[FRC Blog] Chairman’s Award Submissions Definitions

FIRST General Forum
#37

I think this was an incredibly smart move. As we see more and more very deserving teams submitting for the CA, it’s important to standardize terminology. FIRST is a technical program, and that doesn’t apply to just the robots. When submitting for the CA, students are learning how to write in a persuasive AND technically accurate way, in the same vein that many professionals use in their day to day lives. It’s important to teach them how to follow technical guidelines and provide ethical and truthful statements.

In the same way that as an engineering consultant I have to provide accurate summaries of my firm’s capabilities in a project bid document, FIRST students need to write about their accomplishments in a professional and truthful manner. This is another side to the professional world that doesn’t always get emphasized but it’s a huge teaching opportunity for our community. It standardizes the terminology and places everybody on an even playing field. This move leaves little to the imagination and eliminates differences of interpretation that teams may or may not use to exaggerate or spin their claims.

It’s never an easy task to get students to document, document, document! They don’t like it when you comb through their numbers and claims with a fine tooth comb to ensure their accuracy. It’s a frustrating process, but I’m glad to know that FIRST is on the same page when it comes to honesty in submissions.

#38

During the creation of these definitions there was no discussion about including other types of programs in this new common set of terminology. We were working within the pre-exisiting framework and written criteria and just ran with it. There was absolutely no intent or direction to exclude other types of robotics programs. However, creating these type of specific definitions would have been much harder if we weren’t applying them to specific programs.

I think my feelings are well known on this topic; inspiring students to get excited by STEM is the goal, it really doesn’t matter what program they use to achieve this goal. I would hope the judges continue to award teams who are inspiring by promoting this vision via any avenue, as they did for 1114 in 2012.

#39

thank you for clearing that up

#40

Additional information from Frank’s Blog in response to my questions…

"Submitted by Frank Merrick on Wed, 10/14/2015 - 15:10.

Hi Joe. 1. The submission will not require the listing of specific teams supported. 2. Judges may or may not attempt to verify claims based on circumstances. If a team claims to have mentored Team 9999, and team 9999 happens to be attending the same event, the judges may ask Team 9999 to confirm the relationship. 3. The examples given are just examples, and are not intended to change the emphasis on the award. If you look in the manual for specifics on award submission, though, you will see emphasis is given to supporting FIRST teams. It has been this way for some time.

#41

What the point of these new rules then? Looks like they will just hurt the teams that follow the rules. Those who already bend them can still do it without repercussions.

#42

The point is to clarify a point of potential confusion, and provide somewhat of standard terminology.

That being said, the lack of enforcement is just status quo for many things. Remember, nobody’s able to say–for sure–that you actually did lock the robot up in its bag when the form says you did! (Unless, of course, you are so foolish as to bag the robot in the parking lot of your event. In that case, ye be right out of luck.)

#43

Look at part two of every definition. Why add that if the team in question has no idea they are being “mentored?”

#44

Let me ask you this way: You’ve had to provide references for work/volunteering/other stuff, correct? And being a teacher, I assume you’ve provided some letters of recommendation for students going off to college. How often have you actually been contacted (or, how often do you know your references have been contacted) to verify what’s been stated in those letters? But… isn’t the “threat” of being them being contacted enough to make you think really, really carefully about who you choose, or what you choose to say? Or, to put it another way… Some student who barely attended any preseason meetings (let alone build) puts on his college application that he was a member of the robotics team in good standing–IF the college were to call you and say, was this person in good standing, what would you say?

If a team, shall we say, does some embroidery with the truth (such as by using the wrong term, deliberately or not), this gives FRC judges a clearer picture of what they’re saying should they choose to verify the team’s story. For example, if a team says “we mentored team such-and-such”, all a judge has to ask is, “were you talking with this team throughout build season?” (or some similar question–maybe “describe your interactions with other teams”, which could go for two or three awards) and the team being checked on doesn’t need to know whether they were mentored–they can answer the question, and the judge can quickly make a determination as to whether or not the team actually did mentor the other team.

What this does is it provides a technical definition that can be used both by the team claiming the help to another team and by the judges to ensure that they are on the same page. Just for grins… I believe this post would count as Assisting. (I’m not entirely sure that y’all would actually agree with that statement, but per the definition’s examples it should count. Not that I’d be claiming it–way too loose for my taste, not definite enough.)

#45

While interesting, your analogy is flawed. The situation is more like this: I apply for a job and state the degree I earned but do not tell them where I earned it. I also submit references, but do not submit contact information for those references.

This is what is happening. Teams can still say the following:

we have started, 2 FRC teams and mentored 12 others. We have started 14 FLL teams and mentored 35. We have started 8 FTC teams and mentored 10.

what is going to stop a team from doing this again? nothing.

#46

Judges will have the rubric. I suspect they’ll see through it if the team doesn’t have any empirical evidence. Also keep in mind that it’s pretty evident when judges read the essays ahead of time - so I bet they’ll have pre-formed questions.

#47

It’s also obvious when they don’t read the essays before hand :frowning:

#48

I’m not sure about needing empirical evidence…

“Submitted by Frank Merrick on Tue, 10/13/2015 - 10:24.
Hi Liron. We had talked about requiring some documentation briefly, but did not want to turn this into a legalistic exercise. Our working assumption is that most teams, in keeping with the ethos of Gracious Professionalism, will not mislead about their support for other teams, once presented with reasonable definitions they are told they must adhere to. With the number of teams applying for Chairman’s Award, some percentage certainly will still intentionally mislead, but we don’t want to punish those who don’t by requiring additional paperwork. (Boldened by me). BTW, our Chairman’s crew has had a 5” thick binder full of ‘empirical evidence’ for a few years now and the judges rarely examine it…maybe we should just reduce it to a 3x5" card? :wink:

#49

Before if teams made a statement like that and were called out on it, they could fall back on the “oh, well by mentored we meant emailing them once during the season, and by started we meant we sent them a link to usfirst.org”. Now that grey area is removed. Teams would have to straight up lie to make a statement like that, as opposed to just stretching the truth. Yes, you are correct, it’s not going to stop the teams who are fully willing to cheat, however it is going to make a lot of teams pause, especially those who were making a habit of living in the grey area.

Couple this with the fact that winning Chairman’s essays now need to be published, it would take a lot of gumption for a team to lie knowing that other teams may call them out based on these new definitions.

Is this a perfect solution? Obviously not. At the core of FRC is an honour system. Teams who blatantly ignore this honour system are always going to gain an advantage. I’ve seen teams make the elimination rounds at regionals with a robot they illegally worked on by taking it out of the bag and I’ve seen teams win Chairman’s by claiming to start and mentor teams that they barely had any association with. However, these definitions will definitely collapse a lot of the grey areas of terminology that many teams have been exploiting (either intentionally or accidentally) over the years. Perfect? Nope, but a definite improvement.

#50

This sums the whole argument up for me. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than what we had before.

#51

(Educated guess/opinion) I’d think whatever would serve to be a “competition” for the given league, based on the various example criteria. Not nessarily an official event either; off-season events are fair game as they often involve a comparable level of effort (think: IRI, etc.). Not that this matters, as the description of the “event” should serve to demonstrate the level of effort put forth (let the result speak for itself). The point is what “run” means, not what “event” means.

Another point is that it is possible to have events where two teams are involved in running it while one also happens to be a host. CAGE match seems to be an example; While 1529 is the host, both 829 and 1529 appear to put forth about 50/50 of the effort (volunteers, logistics, etc.). Here’s the question (hypothetically/rhetorically): If “majority” effort is required, then would neither team get to claim “running” the event? Or since 50% rounds up, would both teams get to claim such? The latter makes more sense to me (as the intent of the definition is to prevent teams from grossly overstating contributions) but I could see this issue coming up given that a lot of such partnering teams often compete in-season together; as the fact that two teams are (in presumably good faith and reason) claiming to have “run” the event, which in the former interpretation would cause issues for the arguments put forward by the teams.

Defining stuff like this isn’t easy, is it…

#52

Just to pick on this one, 1529 would be able to claim “hosting” and both 829 and 1529 would be able to claim “running”. As a note, in that case a smart team would likely put something to the effect of “ran event in coordination with team XXXX” or “hosted event and helped team XXXX run it”.

As another example: For IRI, 1024 would claim “hosting”; the other three teams involved would be claiming either “running” or “assisting”–probably which one would be dependent on involvement.

If it’s 50-50, or so, and you really want to be safe, you can always claim “assisting” with the hosting of the event.

#53

PM’ed …

#54

We did the same thing. When we won at Champs in 2012, one of the judges specifically commended us for providing the evidence and said it made the decision easier. I know other teams have gotten similar comments. Your mileage may vary.

#55

You should. Maybe not QUITE a 3x5" card but definitely reduce it a bit.

#56

Both IMHO. Card/page for quick reference, Binder for absolute proof (and dramatic effect).