Post-Season Individual Awards for Team Members

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by aepstein

Similar to sports, we want to have an end of year party / banquet / awards dinner for the team. If you have such a gathering, what individual awards do you hand out to exemplary team members, such as: Most Valuable team member, Most Improved, Coach's Award, etc.?

Thanks.

MOE (365) has an end of the year picnic each year, and our "Guest of Honor" usually gets their photo on CD.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/21630

During the official ceremony, we have individual recognitions rather than "awards". Each student is recognized once for their many contributions to the team and the robot, and often they will receive a gag award with their recognition.

During the "Stack Attack" year, our robot had about 16 programs for autonomous. It also had a tendency to chew up the carpet on the field. The mentor for autonomous that year collected some of the carpet fiber we destroyed at the Championship, and mounted it on a plaque, along with a floppy disc containing the autonomous programs. That went to our lead autonomous programmer.

The drive team each year will receive one of the Lexan covers off the robot, which the whole team will sign. Other students will receive similar robot mementos, especially if it is a task they had to repeat or were frustrated by during the season. (One student made 16 or so battery boxes one year, so you know what was mounted on his plaque.) Reminders that regardless of how difficult the task may be, it can always be mastered.

As with everything MOE, the recognition is serious, but it is done with a very humorous spirit. In past years, the mentors used to recognize the students for every sub-team they participate on through the year (not just during build), but the ceremony became excessively long. We also cut out the "mentors recognizing mentors" part of the ceremony. The students are free to do recognitions of their own during the ceremony without limitation.

Seniors graduating from the team will receive additional recognition, as they share their plans for college.

We invite sponsors, family, alumni and the team. On display, we will have our robot, any awards or banners received from FIRST or other teams, and a video of our year and the robotics season. We have fields for volleyball, baseball or kickball, and there always is a water balloon or Super Soaker fight near the end of the day.

It's always a fun time to wind down a bit from one year, and begin to prepare for summer robotics projects and next falls MOE University.

[IKE]

We do similar to 862. (I really like the humor under fire award)

One thing we do differently is working with the school we do Academic letters for top contributors along with the other awards which include:
Rookie Allstar, Most Improved, MVP, Award of Excellence

We do this at the team picnic that typically involves some grilling, kickball, V-ball, and general fun&games.

Since our party was May 5th I built a Pinata that looked like our robot for the students to bash. I will post pics after our photog gets them downloaded.

[dachickindapit]

HOT has our "banquet" every year, but mostly it's a review of the year and prep for next year. We have dinner, with a slideshow of photos running from the build and competition season, and watch video and talk about the bot, mostly for parents who may not have seen a competition.

As far as awards go, the banquet is where we award varsity letters to the students. We recognize them individually by grade and they walk down the line of mentors to be congratulated on a great season. Each of the seniors normally gets specially made plaques by one of our mentors, with their name on it and the HOT logo somewhere.

The rest of the awards fall on the students. They always do a "Mentor of the Year," which normally (but not always) is our Woodie Flowers nominee. In some years, the students have created a set of Mock Awards for each other. These range from "Most Improved" to goofy stuff like "Most Likely to Deflate a Trackball During Human Practice" (I don't know, just trying to come up with an idea, based on past "awards")

[Joe J.]

Originally Posted by IKE

We do similar to 862. (I really like the humor under fire award)

One thing we do differently is working with the school we do Academic letters for top contributors along with the other awards which include:
Rookie Allstar, Most Improved, MVP, Award of Excellence

Our students can also earn letters but they have to apply through the school's Academic & Activity Letter program, though to date only 3 have been awarded.

[PHSmom]

This is only our second season... but last year we wrapped up the year with an open house.... and will do so again this year (next week 5/20!!) We invite the team members and thier families, the FLL and JFLL teams in our program (all three levels have demonstrations) , we also invite, sponsors, Board of Ed memebers, School Admin (from all schools in our District not just the ones we are housed in). and the general public. We have a highlight video on loop, we have "coffee and ..." refreshments and snacks....
We gave each memeter a framed photo from teh season and had "gag" type gifts for each member-- something specific to them. (made from hard hats -chief builder, and film canisters- photo guy,suspenders for the guy with droopy drawers....)

Definately a night to celebrate the team's achievements!

[Sam N.]

We do something similar, just they're mostly joke awards. Such in the past have included

The Buster Award (awarded to a particularly clumsy individual)

and

The Rainbow Award (awarded to a particular optimistic individual)

I received the Frequent Flyer Award last year because everyone thought I was going to move to LA and commute back up to NorCal to be a member of the team.

Sam

[Kelly]

It may be because we're all pinkos, but our team prefers to focus on the accomplishments of the team as a whole rather than individual contributions. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts and all that.

[Chris Fultz]

I lead engine deveopment teams in my role at Rolls-Royce, and spend a lot of my time learning and understanding team dynamics and how to create high performing teams. Recognition of exceptional performance is one of the ways to create such teams.

There is always a callenge in determining how to recognize exceptional performance of team members and the team as a whole. There are no set 'rules', but here is how i have worked this for the past 4 or 5 years.

There are team goals and objectives and major milestones that must be met. It will usually take effforts from a wide range of people to achieve these objecives. When the major ones are hit on target, then we recignize the entire team with a catered lunch, an outing, or sometimes just an public announcement of the achievement.

There are also individuals who stretch "above and beyond" when helping the team achieve these goals. My experience is that it takes several high performing individuals to create a high performing team. We always take time to also recognize these individuals for exceptional performance with small awards, gift cards, dinner out or some small gift.

It takes work to manage an effective reward system, but recognition at both an individual level and a team level is critical for ongoing, continued success in most organizations.

[Uberbots]

We don't give out individual awards, mainly because we fear celebrating one person more than another.
Certain people who deserve awards are typically awarded by experience or "popularity" on the team.

[gburlison]

At our end of year banquet, the students usually do something to show their appreciation to the mentors. This year it was gift cards, in the past it was more of a gag gift. We also have an award named after a former team member who was very inspirational to the team. We consider it our "Chairman's Award", as it is the highest award that we can give to a student. The mentors decide who is the Senior who has contributed the most to the team during his/her entire tenure with the team. Last year we had so many students that were deserving, the choice was very hard, so we started a "Mentors Award". It is similar to the "Judges Award" in that if we find a student that deserves recognition, but the student did not get other recognition, we give that student a "Mentor's Award".

[Peter Matteson]

On 177 the last few years the students have come up with humorous awards to "roast" the mentors at our end of season potluck dinner. I wish I could remember what even half of them were, but the one currently on my desk is the "30 lb Laptop Award". I got that for complaining all season having to lug my portable workstation around so the engineers had Pro/E. (None of us knew inventor last year)

[usbcd36]

We've had dinners for the past two years, but we honor our sponsors and mentors there, not members of the team. It's also a time to discuss what we're thinking about for the coming year, and to show what we've accomplished to people who couldn't make the competition.

[Spiffizzle]

Every year we have a picnic... and at this picnic the participation medals are turned into individual joke awards. There is no set thing that continues year to year... it's based on each season.

Awards of Two Years Ago:

Sparky Award - Excellence in Electronics
Golden Apron Award - For Mascot/Spirit
MVP - Most Versatile Pioneer - Designing, Building, Strategizing, Dancing
Ambassador Award - Forging bonds with other teams
Branch Rickey Award - Excellence in Scouting
Filet Mignon Award - Great when you have it, but it’s not too often
Typhoid Mary Award -Outstanding efficiency in infecting Pioneers at Palmetto
Spider Man Award - Excellence in Webmastery
Upper Class Rookie of the Year - Felix Unger Award
Cleanest Pit and work area
Team Scapegoat Award
Mr. Goodwrench Award
Gimme a hand and lift this award
Rookie of the Year (Freshman)
Pasta Chef Award - Excellence in Spaghetti-Bowl wiring
Tricycle Award - “We don’t need no stinkin’ four wheels!”
Upper Class Rookie of the Year
Napster Award - For anything and everything with computers
Pale Skin Award - Achievement in Computer Programming
Build Season Dinner Glutton Award
Michelangelo Award
Speling Bee A warrd

I do not have last year's list on me, but there were some such as:

Screen Door on a Submarine Award
Volume Award - volume of work and voice

I can't recall... there were a bunch more. Our coaches make them personal... so they change from season to season.

[hallk]

The seniors all get gag gifts. We give varsity letters to those who have clearly demonstrated their commitment to the team. We also give out indivual awards for the following: Team Spirit, Most Improved, Rising Star, Most Valuble Rookie, Commited to a Concept, Best Program Support (typically goes to a mentor, parent, or sponsor), Most Techincally Proficent, Special Recongition (this person did a get job but doesn't fit under any of the awards and typically goes to someone who isn't involved in the program per-say but is a great team asset, for example janitors who stayed late so we could work longer), Best Team Lead, Engineer's Award, Mentor of the Year and Most Valuable Participant.
However, the ceremony tends to go long so wwe are considering cutting: Most Improved, Commited to a Concept, Best Team Lead and Engineer's Award.

[Matt H.]

In previous years team 1726 has awarded individual awards at our banquet. They traditionally consisted of a senior engineering award, a junior engineering award, and a team player award. The first two were awarded by mentors while the last was voted on by the team. This year we did not perform this tradition mainly due to the leaving of the mentor primarily responsible for the awards and cost cutting measures.
I will also note that such awards have real world value. When listing academic awards for my Caltech application I listed my senior engineering award fairly high on the list. On my letter of acceptance was a handwritten comment congratulating me on that specific recognition.