Wow, an entire thread with positive comments. I must be on the wrong forum… but my URL still says chiefdelphi.com. Hmmmm…
I’d rather they name 3-4 finalists, regardless of division assignment with one of them being the CCA winner, at the start of the Einstein ceremony and announce the winning team at the end. They want the Chairman’s winners down there to watch with Dean and Woodie, but the most important award still gets to be announced at the end.
FWIW, there were “Chairman’s finalists” back in the late 90s / early 2000s - nice, but also frustrating for the teams involved. Take the good with the bad.
That’s part of why I like the “Division Winners” idea-- teams get recognized without directly being called out as being mere “runners up” for the award. I like the idea of division awards starting to actually mean something on their own, and being recognized as achievements in their own right.
Overall, great step towards bolding the R in FIRST
Amen to that!
I not sure what motivates me more, the actually winning or just the dream of getting a good seat. 
After working Einstein in 2012 I’m really not all that eager to go back myself.
Yeah, the view from the pit is pretty terrible, really. Sorry to disappoint, Al! 
This is great, FIRST. Continuous improvement. I’m also personally happy about the more predictable timing between Einstein matches. None of us want more field errors on Einstein, but having time–known time–between matches after such errors would teams help a lot.
I really like this change. I’m especially optimistic about the flow of einstein really helping make the biggest stage as exciting as it can be. I wonder if FIRST would consider staggering the lengths of the field time-outs little. I know if I was playing on Einstein I’d happily take four minute timeouts in semis if I got an 8 minute timeout in finals, since I have more matches to get ready.
EDIT: I can’t believe I forgot we don’t have quarters on Einstein.
There are no quarters on Einstein?
I’ve heard from our 2012 drive team that the only worse seats are the ones for the backup bots. Though they do tell an amusing story about Koko Ed kicking out two drunks who somehow wandered onto the Einstein backstage (remember the tornado? I think they just pulled in random people off the street) and wanted to ‘flip the bird to the whole world’…
But this update interrupts my workflow! Now I have to keep all four streams running even longer…
:rolleyes:
Great improvement by FIRST. More teams that get reconised by FIRST for there outstanding work!
I have one questiong though, hopefully some one can anser it for me:
Do you only qualify for E.I. if you have won this award at regional level (the same thing that goes for chairmans) or do all the 100 teams in that division qualify for E.I.?
Can’t wait to see all the teams in St. Louis again this year!
Greetings from Team 4481 The Rembrandts, The Netherlands
2014 NC Regional Engineering Inspiration winner
2013 NC Regional Rookie All Star winner
Alright. I’ll be the first person to say I’m not so sure about this.
While I like the idea of certain awards being district level, because many teams deserve Quality awards, Innovation in control and Industrial design; I feel like with certain awards making them district level extremely decreases their sentimental worth. With a lot of teams it’s difficult to explain awards like Chairman’s to people outside of FIRST, but with things like Imagery it’s as simple as: “They said we were the best looking out of the ~200 teams there”. Now it’s something more like: “They said we were the best looking, but only out of the 60 we were with and 3 other teams also won this award and they were really cool too.”
The other thing that puzzles me is FIRST tries to stress that EI is not a “second place” to Chairman’s. But now that 4 teams win it a year as opposed to 1, and the Championship eligibility is now only for 1 year, they are very unequal (Also on a side note, has anyone noticed that they call it a “Regional Chairman’s Award” and an “Engineering Inspiration award”?).
While I can’t really argue with the way FIRST works, and I’m very gracious to be in it, this kinda gets to me.
400 teams at champs, ~100 per division. Still a prestiguous award.
Also, EI has always only given 1 year of qual. Only Champ Chairman’s gets lifetime.
It’s out of closer to a 100 teams for each division so it’s not that much different. Also it gives more teams a chance to win. How different is it really when you go back home and tell your supporters. They won’t even know the difference unless you point it out.
Engineering inspiration isn’t 2nd place chairman’s and now that is very clear. It’s judged differently and now it’s awarded differently as well. Championship EI has been a bit of a strange award for awhile anyway. It was often rather quickly overshadowed by the CCA winner. I think by giving it out at the division level it will actually get more recognition. Overall a good change for FRC.
Great suggestion Glenn.
Mr. Rip
Championship EI is judged the same way as regional EI, by the pit judges. All teams in the division would be eligible. No inside info, just my best informed guess based on past history
Oke, well that seems fair. Thanks for explaining
Also there is a difference between the two awards. EI puts a lot more emphasis on STEM Outreach specifically, while Chairman’s tends to look at both Outreach, Community Service and helping FIRST grow. So unless you restructure the awards across the board, you couldn’t use EI winners as feeders for CCA.
In fact, there’s at least one team who’s actually taken home Worlds EI without a Regional one. Hawaiian Kids? I think.
FIRST: Awesome changes. Next request for awards - what is EI?