Posted by Jason Morrella at 04/09/2001 11:07 PM EST
Coach on team #254, Cheesy Poofs, from Bellarmine College Prep & others and NASA Ames/Cypress Semiconductor/Unity Care.
In Reply to: Chairman’s Award Disadvantages
Posted by Kyle Fenton on 04/09/2001 6:18 PM EST:
Kyle,
Your points are well thought out, but sometimes you may not know everything about some of those teams. FIRST off, anyone who has been involved with FIRST for a number of years knows just how much of a difference the teams like 1,47,65,175, and many others have made. Who cares who their sponsors are or how much money they have - the point is that they CHOOSE to spend much of their time & resources helping others instead of just on themselves. We’d all love to have the top financial sponsors and resources - but look at how a team uses those resources, not how much they get - that’s what’s important.
But KYLE, about Team 22, they are EXACTLY what you are talking about. I know them VERY well and work with them a lot. The amazing thing about team 22 is they accomplished everything they did with no large sponsor and not a huge budget like you assume they had. They are the only team I know of who consciously decides to take resources & time from thier robot to help others. They are truly focused more on other teams than their own. It is truly amazing. They did SO MUCH, so it is natural to assume they had the sponsors & budget - but they didn't. In fact, last year one of the rookie teams they mentored didn't have the funds to go to the California Regional - so Chatsworth Team 22 withdrew and told FIRST to apply their $5,000 reg fee to that team. Can you believe that? A sponsor came on last minute to help that rookie team and both teams were able to attend - but what they offered & planned to do was truly awe inspiring. The fact is that Chatsworth is the only team I know of who chooses to sacrifice the performance of their robot to help others and pursue the Chairman's award. The other top Chairman's award teams are also the top robot teams. They build great machines every year and take the performance of their robots very seriously, as do most of us in FIRST. Chatsworth actually doesn't take the performance of their robot into account when deciding how successful their year was - something we can all learn from in some way.
And it wasn’t because of FLL that they won. Chatsworth not only mentors FLL teams, and over half the rookie teams in the SoCal Regional - they also hold workshops, an off season tournament, do year round recruiting demonstrations/presentations, and more. I can say with 100% certainty that the Southern California Regional (which was a 1st year regional, a GREAT success, and had 3 seeded teams in the final 4 alliances at the Nationals) would not have been as successful as it was without Chatsworth.
The only negative about Chatsworth winning, is that they proved teams without big sponsors or resources can do EVERYTHING those teams do and more - they have set the bar at a height even greater than Beatty did in terms of robots. The amount of time, dedication, and passion Chatsworth puts into FIRST - while probably possible to match - is impossible to surpass. I know for a fact that while our team (we have a very similar sponsor & budget level as Chatsworth) intends to do many of the things the top Chairman’s award teams like 22,47,1,65,175, and others do - we can only do a small percentage of what they do and are not be able to match what they do. It doesn’t mean we won’t do it, we just know that in spite of how much we do, some teams are finding a way to do more.
All teams should be proud of what they accomplish - but those 5 teams this year truly deserved to be recognized. And how Chatsworth team 22 has done what they have over the past few years within the constraints they have baffles me. No team deserved that award more.
