FRC Blogged- District Award Allocations and Kickoff Taping

FIRST General Forum
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http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/blog-District-Award-Allocations-and-Kickoff-Taping

Folks have asked what the allocations will be for awards at District Championships.

The Districts will have flexibility in how they allocate their awards, within boundaries. This gives Districts the ability to tailor the award package available at their Championships to local conditions – team capacity at their Championship, number of rookie teams in their District, leadership preference, etc – while making sure the meaning of each award does not vary too greatly between Districts.

For the 2014 season, allocation ranges will be as follows:

For Chairman’s Award:

One Chairman’s Award for every 6 to 10 allocated FIRST Championship slots, rounded to the nearest whole number.

In practice, for 2014, this means the New England and Pacific Northwest Districts can select 2 to 4 Chairman’s Award winners, the Mid-Atlantic Robotics District can select 2 or 3, and Michigan can select 3 to 5

For Engineering Inspiration Award:

All Districts, 1 or 2

For Rookie All Star Award:

All Districts, 1 or 2

For FIRST Dean’s List Award:

One FIRST Dean’s List Finalist for every 4 to 6 allocated FIRST Championship slots, rounded to the nearest whole number.

In practice, for 2014, this means the New England and Pacific Northwest Districts can select 4 to 6 FIRST Dean’s List Award Finalists, the Mid-Atlantic Robotics District can select 3 to 5, and Michigan can select 5 to 8

For all other judged awards presented at the District Championship, including the Woodie Flower’s Finalist Award, there will be a single winner.

When Districts have made their decisions regarding award quantities within the ranges above, they will be announcing them.
**
Kickoff Taping**

We taped the segments needed for the Kickoff broadcast that involved the field on Saturday. This was the first time we had a chance to take a look at a fully assembled 2014 season field in person rather than on a display screen or on paper. I thought it looked great. Especially impressive was the…but, I guess I shouldn’t say any more.

As you may remember, a few weeks ago we put out a call for team t-shirts that the FRC staff could wear during the taping. FRC Engineering had the idea for staffers in the videos to wear team t-shirts rather than traditional FIRST or FRC shirts. Response was much greater than we expected! 123 teams sent in shirts for us to wear. I was at the taping only for a few hours on Saturday – and it went all day and in to the evening – but I can’t tell you how many times I heard someone shout ‘Wardrobe!’ meaning it was time for the staffers to change their team shirts to get ready for the next scene.

Many team shirts made the videos – but you’ll have to watch them to find out which ones. Remember, also, that in addition to the main Kickoff broadcast, we tape additional videos that present more detail. Staff were wearing team t-shirts during those as well. If time permits, these will be broadcast right after the main video on Kickoff day, and they should also be available on our YouTube channel later in the day. Whether you sent in team t-shirts or not, watching these additional videos will give you a more in-depth understanding of the 2014 season.

Less than a month until Kickoff! I’m very excited.

Frank

Interesting how they’re letting each district choose how many of each award to give.

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This is obviously a hint. Important parts highlighted in red.

Seriously though, I like the variability allowed in the awards.

3

He’s talking about the pyramids, of course

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There’s three pyramids this year. Three dots, three pyramids. We’ve figured out the hint, now we can all go sleep for 3 weeks.

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Ellipsis - a series of dots indicating an omission.

Quick, how many wacky game ideas can we generate? Morse code? Falling? Leaving stuff out of goals? GO!

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Dean assigns homework at CMP, hardly anybody does it.
Frank mentions sending in shirts for the video, six score teams do it.

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Well, no. he said “especially impressive was the,” not were. It’s singular. There’s some singular impressive object or structure on the field. Likely central, probably similar to 2007.

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Good point. Maybe there’s three tiers to the pyramid. Oh… wait a second.

Taylor, I don’t want your post to become lost in the jocular comments about this “hint.” While I don’t have time left (in class :o) right now to comment, I would love to see people’s thoughts on this. Reasons for lack of participation, how to improve participation, etc.

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To be fair, making a good video (during a time of year when everyone is likely doing everything else in their life that doesn’t involve robots) is magnitudes of effort and difficulty more than sending in a t-shirt.

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Quoted again for truth. Although we don’t KNOW how many teams did it.

If I were running a district, I would choose as many EI winners as possible, since there is a monetary award as well.

Anyhow, to te obvious game hints:

including the Woodie Flower’s Finalist Award
That incorrect apostrophe is surely a game hint. Coupled to the ellipsis, it is clear to me that there is a grammar element to this year’s game, specifically punctuation.

Or maybe it’s just a mis-spelling of ellipses, those oblong circle thingies…:stuck_out_tongue:

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I thought the NASA award excluded districts last year? Am I wrong, or thinking of something else?

You mean footballs? Clearly, football game piece.

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It excluded winners at individual District events, not winners from the overall “District/Region” (it’s a matter of phrasing)

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Number of FRC Team’s that submitted Dean’s HW: ~50
Number of FRC Teams that sent in shirts: 123

Although ‘six score’ does make it sound like more, it’s only 2.5 times more, and as for the bigger picture, compared to the 2,500 FRC teams that competed last season, both still just barely scratch the surface.

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I think he’s trying to say the NASA Grant applied to FIRST Championship registration, but not District Championship registration.

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For MAR - here’s the distribution that was given at the 10/26 meeting

18 Slots:
3 MARCMP Event Winner
2 Chairman’s Award
2 Engineering Inspiration
1 RAS
10 “points” slots

There are only 5 rookie/1st year teams in MAR, Michigan has 89!

16

I for one am very sad to see the reduction in the number of Dean’s List Finalists being sent from the Districts as well as the Woodie Flowers Finalist. I know that I will be corrected that it is not about the number of previous regionals that are being replaced. However, last year we would have had 14 Dean’s List Finalists heading to Champs from NE regionals and now it is a max of 6… and from 7 Woodie Flowers Finalists down to 1. This is a very large reduction (more than 50%) even if you take into account that mentors and students from outside of NE would/could have won some of those spots in previous years.

I just feel that these awards are about celebrating those among us who are role models. Granted these people do not make choices based on how it will look to an awards committee, they do what they do because they believe in the message of FIRST. Reducing the number of these awards just leaves us with less to celebrate. :frowning:

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Not necessarily. You can celebrate your students and mentors any day of the week :slight_smile:

Keep in mind how difficult judging becomes at the Championship level for these awards. I don’t see it as a bad thing to become more selective.

18

I can see I’m going to have to adjust my vocabulary. Until now, I thought FIRST was calling the areas running a district model “Regions” – the Mid-Atlantic Robotics Region, the Pacific Northwest Region, etc. I’ve been very careful to follow that usage. Now, however, it seems they’re being labeled “Districts”.

Except I thought that was what they called the smaller areas within a larger region hosting district competitions. I’m confused.

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The only time I’ve ever seen a map actually divided into numbered districts" was a map of MI, and I think was to show how teams are/were divided into “home districts” ie. one they are arbitrarily signed up for. There’s been no such division like that in MAR, but the ‘first level’ of competitions has been referred to as "district events’.

My guess is this is just to further distinguish/seperate the district model from the regional model, so instead of going to “regionals” or “regional championships”, you’re going to the “district championship”

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Totally.