving Free or Reduced Lunch"...is that new? That's an interesting statistic to be gathering on FIRST's part.

[RoboMom]

not new at all.
The process of gathering all this information for teams is crucial for most grant proposals.
NCES keeps these stats, by school, in a database. I can't remember what this acronym stands for.

[Gary Dillard]

Thanks for the template - it was very useful. One question though - for the yearbook pages it says 4 lines, versus 500 characters for each of the Executive Summary boxes; is there anyway to print out the input from the TIMS website to see what it will look like, or does anyone have the character count per printed line? We used this excel sheet before logging on and I thought the boxes represented the 4 lines, but they're not the same. Once we had typed it and saved it, I could tell it put in carriage returns at certain places, so I'm thinking that maybe we have more room to write.

[KathieK]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

One question though - for the yearbook pages it says 4 lines, versus 500 characters for each of the Executive Summary boxes; is there anyway to print out the input from the TIMS website to see what it will look like, or does anyone have the character count per printed line?

We are struggling with the same issue. We have long sponsor names, for example, and have no idea what will be shortened since we can't see how the page will print out. Our team leader was supposed to be calling FIRST about it earlier in the week; I will post later after I speak with him.

[Gary Dillard]

I just submitted a question to FIRST under section 1.14 (yearbook pages), ID 1576

Q: The TIMS yearbook page essay section mentions 4 lines limit per field; how many characters per line, or is there a way to view how the output will look?

[dhitchco]

Gary,
thanks for submitting a "clarifying" question re: the actual length of the responses for the yearbook. I have NOT seen what the "finished" document looks like.

I did model my spreadsheet template off of the screen captures from the TIMS system.

So, they state "line count" and not discreet character count for the yearbook submission. My guess is that this is designed to fit on one page when formatted.

The Chairman's Award submission has definite rules about character count...

[Gary Dillard]

ID: 1576 Section: 1.14 Status: Answered Date Answered: 2/11/2005
Q: The TIMS yearbook page essay section mentions 4 lines limit per field; how many characters per line, or is there a way to view how the output will look?

A: There is no way to view the output of the page. Please try to keep answers somewhat brief. If some answers are longer than 4 lines, make sure that others are shorter, so that the total text of all essay answers will balance out to fit the printed page used by the Judges.


ID: 1588 Section: 1.14 Status: Unanswered Date Posted: 2/11/2005
Q: #1576 you missed the point of the question. How do I know if my answer is longer than 4 lines if I don't know how many characters per line? Is it just the 4 line space in the box on the webpage? That seems REALLY brief.

[RoboMom]

These are meant to be brief and fit on one page, easy to be flipped thru by judges. Do some creative abbreviations. Try to keep to 4 lines. If one box has 6 lines, make another 2. If you have a point you really want to emphasize, make sure it gets in your chairman's entry. or your interview.

[Gary Dillard]

yeah, but.....

The template that dhitchco created fit on one page, and I can fit alot more info than I can on the website page at 40 characters per line, especially with everything wrapping around.

I created the writeup originally in excel in the template from this thread in the whitepapers (unofficial as it says) so it fit on the 4 lines. If I cut and paste my writeup into the yearbook page online it takes about 6 lines, sometimes more depending on the size of the last word. If I paste the same info into a word document, Times New Roman, font 12, 1 inch margins, it takes up only 2-1/2 lines.

If the yearbook page 40 character format is what we get, we'll make it fit. But I can say alot more in 400 characters (4 lines in Word) than 150 characters (4 lines online). I don't need to be told how to do it - "make it fit, be brief, etc." - I can figure that out myself. I want to be told the requirement - "4, XX character lines" so I can make my own determination as to what I want to fit in there.

[dhitchco]

Hi Gary,
as the "designer" of the template for my team to use, I too, have been somewhat burned by the fact that the actual online TIMS yearbook "blanks" can't hold as much info as my template.....so, sorry if I mis-lead anyone.

I agree with the others that we're going to a) cut-down and rely on the other award entires and b) use some sort of common 2005-lingo for abbreviations. How about we start an "unofficial" 2005 acronym list:

a) TPG stands for "triple play game" not "toilet paper gathering"
b) TTA stands for "three-team alliance" not "terrible tetra attack"
c) RTSPA stands for "rookie team seeks professional advice"
You can come up with others.....

[KathieK]

I agree that the "4 lines" is misleading in that the box to type the information into is very narrow. I'm thankful that the awards criteria is measured by characters.

[Gary Dillard]

Still no answer on my followup question - I'm going to call tomorrow.

Did anyone see their Judges' yearbook page last year (the copy the judges got)? - looks like they had the same questions. Were the 4 lines full page width, or were they in smaller spaces, like half column, closer to the 40 characters on the webpage?

[Gary Dillard]

Just got off the phone with FIRST - here's the scoop (they hope to have an answer posted this afternoon).

Her original response was based on their understanding that there is alot of information crammed onto the yearbook page, and that the 4, 40 character lines on the TIMS website is what actually gets printed. After some further discussions, she is meeting with the I.T. group this morning to try to find out what format actually gets printed out. She said alot of teams in the past have used bulleted lists rather than paragraphs so the 4 line limit was based on that.

Unless the official response makes some significant change to the allocation, our plan is to reduce our write up to 4, 40 character lines and then expand from there if we get some relief.

I hp we dnt nd to abrv 2 mch that wd sck

[Gary Dillard]

Q: #1576 you missed the point of the question. How do I know if my answer is longer than 4 lines if I don't know how many characters per line? Is it just the 4 line space in the box on the webpage? That seems REALLY brief.

A: Yes, the spaces that you see available in the essay section of the Judges Info tab in your TIMS record are approximately the same size that will be seen when printed in the Yearbook page.