Autodesk's response

[Koko Ed]

As you guys are well aware there have been changes to the AVA award. A few weeks ago a letter was penned and sent to the powers that be at FIRST and Autodesk. We finally got a response:



Dear Jane,


Thank you for your letter. We appreciate it and
want to let you know that
we reviewed it with careful consideration. At this
point, we cannot continue
to judge the Autodesk Visualization Award
submissions at each and every
FIRST regional, believe me, we would love to be able
to do that, because we
know how important it is to all of the teams. But
it's really a matter of
our resources, and we just can't be everywhere at
once. But let's just be
clear about one thing - we have no intent to take
the award away, we will
just celebrate it in a different way.


As you mentioned, encouraging and motivating the
students to get involved in
animation is paramount. So while we won't judge the
animations at every
regional, we will continue to drive regional and
national exposure for the
great animation work students are doing:


* We will keep regional celebration of the
submissions by providing
DVD's to be played at every regional, with the
submissions from teams in
that area. Everyone at the regional will see the
great work being done.



* We will keep peer judging so the students
are actively involved in
determining the winner of the national AVA. This
will be done over the
course of two weeks online and culminating at
Championship



* We will add a web-based celebration of
animations with a "featured
short" of animations that rotate on the FIRSTbase
site every week
(www.autodesk.com/firstbase). What great exposure to
people beyond those
that attend their regional.



* We will add a feature at Championship,
where Ted Boardman (our
animation expert) will recognize different
animations for best use of
animation features (e.g. effects, shadows, lighting,
etc). And again, these
winners will be featured on the FIRSTbase site.



* Lastly, we will add additional animation
training to FIRSTbase to
encourage the students to use the software



In this way, we're keeping the recognition of the
regional submissions and
the peer voting, while allowing us to spend our
efforts on the training that
will get more students using the animation software
in the first place.


Thank you again for your support and enthusiasm, and
please let me know if
there are any other questions I can answer for you.


Sincerely,


Marcy Shanti

Sponsorship Manager

Autodesk, Inc.


Not quite was I was hoping to hear but I will give Autodesk the benefit of the doubt. They have been a loyal FIRST supporter for years and are doing the best they can. I say wait and see.

I woud like to thank everyone who signed their name to the petition. At the very least it was good to see the outpouring of support from the FIRST community for the animators.
Thsnk you.

[BuddyB309]

sigh, I hope next year they will have more support.

[Psychoflood]

I was hoping for a little more, but its still nice to know that they *supposedly* actually care about us

[Ryo Chiba]

Well, we can't get everything and anything we ask for, so I'm going to stick with being grateful for what we have at the moment. It could be worse. The tone of this email is promising.

[Natchez]

After a decade of watching great animations pass before our eyes, we, the Robonauts, have decided to get into the animation game. Of course, we were disappointed in Autodesk's confirmation letter of their "no regional award" position BUT we were hoping for the proverbial silver lining of a submission extension. We thought that since there would be no regional awards and because FIRST has not posted a submission deadline at their Calendar of Important Dates (please correct me if the submission deadline is posted somewhere), we might get a little extra time to work on our animation. Unfortunately if Autodesk is going to "keep regional celebration of the submissions by providing DVD's to be played at every regional, with the submissions from teams in that area," we are out of luck with our much needed extension. Since we have a policy that all students will build the robot along with participating in a subgroup (PR, Chairman's, Animation, Web Page, etc.), we were really hoping to be able to work on the animation after ship. With this letter, we're assuming that the animation submission deadline will be around February 22nd ... do you think that this assumption is right?

Thanks for all of your work, Jane, Ed, & everyone else who championed the regional animation cause,
Lucien

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by Natchez

After a decade of watching great animations pass before our eyes, we, the Robonauts, have decided to get into the animation game. Of course, we were disappointed in Autodesk's confirmation letter of their "no regional award" position BUT we were hoping for the proverbial silver lining of a submission extension. We thought that since there would be no regional awards and because FIRST has not posted a submission deadline at their Calendar of Important Dates (please correct me if the submission deadline is posted somewhere), we might get a little extra time to work on our animation. Unfortunately if Autodesk is going to "keep regional celebration of the submissions by providing DVD's to be played at every regional, with the submissions from teams in that area," we are out of luck with our much needed extension. Since we have a policy that all students will build the robot along with participating in a subgroup (PR, Chairman's, Animation, Web Page, etc.), we were really hoping to be able to work on the animation after ship. With this letter, we're assuming that the animation submission deadline will be around February 22nd ... do you think that this assumption is right?

Thanks for all of your work, Jane, Ed, & everyone else who championed the regional animation cause,
Lucien

Originally Posted by Autodesk

Entry Deadline
All entries must be submitted with all associated files through the Autodesk FIRSTbase site by Friday, February 16, 2007, 5:00 p.m. PST. Your website with your storyboard posted must also be active and ready for viewing on the same date.

Yeah, the animation has to be done before the robot.

[Dan Zollman]

* We will add a feature at Championship,
where Ted Boardman (our
animation expert) will recognize different
animations for best use of
animation features (e.g. effects, shadows, lighting,
etc). And again, these
winners will be featured on the FIRSTbase site.

If this means that more animations will be shown at Championship, then there will be a greater opportunity for more teams to be recognized, which is good.

[mizscience]

I think that though they weren't too clear in explaining why they've stopped after all this time, its clear they are continuing to support the FIRST community and help the coming generations of FIRSTers, so I guess it could be a lot worse...