Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility

[MagiChau]

Chairman’s Award is the one FRC team award for which teams must select a single event at which to compete. This leads to some potentially negative consequences. It reduces the pool of competing teams at a given Regional or District, if some teams are present that decided to submit for Chairman’s Award at another event. It also strongly encourages teams to ‘event shop’, as they are forced to put all their eggs in one basket with regard to this award, and they naturally – if they have the resources and inclination to travel – may give some consideration to attending events at which they believe they have the best chance of winning this most prestigious of all FRC awards. In addition, a one-shot-only approach does not allow teams to iterate and improve upon their Chairman’s Award presentations if they are not selected as winners their first time at bat. This is in contrast to the iteration they can do on their robot from event to event, whether they win on the field or not.

So, for the 2014 season, teams will be eligible to win Chairman’s Award at every event they attend at their initial level of competition – District or Regional - until they win. In other words, team’s don’t have to select a specific event at which to compete, though they can only win once at the District or Regional level. This change does not affect competition at higher levels. Only teams selected at the District or Regional levels will be allowed to compete for Chairman’s Award at higher levels of competition, as usual.

This change does not fully eliminate the potentially negative consequences I list above of the current system. For example, while teams may not be putting all their eggs in one basket with this change, there still is some incentive to travel to an event if a team believes they have a stronger chance of winning Chairman’s Award there. I think this change will reduce the incentive in some situations, but the incentive doesn’t go away.

This change also introduces other challenges. From a team standpoint, at many events, it will increase the competition for Chairman’s Award. As this is our most prestigious award, I think that’s OK. Earning Chairman’s Award should be a very competitive process. Also, this does give teams with the resources to attend multiple events an opportunity they didn’t have before.* On this point, I’ll say my working assumption is that the great majority of FRC teams - whether they have the resources to attend one, two, three, or more events – work extremely hard to be able to attend the events they do, and as a rule of thumb should have an opportunity to compete for all awards available at every event they attend. There are some exceptions to this guideline, and you’ll note that we did put a governor on this award. Trying to avoid the potentially demotivating effect on other teams of powerhouse teams traveling from event to event picking up the top FRC award at each, teams can only win once at the Regional or District level. One additional challenge falls to the judges at events, as they will be doing more interviews, and have more difficulty sorting through candidates, with this change. However, working with the FRC Chief Judge advisors, we think the benefits outweigh the costs.

I believe this change will generate some buzz. I’m looking forward to reading those comments.



I’ll blog again soon.

Frank

*In the 2013 season, about 38% of FRC teams participated in more than one event, excluding the FIRST Championship. With the addition of two new Districts in 2014, and assuming the percentage of non-District teams attending multiple events holds steady, that percentage should increase to somewhere in the 48% range. The expansion of the District model is putting us on the path of multi-event teams being the norm, rather than the exception.

This is a very interesting step taken by FIRST.

[Michael Hill]

I really really like this change.

[jessss]

I'm really excited for this change!

[Jonathan Norris]

This is a great change, the Chairman's presentation team's I've seen all work extremely hard on their presentations, there is no reason that their work shouldn't also be an iterative process throughout the competition season.

[Nemo]

This was the right move.

[Steven Donow]

This is a great idea, and definitely a logical thing to do.

[Chris is me]

Wow, this actually makes quite a lot of sense. So many issues are eliminated this way - teams not submitting to avoid losing to a perennial powerhouse, teams avoiding certain regionals that seem to give preference to local teams, etc. This way, if you're good enough to win, and you go to multiple events, you've got a great shot of winning. Best of all, you can actually incorporate the advice given by Chairman's judges into future presentations rather than waiting an entire year to act on suggestions. This should make the Championship Chairman's pool deeper and stronger all around as well.

[Renee Becker-Blau]

This is an excellent update, it will help increase quality competition at regional events and decrease feelings that teams "picked the wrong regional to submit at that year". It looks like HQ put a lot of thought into this as they also recognized that they will need to increase the number of judges at regional events.

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Best of all, you can actually incorporate the advice given by Chairman's judges into future presentations rather than waiting an entire year to act on suggestions.

It will also motivate teams to ask for clear, helpful, and insightful feedback from their judges. The judges will have to step up their game to match the higher expectations.

Great change. Good job FIRST.

[Allison K]

Overall I'm very pleased with the change. My one question is as stated the change is "every event." Does this include third districts?

[LeelandS]

This is going to lead to some serious friction during Week 6 events.

Teams trying to improve their Chairman's presentations and win the award (Either to be eligible for the Championship Chairman's Award, or just to qualify for worlds to begin with) will be very tense to win.

I can see this creating a great deal of disappointment for teams who bid for the award again in a late event, but fall short.

I'm on the fence with this. I like it since it means that teams won't have to decide what event they want to submit for, and that they can use the Judge's Evaluations they receive from their regional to improve. Not only does this help teams improve their presentations for the award, but it will be a valuable experience in learning about business presentations and speaking skills.

On the other hand, I don't like Chairman's Award being seen as an award that you can keep trying over and over for until you get it. I think that kind of devalues the award in the long run. When it's "One shot to win it all", I think teams appreciate the award overall much more. But now that we might be playing a game where teams pick events to allow them improve the most and better their chances of winning, I think this will make the award a little less prestigious. I don't think I really like the change.

Just a thought. Let's see how this goes first.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by LeelandS

This is going to lead to some serious friction during Week 6 events.

Teams trying to improve their Chairman's presentations and win the award (Either to be eligible for the Championship Chairman's Award, or just to qualify for worlds to begin with) will be very tense to win.

I can see this creating a great deal of disappointment for teams who bid for the award again in a late event, but fall short.

I'm on the fence with this. I like it since it means that teams won't have to decide what event they want to submit for, and that they can use the Judge's Evaluations they receive from their regional to improve. Not only does this help teams improve their presentations for the award, but it will be a valuable experience in learning about business presentations and speaking skills.

On the other hand, I don't like Chairman's Award being seen as an award that you can keep trying over and over for until you get it. I think that kind of devalues the award in the long run. When it's "One shot to win it all", I think teams appreciate the award overall much more. But now that we might be playing a game where teams pick events to allow them improve the most and better their chances of winning, I think this will make the award a little less prestigious. I don't think I really like the change.

Just a thought. Let's see how this goes first.

I think its more disappointing when your chairmans team works long and tirelessly year round only to have one shot and that's it. They and the team put a lot of time and effort into having only one chance. \

Its a good move by FIRST!

[DonRotolo]

Generally I see more positives than negatives, so it's a good change.

[Tristan Lall]

I'm alright with it.

The dynamics change a little bit—particularly with regard to choice of events, because there's now a bigger schedule-based component to the likelihood that a particular team will win the award at a particular regional.

Also, it's not clear whether a team can officially declare itself out of contention for a particular event, despite having a valid submission. (Telling the judges "take us out of contention" would probably suffice unofficially.) For example, a team might want to maintain a streak of several awards in a row at an event where they're expected to dominate, but the only workable schedule forces them to attend a preceding regional. (I don't think this is a particularly good idea, but I could see a team wanting to do it anyway.)

There's also the issue of judges estimating a team's probability to win at an upcoming event, and factoring that into their deliberations—the team that has the least chance of winning elsewhere might get a slight boost. (If this is objectionable, FIRST could simply state that this isn't a permissible judging criterion. Alternatively, maybe this is an equitable thing to do, despite the fact that it dilutes the idea that the award is won and lost based on the presentations at each event.)

[Jon Jack]

Originally Posted by LeelandS

I think that kind of devalues the award in the long run.

I think it does the exact opposite, actually. This actually helps advance the best Chairman's teams to the championship. In the past if you applied (and lost) at a "strong Chairman's regional" then you were done. At your second regional you could have probably beat any of the Chairman's Award competitors, but you couldn't apply at a second regional. Under the new system you now have a chance of winning the Chairman's Award at that second event.

In the end, I think you'll see an even stronger pool of teams competing for the Chairman's Award at the Championship.

The other thing to think about is that district events are scaled down regionals. If 12 teams (20%) at a 60 team event is competing for the Chairman's Award, then that means a 40 team district event would have 8. Now, things aren't distributed evenly so some events could have more some could have less. Under the new system you'll see that number jump. What's better for the prestige of the Chairman's Award? Winning out of a pool of 3 teams or winning out of a pool of 10 teams?