Regional Award?

[JasJ002]

I'm just writing to ask, how many teams do we think it will take before Inventor becomes a regional award. This year we surpassed the 100 team mark. It may be my personal opinion but this year has created the best overall inventor submissions as a whole. Just looking for some opinions about helping our award grow.

[Chris Herold]

Hey,
I asked myself the same thing. I don't know much about the recent years (this is my rookie year in FIRST and Inventor) but I have seen a lot of impressive models . It is a little sad that only five will reach the final and only one will be the winner since there are way more worthy one and other award categories like rookie-all-star and honorable mention are gone now.
However you have to look at the Regionals. I am member of team 1983, the Skunkworks. We are in the Northwest (Seattle). Our Regional in Portland had two teams besides us having a model and in Tacoma (Microsoft Seattle Regional) we will be the only team. I think as long as there are so few teams at specific regionals it won't happen. Maybe a regional title would help to give some motivation but in the end I talked to many people that were afraid of the workload compared to the chance of success.
We will see what happens but I do not expect a regional award in the next one or two years.

Chris

[bigbeezy]

ya i'd have to agree. this year was our first year submitting and I was disappointed when i learned that it was just a national award. the Autodesk visualization with 3DS Max is regional, why not Inventor as well. It would really incourage teams to use Inventor if they knew they had a better chance of winning an award. Then have the regional winners judged again and then a National winner would be selected.

[MegaSparks]

If you would make the award a regional award you would have more teams putting in for the award. Having it just a national award actually intimidates teams and thus they do not put in for it. I would be all for having this as a regional award.

[rachakate]

My personal opinion is that it would be more important to modify it into a 3-D modeling award. Although I understand with finances that's not necessarily an option, but with Solidworks and ProE starting to contribute, it's time to update the award.

[mplanchard]

SolidWorks does have a virtual robotic design contest going for SolidWorks March Robotics Madness, www.solidworks.com/robotics. This contest is for all robotics competitions world wide that we help support. Its requirements are pretty easy - jpeg files of team photos and image files and design tips using SolidWorks software.

SolidWorks also has a more advanced design contest that is due in November for all users, www.solidworks.com/designcontest. There you have to provide extensive model and image files.

Marie

[,4lex S.]

Honestly, among the other reasons we did not enter for this award was the fact that it is rather intimidating having to compete with the best in the world off the bat. Possibly an award could be accomodated semi-regionally (Great Lakes Regionals, West Coast Regionals, Midwest Regionals) and presented at the largest area regional.

[Loubear]

I'd be all for making inventor a regional award not just to encourage teams to submit, but for the instant gratification it brings to see it on the big screen at a regional (as opposed to waiting and maybe not making it in to the nationals). The animation kids get it, why shouldn't we get it too?

[Chris Herold]

I like the reason for making it more public. I don't know how many persons I met that did not know about this award at all or that were not convinced that is award is worth much even though this is one very challenging task.
My respect to all other teams that participated!