Hey peoples!!!
I would like to start a petition for getting an award at each regional.
I think it would be really cool and would give more people a chance to recieve an award which would premote animation through out each team.
Let me know if your interested.
Tyler
That idea was proposed this year by the hosts at the LA regional and the San Jose regional. I was lucky enough to go to the LA one and though there was almost no turnout in terms of animations the idea was pulled off pretty well. I am all for more recognition of the animation side of FIRST but as one of the hosts at LA said they are thinking of canning the animation completely and sticking to Robotics.
I really love the idea of regional animation competitions. It gives more students a chance to win software which (hopefully) they will use to produce DURING the YEAR instead of during the 10 week crunch time. B^P.
The only problem with this is how can they be run so it’s fair to everyone? The regionals start a few weeks before the end of the animation competition, so submissions may not make it out on time. And who judges exactly? If there are team judges, wouldn’t there be an unfair advantage?
I’ve heard about regional animation competitions being run a few ways. One I know for sure was to give the animators computers and the 3 days of competition to put together an animation. But animations would suffer in quality because of that. I doubt quality animations can be made from scratch in 3 days, at approximately 8 hours a day. If it can be done, then shut my lips and call me spanky, but I don’t think even the wizards at Pixar would be able to do that. 3D animation should be given time to really start with a rough version then tweak to perfection.
Then the other way is to bring what is done so far of your animation to each regional you attend. This also may cause animation quality to be low as ther may have not been enough “post robot building” time to work on the animation. And teams who have had a few years animation experience have probably started way earlier than the actual start time that Rookies started at.
Plus: Who Judges? While I agree with team judging team, as it creates a sense of community, there could be teams impartial to themselves or a sister team. However, the number of votes per team could be limited to 2. Teams can’t vote themselves. And there is no point system, it’s more like the oscars where it’s in categories - best technical, best story, best animation, etc. until Discreet no longer feels like giving out awards I suppose <grin>.
But that brings me to something even bigger, which I am going to try to make happen for next year. How about a year-round animation competition? Where you have from the moment Nationals is over until a few weeks before the next nationals to develop an animation and submit it. And where there is an actual tent for the animators, where there are guest speakers (George Lucas or John Lasseter anyone) on animation and computer technology in entertainment.
Booths on the latest technology so we FIRST-heads could drool over it together. And a nightly festival of animation. Mmm… sounds delicious. Think of it as a miniSIGGRAPH. Something to give highschool students a taste of what’s really out there and connect them with future contacts. Ah, that would be grand…
But oh, this is a thread about regional animation competitions. So here’s my thoughts:
-Teams bring what they have SO FAR of the animation they are planning to submit to Autodesk
-Teams each get 2 votes for each category (Technical, Communication, Overall)
-Animations are properly presented during a break time at each regional event, with team numbers clearly noted.
Anyone wanna bounce some more ideas in this direction?
-Robby O
FIRSTanimators Moderator
[email protected]
Hey Robby, some great ideas you have,
Here is some of my input especially towards the time problem.
What if the regionals that are before the due date bring what they have down, then their animation is judged on quality not quanity (time) as for the others yeah either a team decision of the judges decieding would be great, doesn’t matter to me as long as we get an award!!! lol
toodles from florida,
Tyler
P.S. Good luck to all at nationals.
Do we have data on excatly how many teams are submitting animations this year?
I may be in the dark, but do you think that enough teams from each regional are submitting entries to make this valid?
*Originally posted by Mark_lyons *
**Do we have data on excatly how many teams are submitting animations this year?I may be in the dark, but do you think that enough teams from each regional are submitting entries to make this valid? **
I don’t know how many teams are submitting. It could well be that there aren’t really enough that it would make sense to have regional animation competitions, but… Maybe if the regional animation competitions were viewed as an easy way to get points to qualify for nationals, there would be more submitting next year! 
Yes youre right there probably arnt enought teams to do a regional award for animation, but possiably if we did do one it would help promote animation, and get more kids into it.
As for using it to qualify for nationals, i dont think it will work because while the autodesk award is very special award to win, i do not believe that it is at the level of the chairmans award. Though you never know maybe on eday it might fly, it doesnt hurt to ask somebody.
My input before my next match, where I prove that I am better than Jordan (yeah I know i’m full of bs.)]
Toodles from Florida
Tyler
P.S. I ghot to shake Dean and Woody’s Hand 
lol
It was really sweet
I think that there are enough teams because at Nationals the judges in the first round narrow the animations down to the top 50 which means at least double that were submitted if not triple or even quadruple because of all of the rookie animations. I would ask Ted Boardman more about that side of things but as far as the regional award goes I think we can do an online peer judging of sorts. Everyone could send their animation in either VHS, CD, or upload it to someone and they in turn could upload it to a judging site. I know this may single out 56k people but if you think about it almost everyone in FIRST should have access to somewhat of a highspeed connection either through their school, a library, or even a business or even computers at regionals.
i remember someone on stage at nationals saying there were over 200 animations so you would think there would be enough to go around to all the regionals. The eastern michigan regional also had an animation viewing room where adults from your team could vote for the animations they liked best. there were only 7 or 8 animations that were brought. I think this is because many people only found out about the viewing because of a sign in the pits that dirrected you to the room. there was no previous announcement that i recall about this. i think we just need to have more publicity about these events and the turn out would be greater.
i searched some old threads and I found that you guys were trying to get a regional animatiom award way back… has anyone contacted first yet?
Dude, there are regional animation awards. Don’t revive dead threads.
*Originally posted by Cory *
**Dude, there are regional animation awards. Don’t revive dead threads. **
dear mr cory
quite possibly you have not been paying attention most recently because to my knowledge as we have been debating for the last 2 weeks there is NO regional animation award at the midwest, west michigan, or buckeye regionals. All which are regionals close to my hometown…had you also been paying attention, you would have heard that yes there are regioanl animation awards on the west coast but the point many of us midwesterners are trying to get regional animation awards at our regionals.
all I was trying to do was to find out how things have been going and who to contact to get one @ a regional.
thank you and have a good day
Such hostility.
But to my knowledge last year there were barely any regional animation awards, two that I can think of actually, both in CA. This year may have changed a lot due to last year but honestly the only part to change was really the west coast, and even then it hasn’t changed much. I know that the main FIRST organizers have nothing to do with the individual regional awards, at least they didn’t last year, so to change anything you would have to talk to each individual coordinator at each regional. I could maybe get a list if interested but other than it relys mainly on people getting coordinators near them to help out.