Just curious what might be some feedback to what other teams do to address the question “Team exhibits numerous examples of gracious professionalism”.
Do you actually have examples of things you’ve done for teams in your chairman’s essay? Or maybe expand on what that question means to your team? We do several things that we believe are GP, but maybe they aren’t in the eyes of the judges and wanted something to compare that too.
Better yet, how are you clearly communicating to the chairman judges you are meeting the Gracious Professionalism bullet points?
When in doubt give information directly. “Team XXXXX believes in GP and this is how.” Sometimes judges are VERY familiar with FIRST, other times they aren’t.
It seems like judges want to see more than just helping other teams as well – our RCA feedback last year listed a point to improve as “Examples of GP not related to [the list of categories in the rubric that involved FIRST and FIRST teams]”.
Oh ok. Yeah I have those bullet points. The GP one is the reason for my post, as I am trying to help my chairman’s team understand that question from the judges.
Honestly, my team has mostly ignored that in our submissions and hasn’t ever really been asked a question about it while I’ve been a presenter. At least the judges at our regionals seem to take our actions at tournaments and overall submission as sufficient evidence.
[quote= At least the judges at our regionals seem to take our actions at tournaments and overall submission as sufficient evidence.[/QUOTE]
This is a VERY INTERESTING comment you made. It seems it’s also important to the judges what they see in your team at the moment right there at the event is maybe more so important than what you did the whole year or past ten. I think it might be a gauge of success that it should be percolating all throughout your team. And if it’s not 100% a shining example at the event, then they must assume all your documentation is null and voided.
What’s interesting is to have a lower score in Gracious Professionalism than all the other marks on the chairman’s feedback form, yet you WIN the Gracious Professionalism Award at the regional…at least that is what happened last year. So just trying to make heads or tails of judge logic and what it is exactly we aren’t communicating to them.[/quote]
Remember that in most cases the GP Award and RCA are judged by different judges… the GP Judges are often actively searching, while the RCA judges (I’m guessing) mostly rely on incidental contact and the interviews. Not to mention the drastically different interpretations of exactly what “GP” even means.
Is it really GP if you have to list the things that you have done. GP is a way that the team is or isn’t. I guess that teams that actively seek out teams having issues, provide material for those that lack, make themselves available at events are what should be noticed or talked about by others. Patting yourself on the back and listing all to whom you have helped shows a team trying to win an award.
It’s one of the criteria on the rubric that they want examples. I agree that it can be kind of silly, though.
Last year’s listed “10. Exhibits numerous examples of gracious professionalism” or roughly among that wording (I copied it from our presentation brainstorming google doc).
Steve, this is a debate that is much better had in person but I don’t hear people bring this side of the argument up enough and I think it’s something the entire community might need. Our team doesn’t do any of the things we do for other teams because of the award, if the award didn’t exist we would happily give away parts & advice like I always do. We would invite teams over and help them build their robots, we would still post in our build blog every night and share our designs. However we also do a lot to win the award. We spend weeks writing an essay and making sure that we have pictures and documentation from all of our events. We work hard on our presentation and our materials for the judges and a bunch more. It is nice to be recognized and FIRST makes the Chairman’s Award the highest honor for a reason they want teams to try to win it. Hundreds of students work really hard each year to try to win these awards and every time someone says we shouldn’t do things to win the award it diminishes their efforts just a bit. I’m sick of the we shouldn’t do it for the award argument, if a team feels that way fine don’t submit for the award that is every team’s right but I sure hope more teams do try to win the awards, we are a much better program because we celebrate these things and elevate the teams that win them to such high regard in our community and because teams try to win them. The entire chairman’s award process is about documenting how you have helped the community and why you should be a role model team and this is a piece of that. I assume that every single hall of fame team wanted to win the award and did a huge amount over a ridiculously long time to win the award, was that their only motivation absolutely not but it is always part of it.
I think the components of most teams’ Chairman’s submissions cover at least a few examples of how they exhibit GP. We don’t talk about it specifically, but because we’ve mentored other teams, done good things for the community, etc., I think the judges get the idea that we are graciously professional. (At least the judges in the PNW, I don’t have much experience anywhere else).
This is inspirational! I completely agree with Allen! The Chairmans award was our motivation to start going out and presenting to our community! But as we grew, it became our second reason because we began to enjoy presenting.
As head coach I struggled with this one. We have not submitted for Chairman’s for years and generally it was because we were simply too busy. Last year and this year we had more students, more time and energy, and ample things that we could say to demonstrate we met the requirements, but again decided not to. Right now, we’re striving to be the best examples we can be of what FIRST can do for students and the community because it’s true and it’s the right thing to do. We felt like Chairman’s might lead us away from that mindset into doing things so we could win an award. That didn’t feel right. Notice that I am only speaking for myself and my team; I am not saying that other teams have the same issues or should reach the same conclusion. But this winter, we had just come off a successful run in a different competition (unnamed here) in which we took the opposite tack and we ended up feeling a little icky, and we definitely knew we were angling our efforts in community service to win an equivalent award.
I can see where that’s coming from. Part of it definitely is self restraint-- I know on 2220 we have a general policy about Chairman’s-- specifically that our Chairman’s submission documents what our team is and has done. We don’t treat it like a “we have to do x, y, or z for Chairman’s,” we treat it like an opportunity to tell the judges about all the cool stuff we did over the last 5 years. For my team, at least, that encompasses a lot of outreach and working with/helping out other FIRST teams, which are, for the most part, things we would do anyways because it strengthens our area and our program.
I think I remember Karthik talking about a culture shift in Simbotics around 2010 when the team decided, as a whole, to stop doing things to win Chairman’s, but instead focus on doing things they enjoyed doing.
Part of it is definitely catching yourself, but I think the process of submitting in itself is a good way of checking your team’s state and goals against those of FIRST.
Teams began skipping pit admin to come to us. We gave out flyers for LabView help, and while judges were at our pit, NYACK came straight to us for help. This was mentioned when we won the GP award at regional.
Afterwards, we got our feedback form, only to find we were given a low rating for GP. Left us with a lot of question marks.
I said this in an earlier thread on why 422 submits for Chairman’s every year.
"Our goals aren’t just finishing the robot on time or maybe getting kinda close to winning a blue banner once every Martian year, but it’s to change people. It’s to see it in the eyes of kids who thought they had no future, it’s in the eyes of a politician looking to build a legacy, it’s in the eyes of a parent who realizes this program can send her kid to college, and as cheesy as it sounds, it’s in our hearts. When you sign on to submit a Chairman’s Award, it’s important to think about not only how you yourself affect the team, but how it affects you, your family and friends, your colleagues and teammates, and people you may not remember meeting even if they sure as sunshine remember you.
But we come together to build a robot, an object brought to life and made greater than the sum of its parts. Our brains, our hearts, and our lungs come together to give us life that not one of them could sustain on its own. People come together to form a team that is greater than the sum of the individuals that comprise it. The team then acts like a boulder falling from the highest mountain and crashing into the deepest ravine, making a powerful, awesome impact that cannot be questioned, cannot be diminished, and cannot be defined by check-boxes on a list or trophies in a case.
Working on Chairman’s in a meaningful way is hard. You have to constantly evaluate not only what you’re doing to change the culture but how and why you do it. It’s not to take home the hardware, it’s not to gloat or show off, it’s to make an unmistakable and historic impact on the community and world around you. Doing what everyone else does is easy. Doing what comes easy to you is easy. It’s about finding who you are by challenging yourselves to do nothing short of creating the best culture. It’s not about swimming around the lakeshore and waving to your friends, it’s about diving down to the bottom of the inky deep and coming back up with diamonds in the rough.
When you sign up to submit for a Chairman’s Award, you commit yourself to the mission that is bigger than you. The banners you win will fade and the trophies will go ignored, but you will always remember when you sat down with your team and decided to become something greater than yourselves."
When it comes to the “Gracious Professionalism” on and off the field, for 422 it is nothing more than paying it forward. When the team was trying to find its way again in 2010 and 2011 I remember teams who went out of their way to help us. That’s why, no matter what state we’re in, someone on 422 is always helping someone at competition. It inspired us to help others and we hope it does the same for them. We don’t stumble on the award; a lot of time goes into the documentation of what is done on the team. A very smart, talented, and inspiring group of students put a lot of time in this year to make a submission they are very proud of. Our pursuit of the award is not something we embark on to take home the hardware, but we make this journey to reach our ultimate goal of becoming the best team we can be. The Chairman’s Award is FIRST’s highest honor, earned by, without question, the best teams ever. We strive to become one of them by seeing what they do right and wrong and adjusting it to our own experience, situations, and needs. Submitting for the Chairman’s Award is just a part of that.