2010 Woodie Flowers Award and Chairman's Award Assistance

Competition Awards
#1

I’m happy to offer Chairman’s Award and Woodie Flowers Award submission assistance for the 2010 season for any FRC student participant who would like someone to help review their work.

Here’s what you need to know about me: I am a former member of teams 71, 1020, 1720, and 148. I have worked and/or volunteered for FIRST in many capacities in many regions over the years, most recently in Boston, MA with the Boston Regional Committee.

I have reviewed many winning Chairman’s, WFFA, and WFA award essays in the past, and have worked with countless teams over my last nine years in FIRST. I’m administrative by trade, but hold a bachelor’s in English and have written many newspaper/journal/magazine articles and essays for publication. I am very good at catching the ‘little things’ in your essay that you may miss: redundancy, spelling or grammatical errors, inconsistencies, and other basics. You are obviously not committed to using any of my corrections if you do not feel inclined. In addition, my familiarity with FRC can help you to communicate the best about your team in ways that FIRST judges and the WFA committee can clearly understand.

All you have to do is send me a Microsoft Word (.doc), OpenOffice (.ods), or Adobe PDF (.pdf) file of your award submission for the 2010 Breakaway season. Send me a private message here on CD, and I’ll send along my email address. That’s all! I’ll send back an edited copy with my suggestions and advice.

Here’s what you need to know:

  • The confidentiality of your submission will be kept. I will not share any of the entries without your permission, and only after the season is over.
  • I will have your submission back to you within 24 hours (if not immediately), or warn you in advance if it will be longer.
  • I will edit and re-edit as many revisions of the entry as you would like.
  • I will make suggestions, offer advice, and edit basic grammatical errors. You must write the actual content for the submission yourself, although I’m happy to give you assistance on which path you can take (helping to create outlines, for instance, is a good place to start).
  • I will give you tips and advice on how to write for FIRST judges, and how to better represent your team.

Search for ‘Woodie Flowers help’ for some of my past threads offering help as well.

Best wishes to all of you submitting for these awards this season.
Amanda

#2

Every team should take advantage of this offer. I can tell you from my experience with Amanda that she is a great writer and great proofreader. She has edited many of my papers in the past as well as the Woodie Flowers essay from 2006 for Team 1345 (written by one of the students) which ended up being the winning essay.

This is a great service you are offering to the community. Thank you Amanda.

#3

I appreciate your willingness to help other teams :slight_smile: Thank you.

#4

What all needs to be included in the Chairman’s Award essay? This is our team’s first year applying for it.

#5

Information for what needs to be in the Chairman’s Award submission can be found here.

Amanda is certainly a great resource to use and I highly recommend her to every person submitting both Chairman’s and WFFA.

Amanda, thank you for all you do and for helping out all these teams.
Good luck with all your submissions!

#6

For the Woodie Flowers Award, what is the quotation we need to write about?

Thanks!

#7

Hi Nicole,

Check out FIRST’s webpage here that gives all of the information you need for this year’s award. I recommend reading the Chairman’s Award Instructions and Submission Instructions first. Those two documents can help you get a grasp on what is needed for this award. If you have other questions, feel free to send me a message on here and I’ll be happy to help.

Hi Anish,

There’s no specific quote that you need to reference, although you should check out this year’s 2010 Woodie Flowers Award Criteria. It’s available on FIRST’s website here. This is a tremendous help in getting started with the WFA essay you plan to write. If you have any other questions, feel free to send me a message and I can help you find a starting point and figure out an outline.

The offer still stands for any others out there who want an in-depth review of their submission - I’m happy to help! Just send me a message and I’ll pass along my contact information.

#8

Hi students!

By now you are probably in an awards submission panic, as you’ve put this off until the last second (you are a better writer when you procrastinate, right?). Or perhaps you are editing draft #29 and nearing #30… Whatever your situation, I am finally, finally caught up on the backlog of essays and am excited to accept more.

If you’d like me to review your Chairman’s Award, Chairman’s Executive Summary, or Woodie Flowers Award submissions, I’m happy to do so. Just send me a message here on ChiefDelphi, and I can send along my information to you.

Trust me - no matter how good you are, you’ll miss some tiny mistake or grammatical error. Make sure you have someone else read over your submission, whether you send it to me or another mentor/student. Asking for a second opinion will never hinder your efforts.

Best wishes,
Amanda

#9

Hi Amanda,

This is our first year submitting and I would be thrilled to have you review our RCA submission.

Thanks

#10

I am also open to review RCA submissions for teams if they wish.

#11