At both FIRST Championship locations this year, we will be introducing recognition for ‘Chairman’s Award Finalists’. Three teams from all the Chairman’s Award contenders at each location will be identified as Finalists for our most prestigious award, the Chairman’s Award. These teams will be identified during the Divisional awards ceremonies Saturday morning at each location. During the Einstein finals later in the day, these teams will have places of honor to sit and watch the competition while waiting for the one Chairman’s Award winning team to be announced.
Chairman’s Award Finalists will not be selected one per each of the three Divisions, but from the entire pool of Chairman’s Award candidates attending each location. This means it’s possible for a single Division at a given location to have zero, one, two, or even all three Chairman’s Award finalists. We are taking this approach to ensure the finalists identified really are the top three contenders for our most important award at each location.
I’m looking forward to all the events we have going on this weekend! With the number of District Championships we have coming up, we’re sure to see some top-notch performances from our teams!
This is a good call to draw from the entire pool and not from the division. I wonder at what point the winners will be communicated to the other divisions so they know that they did not win.
I suspect what will happen is that the finalists will be announced at each ceremony, regardless of whether the teams were in that division or not. That way, there’s no gaps like that in communication.
This is a great decision and one that I’ve wanted to see for a long time. I’m all for anything that recognizes more teams, especially when it comes to the Chairman’s Award. For years teams had no idea if they were “close” to entering the Hall of Fame. Now four teams will be getting official notice that they’re on the cusp. This is incredibly huge for any team with their sights on a Championship Chairman’s Award.
A Chairman’s finalist award is a great motivator to teams.
At one point the finalist award existed as the “Chairmans Award - Honorable Mention” and FIRST removed the award.
The finalist name is much better than Honorable Mention.
I never got why they stopped doing honorable mentions (before my time), but it’s nice to have them back. I remember looking back and noting that only one or two teams that got honorable mentions haven’t earned a CCA yet, so it’ll definitely be a great sign for those teams.
Rooting for 694 to break out and show everyone they don’t just build good robots.
Somewhere around 39 teams will be in the running for the chairmans award this year at North Champs with around 43 being in the running for it at South Champs.
So teams at North Champs will have around 1 in 13 chance of becoming either a winner or finalist with that number being around 1 in 14 at South Champs.
Compare that to last year where there was somewhere around a 1 in 80 chance of being recognized.
FIRST is making a safe, but smart move in honoring more people through a Finalist award. It allows multiple teams to be recognized, but not in a manner that leaves people comparing one another on the basis of “which team earned HoF more.”
The choice of still admitting one HoF per year allows not only CA Finalists, but also all teams to look to one single role model that FIRST agrees is the best to emulate and embody for the current season. I think understanding one team’s actions is both easier and more effective than analyzing multiple teams’ efforts which typically excel in certain fields of outreach rather than only one (i.e. education vs team starting vs volunteerism).
Something this post doesn’t seem to mention is if the Finalist teams get to come back next year. I think it would be cool to do, like how Championship EI teams get to come back, but I can understand if they expect the teams to just win Chairman’s at a regional again.
Wait where are you getting the one HoF team per year thing? I read Frank’s post as ‘there are three finalists, one of whom becomes a winner and therefore HoF per Championship.’
Not sure if you read something I didn’t, but I don’t think it said anything about a Chairman’s Finalist “Award.” It seems like nothing but recognition that the team was “really close but try again next time,” I don’t see any mention of an actual Award (e.g. plaque, banner, etc.).
I also didn’t see indication that there would be a physical award (though I think a plaque would be great). In the past, Honorable Mentions showed up on a team’s award history as an “Einstein Field” award, which I would imagine/hope they will be continuing.
Something new? More like a blast from the past: there used to be Chairman’s finalists announced at Nationals waaaay back when. I think this is a great change - thanks Frank and FIRST. Typing that just made me crave a hot dog for some reason. Anyway…
Yes, I said Nationals. This was back before it was changed to Championships.
