The threepeat

[aaronD341]

I would just like to extend my congratulations to team 341 who has done it again! GREAT JOB guys, winning chairmans at Cheasapeake! This is the third year in a row! You guys rocked hard.

how many other teams have won chairmans multiple times?
~Aaron

[Yan Wang]

Team 191, the X-Cats, won the national chairman's award twice and is the only team to have done so.

[tkwetzel]

Team 79 won it at UCF this year, making it the third year in a row.
Team 236 won it at UTC this year, also making it their third year in a row.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by tkwetzel

Team 79 won it at UCF this year, making it the third year in a row.Team 236 won it at UTC this year, also making it their third year in a row.

Warning, This may offend you but please try and keep an open mind and carefully read ever thing I am saying and provide me with some reasons why or why not the system should or should not be changed.


In all honesty I think a 3rd win by a team in 3 years is a big slap in the face to all the other teams competing there.

Now I know I'm going to catch some flak for this one, but that was just my first thought when I heard 236 won at UTC. I love team 236 and all, but wow.. just wow.. Shouldn't we give someone else a chance?
(And for the record, my team was not at UTC so this is an unbiased opinion)

I know that The Chairman's award is the most prestigious award in FIRST, but this brings up a point.

Should last years awards be a considering factor when deciding a winner for non technical award from year to year or even event to event in the same year?
For us, we won the Radio Shack award this year at both Rochester, and NJ, which was quite a shock within itself, but the judges for these technical awards go by the results of one Regional, so that shouldn't be changed in my opinion.

I know that know one can not win chairman's in 2 regionals in one year if I am not mistaken, but why can they 2 or 3 years in a row. Should there be a limit before you have the honor to submit one the next time around?

There are a lot of teams that inspire and change the culture, and I think for this year at least the way things worked out, that the winner of the Championship Event Chairman's is going to be really hard to determine and I wish the judges the best of luck.

I'm not trying to say that the teams that won the Chairman's this year for the 2nd or 3rd time in a row are not deserving of it, but like I said.. I just saw it as a slap in the face to all the other well distinguished teams at UTC when 236 won it for the 3rd time in 3 years.

I don't know... This post may be deleted at a future time, but I just want to see what everyone thinks about it.

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

79 has won the Chairmans Award 3 years in a row but not all 3 were at UCF. Last year they won it at the Colorado Regional. Heatwave (312) won it at UCF last year.

I do however agree with Elgin that more teams should be recognized. Maybe FIRST should do what they are doing with the Woodie Flowers award that a team can update their submission directly to the Championship the next year.

[Chris Fultz]

The Chairman's recognizes sustained and continued growth in programs, and so just because you win one or two years in a row does not mean you have an 'automatic' for the next year. The teams change, the presenters change, and the judges change. I would expect that the teams that have won multiple times have continued to grow and expand their programs or they would be repeat winners.

Although the process is not perfect, I think the process works and I do not think the Championship judges could review 30 2005 regional winners and look back at 29 2004 winners and be able to determine a Chapionship Chairmans winner. It is different from the WFA due to the length of the submissions and the interview process.

[KenWittlief]

each year the chairmans award is given to the team the judges think deserve it the most, for that year.

How can it be any other way?

Would you not allow a team to win the regional two years in a row? If they won the previous year, should they be forced to sit out the playoffs, and let someone else have a turn?

To win three years in a row a team has to really be on fire, really doing something incredible year after year. Isnt that what the award is for?

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

To win three years in a row a team has to really be on fire, really doing something incredible year after year. Isnt that what the award is for?

Two points I have to make on this.

1) A Chairmans award is yes the highest award a team can be honored with, but I also think that when a team wins it 2 or 3 years at the same regional then it is telling all of the other teams that they have to be better than that one team who is "on fire" as you put it. Some teams we know are great in spreading the message of FIRST. They win awards, they host mini comps, and they mentor FLL teams. No question that they are great.

But for another team's perspective one view is that they should just give up on Chairman's since this team is unstoppable.

Now, the other hand is the perspective of seeing this unstoppable team and striving to be as good as they are. (Same thing happens in the actual competitions to some rather well known teams who have won regionals and The Championship events multiple times)

2) Another thing I noticed, but I think the FRC judges are biased towards teams who mentor FLL teams and hold FRC mini comps. Every team does not have the resources to do these things even though they have been around for many many years. If that is a requirement then state that in the awards submission rules in the manual, if it isn't.. then I don't know..
But it just seems to be.

<Maybe I will see if all the teams who won Chairman's this year has mentored FLL teams or Run a mini comp. It would be an interesting study and prove a bias if one exists..>

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

Would you not allow a team to win the regional two years in a row? If they won the previous year, should they be forced to sit out the playoffs, and let someone else have a turn?

No, and I think this is a bad comparison for one reason.
The game changes from one year to the next, but the main goal of FIRST is the inspiration of Science and Technology and that doesn't change from one year to the next.

BUT... I believe when a Team is deemed a Chairman's team then you are in fact giving them ammunition to go back to the community and spread the message even further. If that you give the same that ammunition every year, it kind of loses it's effect across the board to inspire Science and technology but in that one area where that team is from.

I just had a thought, but what if a Chairman's award winning team came with responsibilities. Just like a Miss America Pageant is not really a Beauty contest but rather a scholarship pageant and the message of the winner is to spread their goal across the nation (world peace, cure for a disease, etc.) FIRST should be a Inspirational contest and not all about the robots.
To do this, Chairman's award winners should be required to spread the message even further. Public Appearances, and everything else. When you win Chairman's this also gives you the ammunition to go to sponsors (new or old) and give them a proven strategy to help change the world.

[Alex Cormier]

well

congrats
congrats
congrats

i also agree with elgin (not very often )

[Ashley Weed]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

<Maybe I will see if all the teams who won Chairman's this year has mentored FLL teams or Run a mini comp. It would be an interesting study and prove a bias if one exists..>

I noticed this prior to the threads beginning and choose to not impose my opinions, because no matter what, all in all, there were judges somewhere at some point in time that chose X team over all other teams to be the Regional Chairman's Award Winner in year ####. It is above all, an amazing honor, and congratulations to all of them, as working with the students this year on my team, it is a long ... long process.

Elgin, in addition, if you pursue that, it would be amazing to see how many of them mentored other teams - more specifically "Rookie" teams.

[Katy]

I think making formal rules saying that you may not win the regional chairmans two years in a row is unfair. It would encourage the most effective and powerful teams to slow or stop their work for an entire season and this would not be beneficial to the FIRST community.

However after winning a regional chairmans maybe next year that team should have to submit to another regional. Short of the regional in Israel...most of the time the regional chairman's winner is a team that attends multiple regionals or one that easily has the ability to. Moving to a different regional gives teams from the local regional a new chance at the award and also gives the winning team a chance to compete. Besides...it is always exciting to see a new face at regionals.

[Collin Fultz]

I know that 234 tries to submit in different locations every year---winning 2003 in Phoenix, 04 in Chicago, and submitting 05 at UCF---

Should teams have to? No. Because to win a chairman's doesn't mean you have to have a lot of money. If you can only make it to one regional due to money, there isn't a lot you can do about that.

Don't really know where I'm going with this.

Congrats to ALL the winners...the students.

[MasonMM]

Originally Posted by Katy

However after winning a regional chairmans maybe next year that team should have to submit to another regional. Short of the regional in Israel...most of the time the regional chairman's winner is a team that attends multiple regionals or one that easily has the ability to. Moving to a different regional gives teams from the local regional a new chance at the award and also gives the winning team a chance to compete.

I couldn't imagine FIRST ever making a rule that you had to go somewhere else to compete for chairmans if you've won it before. Prior to this year, the robonauts have always only attended one regional and we have one chairmans there. It'd be an awkward position if we knew the only way we could continue to compete was if we went somewhere else, almost like we aren't wanted in our home regional.

When i hear the word Regional i think about the region that a team is from. It is my personal belief that with chairmans a team should represent there region when competing at a regional for that award. Traveling to another regional for robot competition is a different story, as it makes more competitive bots.... but traveling to another area of the country for the advantage of having a better chance to win regionals chairmans award seems very unprofessional and almost unfair to the native teams of that region. Here in Texas theres alot of open plains and areas where it is much harder to promote robotics education just because some communities are... behind... the technology curve, but teams still prosper, yet it is harder for them to reach out to other communities because things are so spread out and funding is harder and so on, but in Michigan huge industrials centers and a much larger number of sponsors and other teams, so a team coming from Michigan to compete against the Texas chairmans teams at the same regional isn't a fair competition. You should be awarding the best team in that region based on the conditions of that region, and leave it to the national level to designate which team has the best job across the whole country. Again this is only my personal belief.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Two points I have to make on this.
2) Another thing I noticed, but I think the FRC judges are biased towards teams who mentor FLL teams and hold FRC mini comps. Every team does not have the resources to do these things even though they have been around for many many years. If that is a requirement then state that in the awards submission rules in the manual, if it isn't.. then I don't know..
But it just seems to be.

These two outreach efforts are awesome, but biased judges? Not true. Look at the Hall of Fame members:
103, 175, 191, 151 (and probably others) - no mini comp
Also 103's involvement in FLL was minimal in 2003 and was only one small blurb in a CA entry filled with "other stuff"
341 - a threepeater, runs a mini comp, no FLL, but you should see all of their other outreach efforts - many that don't require many resources.

[Evenstar_342]

I agree with Elgin Clock. My team, 342, has won the Chairman's Award at the Palmetto Regional for the past two years running. While I am very proud of my team for this accomplishment, I was very surprised that we won a second time in a row. Although I recognize that we may very well have been the best Chairman's Award team there, I cannot believe other teams like 343 and 415 did not also have entries as strong. If I were leading FIRST, I would institute a policy where teams could not win more than twice in a row at a particular regional. They could submit once a year wherever they want, but would not win at a regional that year if they had already won Chairman's the two previous years.