FRC Blogged- District Award Allocations and Kickoff Taping

[Steven Donow]

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...Kickoff-Taping

Folks have asked what the allocations will be for awards at District Championships.

The Districts will have flexibility in how they allocate their awards, within boundaries. This gives Districts the ability to tailor the award package available at their Championships to local conditions – team capacity at their Championship, number of rookie teams in their District, leadership preference, etc – while making sure the meaning of each award does not vary too greatly between Districts.

For the 2014 season, allocation ranges will be as follows:

For Chairman’s Award:

One Chairman’s Award for every 6 to 10 allocated FIRST Championship slots, rounded to the nearest whole number.

In practice, for 2014, this means the New England and Pacific Northwest Districts can select 2 to 4 Chairman’s Award winners, the Mid-Atlantic Robotics District can select 2 or 3, and Michigan can select 3 to 5

For Engineering Inspiration Award:

All Districts, 1 or 2

For Rookie All Star Award:

All Districts, 1 or 2

For FIRST Dean’s List Award:

One FIRST Dean’s List Finalist for every 4 to 6 allocated FIRST Championship slots, rounded to the nearest whole number.

In practice, for 2014, this means the New England and Pacific Northwest Districts can select 4 to 6 FIRST Dean’s List Award Finalists, the Mid-Atlantic Robotics District can select 3 to 5, and Michigan can select 5 to 8

For all other judged awards presented at the District Championship, including the Woodie Flower’s Finalist Award, there will be a single winner.

When Districts have made their decisions regarding award quantities within the ranges above, they will be announcing them.

Kickoff Taping

We taped the segments needed for the Kickoff broadcast that involved the field on Saturday. This was the first time we had a chance to take a look at a fully assembled 2014 season field in person rather than on a display screen or on paper. I thought it looked great. Especially impressive was the...but, I guess I shouldn’t say any more.

As you may remember, a few weeks ago we put out a call for team t-shirts that the FRC staff could wear during the taping. FRC Engineering had the idea for staffers in the videos to wear team t-shirts rather than traditional FIRST or FRC shirts. Response was much greater than we expected! 123 teams sent in shirts for us to wear. I was at the taping only for a few hours on Saturday – and it went all day and in to the evening – but I can’t tell you how many times I heard someone shout ‘Wardrobe!’ meaning it was time for the staffers to change their team shirts to get ready for the next scene.

Many team shirts made the videos – but you’ll have to watch them to find out which ones. Remember, also, that in addition to the main Kickoff broadcast, we tape additional videos that present more detail. Staff were wearing team t-shirts during those as well. If time permits, these will be broadcast right after the main video on Kickoff day, and they should also be available on our YouTube channel later in the day. Whether you sent in team t-shirts or not, watching these additional videos will give you a more in-depth understanding of the 2014 season.

Less than a month until Kickoff! I’m very excited.

Frank

Interesting how they're letting each district choose how many of each award to give.