'The Dean's List'

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Posted by colleen.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Coach on team #246, a FIRST-aholic, from John D. O'Byrant High School/Boston Latin Academy and NSTAR/Boston University/UTC/Raytheon/MassPEP.

Posted on 8/4/2000 8:40 AM MST


In Reply to: 'The Dean's List' posted by Michael Martus on 8/3/2000 8:31 PM MST:



I think much confusion with the Chairman's Award is what 'deserves' to win it... is it teams who struggle from nothing to scrap it together and come to competiton.. embodying the 'everyone one who tries is a winner' theory.. is it the teams who reach out to do other things for FIRST teams.. hold competitions, create how-to's and support systems.. is it the teams who recruit many teams and community volunteers... is it the teams that donate much to FIRST as a whole..is it those teams that reach out to the younger kids.. those that turn high schools and kids lives around.. or is it just those who accomplish the task at hand and do it well..

We all have a different perspective as to who should win it and why and for what efforts.. voting for the 'best partnership' is hard when there's no consistent definition of 'best'...

i very much am in favor of something similar to the 'Dean's List'.. but I also propose some additions to it...

It's to no argument that teams with more money have more access to more resources to just plain do more.. it's how the world works so why shouldn't it carry over to FIRST.. in many ways, low-budget teams just don't have the ability to do all of others because of the financial burden..

as well, the more people you have the more you can do.. work can be spread out and different people can work on multiple projects at a time.. a larger team is an advantage in doing many of the 'extracurricular' things not involving the 6-weeks of building..

so my point.. other competitions split up by size.. for example, in parades, bands are often judged in either the 'Large Band' or 'Small Band' catagory.. there is a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for each.. that way the people with less aren't at a disadvantage.. same reasons the have weight-classes in boxing/wrestling..

Proposed additions:

-still have one 'win-it-all' Chairman's Award winner..
-instead of 5 finalists.. have 10.. seperated into 2 classes (by team size, team budget {this would be a secretive process so only the judges would know this info and not the other teams}) and 5 finalists are chosen from each the Winner comes from one of those 10..
-Have a couple other a little awards (also certificates) for 'Outstanding efforts in team recruitment'.. 'Special efforts to encourage the youth'.. those would recognize teams that may have only had the time to work on one outside project or so beyond building the robot... these also could be announced saturday morning.. or add another 5 minutes to the closing cermonies and announce them there (much better recognition i think)..

those are my thoughts