Does FIRST give out too many awards? (Opinion)

[Cory]

Originally Posted by tiffany34990

it though seems harder every years to get like the chairmans especially for rookie teams competing against veteran teams who have been trying for year to win this award.

Rookies aren't even eligible for chairman's. Rookie Inspiration is their equivalent.

[richardp]

Originally Posted by santosh

The chairman's award is basd on what you do that year. It isn't cummulative.

The chairmans award is based upon the continuing of excellence meaning in order to show that then you have to bring up stuff from prior years. It is about more than just one years worth of work. It is for that very reason that rookies can submit but can't win it! So many more things wrong with that statement that I wont go into.....

As far as the awards go the judges award exists to give a team that deserves the award an award even though the categories don't fit. In my opinion if categories don't work make them by increasing the awards. I have never seen a team unhappy because they won an award. So many people put in a lot of hard work and unfortunately aren't always given credit for their work. I think that their are not too many awards.

[Not2B]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

I imagine it must really wear on teams without fancy machine shops and corporate sponsors that slug it out and come back year after year on sheer determination.

It does. Oh well. (And we don't even have it that bad...)

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I actually wish FIRST would bring back some of the old awards they cancelled.
They're fun. This is still about fun. Remember that.
Methinks we take ourselves a little too seriously.

Heck yes! They are fun, silly awards. I'm giving one of the students on our team a gallon jug of goldfish crackers this year at our team party - because his nickname is goldfish. The goldfish award. Everyone wins with fun awards.

[richardp]

Originally Posted by Not2B

It does. Oh well. (And we don't even have it that bad...)



Heck yes! They are fun, silly awards. I'm giving one of the students on our team a gallon jug of goldfish crackers this year at our team party - because his nickname is goldfish. The goldfish award. Everyone wins with fun awards.

If FIRST gets a national silliness award can we please call it the Dave Lavery award?

[Ryan Foley]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I actually wish FIRST would bring back some of the old awards they cancelled.
They're fun. This is still about fun. Remember that.
Methinks we take ourselves a little too seriously.

I agree. The "play of the day" and similar awards were the only ones to recognize good strategy, none of the current awards do that. Honestly, there are a lot of awards, but I have to agree with Andy, it's better to have more awards for many teams. If you only had a few awards for a few teams, all the other teams would have a hard time making a name for themselves. Plus, having an award under your belt helps teams get more support, which is vital. Kevin also makes a good point, more awards = more happy people per regional.

[Kris Verdeyen]

Originally Posted by Cory

I also don't think that the amount of awards in any way degrades the value of the winner's awards.

Seems like it would - a National Creativity (or Quality, or Chairman's) award, of which there is only one, is worth a heck of a lot more than a regional Creativity (or Quality, or Chairman's) award, of which there are many. Similarly, I'd feel more proud of a robot that won a robot award at a large regional than I would of one that won at a small regional, at least in retrospect. At the regional itself, I'd most likely just be pumped. Of course, all I ever go to is small regionals, so I really wouldn't know.

As far as the rest of this issue goes, I'd have to say that I don't think we have too many awards unless we can't figure out what to base the award on. If, when we carefully define the parameters for an award, we discover that there's another award that's awfully close to it, perhaps we should decide to scrap or change one or the other.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Kris Verdeyen

Seems like it would - a National Creativity (or Quality, or Chairman's) award, of which there is only one, is worth a heck of a lot more than a regional Creativity (or Quality, or Chairman's) award, of which there are many. Similarly, I'd feel more proud of a robot that won a robot award at a large regional than I would of one that won at a small regional, at least in retrospect. At the regional itself, I'd most likely just be pumped. Of course, all I ever go to is small regionals, so I really wouldn't know.

As far as the rest of this issue goes, I'd have to say that I don't think we have too many awards unless we can't figure out what to base the award on. If, when we carefully define the parameters for an award, we discover that there's another award that's awfully close to it, perhaps we should decide to scrap or change one or the other.

Obviously awards won at nationals are going to be more valuable to a team than the same award at a regional.

I meant that if I win xx award at regional xyz, the fact that 20something odd other teams also won an award really wouldn't take away from the fact that I won an award.

[KathieK]

I applaud Jonathan for stating his opinion and clearly marking it as such.

Everyone likes to win awards; they validate what you've worked hard for all year. Our media, school systems and sponsors value winning awards. As much as we try to show the true impact of the program on its participants, the culture here in the US (can't speak about other locations) is very focused on winning.

Veteran "have" teams may or may not have an advantage over "have not" teams. But most teams start the same way - with a humble beginning. And most veteran teams are willing to share their knowledge and assets with other teams.

And I think it's wonderful when peer teams give out awards to other teams... we value those as much as the fancy ones from FIRST.

[KathieK]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

This is still about fun. Remember that.
Methinks we take ourselves a little too seriously.

I would like to see an award for mentor that most embraces the "fun" side of the FIRST program at competitions - and I can think of a few mentors who would be in the running!

[nobrakes8]

I dont think FIRST gives out too many awards. I think FIRST relys on judges a little too much though. The judges are very fair people and should be in charge of giving out the majority of awards, but we don't have any awards for play on the field.

This year my team didn't really have anything special on the robot, website was average, we didn't put in for the chairman's award, so it was like we weren't really going to be judged well for anything.

If they had a best defensive robot, best play of the day, etc.. where maybe our peers voted from other teams or the refs could vote on would make the awards more well rounded.

I think every year theres a robot like my team's that just competes extremely well but has nothing special and unfortunatly walks away empty handed. I'd love to see FIRST leave it up to our peers and mentors on other teams to vote on the team they think should get the play of the day, just like in Beantown.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by nobrakes8

I dont think FIRST gives out too many awards. I think FIRST relys on judges a little too much though. The judges are very fair people and should be in charge of giving out the majority of awards, but we don't have any awards for play on the field.

This year my team didn't really have anything special on the robot, website was average, we didn't put in for the chairman's award, so it was like we weren't really going to be judged well for anything.

If they had a best defensive robot, best play of the day, etc.. where maybe our peers voted from other teams or the refs could vote on would make the awards more well rounded.

I think every year theres a robot like my team's that just competes extremely well but has nothing special and unfortunatly walks away empty handed. I'd love to see FIRST leave it up to our peers and mentors on other teams to vote on the team they think should get the play of the day, just like in Beantown.

That would be what the regional champion and finalist awards are...

I would not want to see an award in which team members, or any non judges could vote for. It isn't a good way to get a non biased response.

Referees cannot be counted on to remember specific "plays" by an individual team after witnessing 100 matches.

It's not FIRST's fault you didn't submit for the other awards.

[shyra1353]

I think that there should be a limit for the amount of awards a team can win per regional. Yes, I understand that some teams deserve 5 or more of those awards at one competition, but after they have won a couple awards. We get it. That team is outstanding. How about another team that did amazing too? I am also glad that teams took themselves out of the running for awards if they had previously won them at a different regional.

Yes, there are a lot of awards for robots. A team may have worked their butts off to come up with a robot for ship date, and then gone to competition, and have it not work. But it has been said over and over. FIRST is not about the robots. It is about the people. And that team learned something along the way. Next year, they will be a lot better off and each team member will take away something important.

I think rookie awards are a necessity. They keep the teams motivated. And even though they start the season thinking they aren’t as good as the veterans, they try their hardest because they think that they still have a chance at an award that the veterans don’t. At the end of the year, they may not get one of those 3 awards, but they know that the next year they won’t have a “special status” for those awards and they know what they have to do in order to win one of the awards all teams are eligible for.

As far as participation medals go, I completely disagree with you. Each team pours their heart and soul into building a robot for this competition. Sure they don’t win. Sure they don’t get any awards. But, they dedicated their time and effort, and whether they realize it or not, FIRST had some sort of impact on them. For some, they now want to go into engineering. For others, they may have made a new friend.
“A ribbon for 10th place. I didn’t know they celebrated mediocrity” – Meet the Fockers
Being involved in FIRST is a extremely hard as it is. It is not a mediocre task. To some teams, winning a regional, is completely out of the question. Yet, they return next year because they know it’s still worth it.

[Termite233]

though i do like the idea that everybody should get recognition for working so hard...i do see the point about there being too many awards (not saying i agree). i understand that some may feel with so many awards they have less meaning. if you know that every single team were to get an award at competition would it mean as much to you? probably not. we all love recognition and we all deserve it. but having so many awards can take away a certain quality to the awards that makes them more special and have more significance.

again i am not saying i agree there are too many awards. i think it's just right. i don't think there should be any more or any less. i am just saying i understand both points of view.

[petek]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

I imagine it must really wear on teams without fancy machine shops and corporate sponsors that slug it out and come back year after year on sheer determination.

There are quite a number of teams* which lack machine shops and big sponsors who really enjoy "slugging it out" year after year. I'm pretty certain one of the reasons they do it is for the chance to take home one of the many awards - not necessarily for the award itself, but for the juice it puts back in the team when they get one.

Maybe I haven't been watching closely enough, but it seems to me that those that put the effort into it generally get rewarded eventually. Granted, there is a degree of luck, or of being in the right place at the right time with the right presentation given by the right presenters for some of these judged awards.

There are some problem areas, like giving a regional Volunteer of the Year award to an institution, rather than an individual volunteer, and there are a number of very deserved teams which keep coming up just short of the Chairman's, but I don't think that limiting the number of awards, or the number a team can receive will change that.

* Going off on a tangent: Cybersonics has a machine shop - vintage 1950 or 1960 for the most part (though I suspect the drill press dates from the Civil War). We do not have any big corporate sponsors. Even so, this rural team has earned a large number of awards over the years, and though we did grab the brass ring in 2003, we still bust our tails to earn little ones - it's what we do.

FWIW, in robot manufacturing we have five mentors who are there most of the time - one BSEE and one ASEE - the rest do not have engineering degrees. Even so, we were able to build a very competitive robot this year. I guess it would be nice to have six-figure sponsorship and work with a corporate engineering mentor base, I'm not convinced that it would make 103 a better place for our students to realize FIRST's vision.

I'd like to see more division awards at Championships.