The Bonzack Challenge

[Barry Bonzack]

There are many good teams in FIRST, and not all can win the Chairman's award. However, I would like to reward the teams that try for this prestigious award, and motivate teams that normally do not try for it to start this year. I am in the group of believers that FIRST is not about robots, and you do not need a good robot to be a good team. So if a robot does not make a good team, what does? This is what I challenge teams to accomplish this year before their first regional.

• To compete for all awards at regionals (Chairmans, WFA, Website, Animation)
• To make sure everyone is aware of all dates and deadlines and implement a system to make sure none are missed
• To have every senior fill out at least one FIRST scholarship
• To attend all local FRC events and to document photographically your team's attendance
• To localize all pictures so the entire team has access to them
• To host a free event for other local teams
• to participate in or volunteer in five or more community events
• to attend multiple official FRC competitions
• to volunteer at multiple FLL events
• To begin a strong push to start a new FLL team by next season
• Do deans homework
• Recognize mentors
• Recognize alumni
• Have all core members on Chiefdelphi.com and have them posting
• post 2006 and 2007 awards before award deadlines
• post 2007 robot pictures before shipdate
• Have an appearance in the media
• Wear silly headgear to regionals
• Make your grandmother proud

This is The Bonzack Challenge. I have created a powerpoint and am challenging my team tomorrow (11/9) to complete all of these things by the UCF regional. I, however, do not consider myself just a team 1390 mentor, but a FIRST and am opening the challenge to All teams, especially those in the Florida area. This challenge starts today, all of these must be accomplished between now (11/8/06) and March 9, 2007.

The Award:

If my team completes this challenge, I will allow them to shave my head during lunch on the Friday of the Florida Regional. (think we can get this webcasted?) If they do not complete it and another team in FL does, I will allow that team to be the ones to shave my head. ALL teams that complete this successfully may choose a team representative, and pie me in the face. This is the opportunity I know many have been waiting for for a long long time. If a team completes The Bonzack Challenge that is not attending the Florida Regional, they may pie me at the webhug in Atlanta.

I will post the powerpoint for more specific directions, and of course post here for further questions. I would like to see this thread used to post each teams updates thus far so we can monitor which teams are on track to shave my head and pie me in the face. Go teams! You have been challenged!