There are some changes beginning this 2007 FIRST season. Below is some general information on the competition. Specific details and rules will be available in December 2007.
* The Autodesk Inventor Award winner will be announced at the FIRST Championship.
* The Autodesk Visualization Award winner will also be announced at the FIRST Championship. There will no longer be regional Autodesk Visualization Awards.
* For both competitions, entries will be submitted and available for public viewing on the Autodesk FIRSTbase website.
* Autodesk judges will review all entries and advance 5 finalists for each of the two awards.
* The 5 finalists will be posted to the Autodesk FIRSTbase website approximately two weeks before Championship where FIRST Robotics team members can view and vote for the final winner.
* Voting for the final winners in both categories will also continue on-site at the FIRST Championship.
* One winner for each award will be announced at the FIRST Championship. Please note that there will no longer be an Honorable Mention or Rookie winner.
Elimination of awards!?!? How does this show our animators that what they are doing is important? How does this get more teams to submit animations? No inventor awards at regionals!?!? I don’t think we had them before, but we have always needed them, and to not get them again is a big disappointment. How does this take FIRST beyond the group of kids building robots in their garages? However much real engineers may play with cardboard, real engineering comes from the use of high level software, and the need for use of high level software. Not enough teams make use of this software provided to them. Do we really think they will if we say “this aspect of FIRST is not award worthy”? Did someone miss the I in FIRST? Or are there just some other compelling reasons I don’t know about?
In addition, while I am very appreciative of Autodesk’s continuing support of the program, I feel quite limited by limited number of licenses they provide. It is a hard thing for me to tell a student, “I know you love this software, but this student standing next to you has more of a need for it, so he can use it, and you can’t.” FIRST is expensive. I know we get more than we pay for, but with how much we pay, we try to make it as good of an experience for each student as possible. It is very challenging to not be able to allow every student the access to the tools (software) they need. And if you like the “level the playing field” argument, that may be applicable here as well.
Autodesk has no problem giving away free student licenses to any college student in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial design, gaming/animation, or civil engineering or architecture disciplines. Why not any high school FIRST student? Why only 10? Why only 30 day trials? Build season is ~6 weeks long. And we like to be productive pre and post season too.
I love the software. I promote it like I work for them. But the lack of awards, and the minimal number of licenses is quite disappointing.
To be clear, they offer a total of 10 limited licences for Inventor 11, and 5 for Max, which when installed, function as 30 day trials until activated, and after that, become one-year trials. The students.autodesk.com system (where the licences are permanent, free and for educational use only) is far more useful—but you need university student mentors to take advantage of it.
If I had to hazard a guess, this might have to do with the lack of consistency in the existing voting process. It looks like they want to use a core group of experts to evaluate all entries on a level basis, rather than try to judge each regional’s winner separately. Note also that participation in the AVA and AIA are not especially high—many teams have other priorities, and this leads to regionals where these awards are bestowed upon mediocre entries, for lack of any signficant competition.
I really have to agree on the limited liscences. We need at least 5 in school, which leaves only five for at-home use. It leaves us pretty crippled, really. I keep bothering Mr. McGowan to get us a few more liscences, but it’s expensive software…
I wish they would give a few more licenses of each (maybe like 15 of each? :o ), or at least have a deal where you get X amount of licenses donated but if you need/want more it is only like $100-$200 for each other license.(or like 10 extra’s for $750)
I have worked so hard to pass down my knowledge of animation down to incoming freshman. Now your telling me that all the work that will be done for the AVA entry is for nothing?
This kills a part of the FIRST community that draws in different kinds of people. Without regional competition for animation, none of the animators from other teams will see the work of others. There will be no knowledge exchange, and most of all there will be no motivation to submit an entry. I stayed in FIRST because of the AVA, I helped the team draw in people to FIRST and some join because they have an interest in animation but still learn about engineering. I’m very sure that the number of entries for the AVA will drop dramatically this year.
I am very upset at the fact that this is being done. I always had the feeling that winning at a regional level was greater than winning National because it was graded by peers who know exactly what you did to make your entry. Winning nationals seems more like a wild stab in the dark. I’m sure that the attendance at the Auto-desk booth is going to be very low this year.
^ i think that the fact of eliminating regional competition for animation will lower the number of entries even more since not all the teams even make it to nations ( robotics wise) to see their animation, this would be my third year doing it and both years, my animation made it to nationals but my team never went there and if this year, they cut the regional comp, it would really decrease my motive to create an animation im not even going to see with my own eyes in a competion! especially all those sleepless nights doing animation :o
But for the teams going to Championships and dabbling in animations, this is actually a nice bonus (the fact that the animation competition will be small).
here is something we can do. Some one get contact with someone who is high up in FIRST and ask them what is going on.
We can turn this around if every team writes to FIRST about how this decision will negatively effect their team. but keep in mind that you are representing your team in these letters.
I always find the Sit-and-wait approach never works out.
I’d be happy to write but who to? I know myself and everyone else doing animation invested a lot of time into this so we should really work together and try to do something about it.
Perhaps I can pose one reason for why they may have done this.
1504 has been competing for 2 years now. We have never created an animation, nor have we (at least that I know of) ever voted for one. We never had anyone who knew enough about them who felt competant to judge. Now, if you go by that line of logic (with the understanding that less than half of the teams at any given regional will submit an animation), you have only a couple (I think that I’ve heard of regionals with less than 5 submissions) of animations being judged by a very few people.
Perhaps FIRST thought it better to let the few animations that do exist all be judged by professionals?
On the same note, it is kind of saddening that they will only be judged at the Championships. This will be our first year submitting and I think that this policy will discourage many teams from even putting forth the effort.
So the solution? Up to each individual. If you feel strongly, talk to other team members and write a letter to FIRST expressing your team’s dismay at the new policy. Remember to be polite and courteous in your expressing, saying “you beeeeeeeeeeeep that’s not beeeeeeeeeeeeeping fair” won’t help (as I’ve seen many a CDer do in the past when angry).
Best of luck to those of you hoping to change the policy!
I believe the regional awards were voted on by peer animators. (i.e., Only the teams which submitted animations were allowed to vote, and a team could not vote for themself.) Students who have gone through the process, and addressed the judging categories of the award are more than competent to vote on their peers.
This contradicts some of the reasoning given when they began the Regional Awards. Back then the argument was there were TOO MANY animations for the professionals to go through. Having Regional Awards would filter out the lesser deserving ones to reduce the workload on the Championship judges. Now the workload has been increased beyond where it was when they began Regionals.
Inconsistency in the Visualization Award over the years has been a continuing frustration for the students who participate. There are many threads in the archives discussing these problems.
There are things that can be done about this, but they are not going to happen unless someone (the teams) yell about it and protest this. A little lobbying from all the animators/teams to FIRST on this topic could help. They need to know that this is objectionable, and the animators and teams are upset about it. So you need to get organized and get a group message put together - fast!
We need amunition for the fight with Autodesk over this (they are the ones deleting the award, not FIRST). We need to get a consensus of upset opinions that this is a bad thing that we can then take forward to FIRST and Autodesk.
We have help from an influential person in FIRST (who I am not at liberty to disclose who it is, so don’t ask) who is willing to assist us in our fight for the right to party but we the animators have to take the first step to make it happen. So step up, guys!
Ok -
could we maybe start a list here with all of your thoughts?
I’ve read through once or twice and have 4 things that are coming up in this thread. I’ll go through again and see if there are more. Please add, help me out. I am not an animator but I have great respect for your efforts and your work. A 418 alumnus from 2003 taught me to be appreciative.
not enough licenses distributed (is this part of what you would want to include in at this time?)
has not been and is not consistent for the participants from year to year.
not having a peer vote on a regional level would
a. increase the volume of the work load on the Championship level by not having the submissions judged at the regional level
b. decrease the value of the award in that peers and their FIRST mentors who have been through the process, understand it and can appreciate the work and effort of the submissions when voting
as evidenced in this thread, more teams have become involved and have actively campaigned and recruited new members in joining their FIRST teams solely for this animation opportunity, only to find that the judging has changed significantly.
What else?
If you don’t like any of the wordings and want to add/delete, let me know.
Jane
and if this year, they cut the regional comp, it would really decrease my motive to create an animation im not even going to see with my own eyes in a competion! especially all those sleepless nights doing animation :o