Why is Engineering Inspiration viewed as second place to the Chairman's Award?

[Broboraider]

In no way does this post reflect my opinion of my team, the judges, or even FIRST as a whole. This is simply an observation that I thought I would share and hopefully get some feedback from the community and in no way am I trying to slander any team is affiliated with the topic below as I have so much respect for the teams within in FIRST that are making it loud within their community.

Since 2014, when FIRST began allocating judged awards at the division level except for Chairman's I have noticed a significant trend in how FIRST awards the Engineering Inspiration award. In the last three years, 10 out of the 12 teams that won Engineering Inspiration at a subdivision level also won were honored as regional Chairman's Award Winners earlier in the year at another regional. Many of these same RCA teams also won Engineering Inspiration at another regional within the same year they won Engineering Inspiration within a subdivision. For those who do not know, unlike the Chairman’s award winners, regional Engineering Inspiration winners do not give a formal presentation at champs as judging for this award at a subdivision level is mainly done within the pits which qualifies any team to win Engineering Inspiration despite not winning it at regional. For many teams, it is quite an accomplishment to win an Engineering Inspiration at a regional but it is in my opinion, the same teams do not have the equal opportunity as RCA teams because they are not provided a chance to give a formal presentation. While a lot of information can be relayed to judges within the pits I do not feel that it is sufficient or personal enough to talk about the team’s initiatives and outreach efforts. In the current system at champs I believe that it does not favor teams to win Engineering Inspiration despite them being awarded the same award at a regional. This makes it seem that FIRST sees Engineering Inspiration as a “second place CA”. I have the utmost respect for Chairman Award Winning Teams and completely understand the level of caliber required to become a CA team. I also understand, how prestigious it is to win CA at Champs. But It seems that many teams that qualify for champs by winning Engineering Inspiration have to compete with the CA for the same award which qualfied them for champs in the first place.

Now this post would not be of any use if I did not mention how to fix this issue and while I am not certain any of these options would be a perfect solution it might be a combination of ideas to change this.

• I am not sure if this occurs at other District Champs but at MAR Champs, the Engineering Inspiration winners from each district receive a 10 minute Q & A session regardless if they also won Chairman's at a district. Provide this opportunity to just the Engineering Inspiration winners from each regional at Champs or a similar presentation opportunity.

• Only judge Engineering Inspiration in the pits based off the teams that qualified for Champs by winning Engineering Inspiration at a regional

• Exclude RCA from winning subdivision Engineering Inspiration awards

I look forward to the hopefully healthy and productive discussion that will take place in this thread and to understand the opinions of others.

TL;DR

Many times, within FIRST it is possible for EI to be seen as a second place Chairman’s Award, while EI is prestigious for its own reasons, I believe that teams that win Engineering Inspiration at a regional deserve that same opportunity to win that award at a subdivision level.