Video Required for Chairmans

[artdutra04]

This is a positive addition to the Chairman's Award criteria, as it really helps reinforce the ideas behind the Chairman's Award essay with concrete video proof. Any journalism major can tell you that by picking and choosing from among a select few [normally synonym] words, you can completely alter the reader's perceptions of the content, for better or for worse. (Read an article on Fox News (or Drudge Report) then MSNBC (or Huffington Post) about the same news event and you can see this in full swing).

I also like the widescreen requirement, as the trend of the last few years has been for all video to move towards the widescreen format.

...Although it would have been a lot more helpful to teams if they announced this new criteria immediately after the Championships last year. It could have helped the "year-round" teams who could have had the advance notice to film their summer activities.

Just remember, each robotics team does not have to own a video camera to shoot video widescreen video. Chances are that at least one parent of a student on every team owns a video camera capable of shooting video in widescreen, and it's not hard to borrow them for events.