Executive Summaries

[sasha831]

Our team can't actually find a list of the executive summary questions for the award submission. We have seen this, but feel that there is some page we are missing, as it doesn't have any information about the essay/summaries

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by sasha831

Our team can't actually find a list of the executive summary questions for the award submission. We have seen this, but feel that there is some page we are missing, as it doesn't have any information about the essay/summaries

They're in the Administrative manual, page 40.

[sasha831]

Thanks. One other question, I noticed that we need to provide a youtube link to our video. Does that mean that we need to have our video finished to submit with the essay, or can we just bring it on a DVD to the competition?

[ehoyla]

You do not have to turn your video in when the submission is due. There is an FRC blog post about this.

[sasha831]

Is there a character limit on the summaries? Because all the past submissions we have looked at have very short paragraphs, but we can't locate any word/character limit for them.

[ehoyla]

The limit is 500 characters with spaces. The mentor that did TIMS for your team needs to go in and select a student team member or two to be an award submitter. That student should then be able to access all award submissions through STIMS.

[Hogwarts9876]

Does the 10000 character limit for the essay also include spaces?

[Carolyn_Grace]

Originally Posted by Hogwarts9876

Does the 10000 character limit for the essay also include spaces?

Yep. And when you go to submit, make sure to carefully read your essay after pasting it into the space. Sometimes characters change to weird symbols, and the spacing gets messed up. Leave yourself time to read it over carefully before clicking "submit", and be prepared to make some minor changes.

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace

Leave yourself time to read it over carefully before clicking "submit", and be prepared to make some minor changes.

I'd second this. The servers get pretty busy around 11:30 on the day Chairman's is due, and it would be a horrible thing to see several months' worth of work not get submitted because the servers are too slow. We usually try to submit the afternoon before it's due to avoid any worries like this (and it also gives you more time to make sure that everything looks good).

Originally Posted by Hogwarts9876

Does the 10000 character limit for the essay also include spaces?

I believe it also includes new line characters, which can mess you up if you're close to 10,000.

[RoboAlum]

So I am pretty new to chairmans and is the Exec. Summary pretty much a summed up version of your chairmans essay.
We just finished our rough draft of the essay. But now im confused on what to do with the Exec. Summary.

Any help is appreciated

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Originally Posted by RoboAlum

So I am pretty new to chairmans and is the Exec. Summary pretty much a summed up version of your chairmans essay.
We just finished our rough draft of the essay. But now im confused on what to do with the Exec. Summary.

Any help is appreciated

As everyone always says, there are as many ways to do a Chairman's submission as there are teams submitting. However, the way that I've found to be most effective is to use the essay for telling the stories and impact behind the elements of your submission, and to use the executive summary for the numbers.

For our BunnyBots offseason event, for example, in the Executive Summary we say that it's been going on for 8 years and had 22 teams this year, while in the essay, we explain why we started the event, and we also have a quote from another team explaining its utility to them.

Essentially, it's up to you. However, there are ways that have historically been better than others at communicating your team's strengths without being repetitive. There are plenty of old Chairman's submissions up on the CD white papers section, and most Hall of Fame (Championship Chairman's winning) teams have theirs up on their website.

Let me know if you have any other questions - I'd be happy to Skype with you or take a look at your essay if it would be helpful.