Importance of the Rookie Chairman's

[Barry Bonzack]

I would like to start this thread stating why it is important for every rookie team to submit a Chairman's Award application. Even though it is not possible for a rookie team to actually win the Chairman's Award, there are still many reason to encourage rookie teams to submit this essay anyway. Sure it helps the judges pick the Rookie All-Star award which grants a seed into the Championship Event, but there are many reasons to submit an essay other than award possibilities.

The Chairman's Award is a way to keep a history of the team up to the very beginning. This will be useful to one's team even after the freshman on it have all graduated. Be sure to document all the team does to make the community aware of its new existence, and all of the partnerships the team has formed. How many Vet teams here on their Chairman's Award team are having trouble researching their team's history all the way back to their rookie year? Even if a team doesn't submit an essay, or doesn't submit one in future years, be sure to have some way to record the history for future years some how. One day the team will be able to look back and realize just how far they have come from their first year. I am able to look back and see how far my team has come even from 1604's first day.

The Chairman's Award puts the focus on the true meaning of FIRST. FIRST is not about the robotics competition, but how the team communicates their efforts with their community, shows gracious professionalism, and how the team recruits students into science and engineering. Many times it is hard for first year students to understand how this is not battling robots, and how its not about the robot at all. The Chairman's Award is the real competition of FIRST, the robotic competitions are just a nice entertaining sideshow while the judging process is going on.

If others have anything they would like to add, please join me in encouraging other rookie teams to submit a Chairman's application.