New FIRST competition structure in Michigan

[Craig Roys]

Originally Posted by Madison

I guess the days where a Chairman's Award submission and presentation are made by members of my robotics team is coming to an end and, instead, I need to start treating that group as a separate organization. I can't, after all, bring 40 kids to an event wherein only 3 of them will present to judges for ten minutes and then have absolutely nothing to do for the rest of event.

My kids were thrilled to win RCA last season and the best part about that for any of our mentors was watching and being there with them as they went out onto the field. I think that moment might lose some of its impact when I have to leave 90% of my team at home because they weren't involved in our entry.

Three things:

First:
Why can't you take 40 kids when only three are presenting? I think it would be a wonderful show of team unity if the the entire team were to be present to support the CA presentation team. As a coach, I would be pretty upset if my team didn't want to go the the competition even though we weren't competing. Given that CA is the most prestigious award, my team would be going - robot or no robot.

Second:
As to the "nothing to do", why not have them volunteer for the competition or help out other teams or watch a fun competition w/out the stress (albeit fun stress ) of competing?

Third:
I believe that any team that is organized enough to win a District Level Chairman's Award would also manage to be one of the over 50% of MI teams who qualify for State's. If they're not, see first point above...