FRC Blogged - More Award Updates, FIRST Choice, and a New FRC Xbox Game!

FIRST General Forum
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Taken from the FRC Blog, 12/7/12: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/blog12-7-2012

Blog Date: Friday, December 7, 2012 - 11:44

Excellence in Design Award

As many have noticed from looking at the 2013 FRC Administrative Manual, the Excellence in Design Award, sponsored by Autodesk, will not be part of our 2013 season. I had intended to give more advance notice of this change, but things did not go as I had expected, and I’m sorry about that. While a relatively small number of teams – less than 50 – submitted for this award last year, I recognize that for the teams that did submit, this represented a significant portion of the effort they put forth for the season. Autodesk remains very committed to supporting the mission of FIRST, but wants to take this season to consider ways they could allow more FRC team members to explore the software-aided design and showcase sides of the FRC experience. We support their approach on this.

For teams that were planning to submit for this award in 2013, consider this: when a change gets presented to you, even an undesired change, it’s often a great opportunity to step back and evaluate the ‘whats’ and ‘whys’ of your activities. You may find new and exciting ways your animation sub-team can contribute this year. Here’s one idea: the new Digital Media Award will be looking at the many ways teams get the message out about themselves and FIRST. Could animation be part of your marketing strategy?

Creativity Award

The Creativity Award, sponsored by Xerox, will be a part of the 2013 season. It was inadvertently omitted from the 2013 Administrative Manual during the editing and formatting process. It’s fixed now!

Digital Media Award

To be clear – while the Digital Media Award will be presented only at Championship this year, any FRC team will be able to submit for it. You do not need to be present at Championship to win!

**FIRST Choice
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Reminder – FIRST Choice opens for ordering at Noon EST on Monday, 12/10. Only teams that have paid their registration fees will be able to place orders. The most desirable items will go quickly, so get ready!

New FRC Xbox Game

I’m excited about this one! Diamond Bullet Studios is releasing a game for Microsoft’s Xbox console based on the 2012 FRC competition. The game is coming out soon. Check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBg8QlAP2Eo

Also, if you – or folks you know – are registered XNA developers and would like to test this game before official release, please email [email protected]. Diamond Bullet Studios would love to have your help!

I’ll blog again soon.

Frank

Well, Creativity Award is back in, Excellence in Design is out, and the Digital Media Award is open to all. I wonder if Diamond Bullet will develop the game for other platforms as well (Playstation, Wii, etc.)…

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Due to the differences in development platforms(qnd based off the developer’s posts in the FRC subreddit) I don’t expect PS3 or Wii versions, but we can expect a PC version of it.

It’s disappointing to see that there is virtually no award now that is directly for any sort of animation or CAD(yes, I know they can be integrated into other awards, but it’d be nice to have ones SPECIFICALLY for these things)

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Other than the Safety Animation…

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I have to say, I’m a little disappointed in this update. I have submitted to the Autodesk (CAD) awards for the past 3 years and have always prided myself and my team on the detail and accuracy of our CAD and our submissions.
Additionally, 1515 has an animation team of 10-15 students annually. That team now finds itself without a definite goal this year.

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I’m not sure about the Excellence in Design for the robot competition because we’ve always used Pro-E/Creo and couldn’t submit for that. But, for animation, maybe we could have “our own” animation contest/challenge?

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This news has sent at least one of my students into a sort of depression - he’s a senior that is the captain of the animation subteam. He doesn’t have any experience with anything else. He now fears that he will be ‘useless’ this build season. I’m not really sure what to tell him. This is highly disappointing. I wish we could have known about this sooner so that people could have had a chance at pre-season training.

We now have the ‘Digital Media Award’, but it’s just not the same. Oh well. I suppose it’s time to adapt. :frowning:

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I’m really sorry to hear this - it’s a really tough situation for him to be in.

Last year, our Animation lead transitioned into another leadership role during the build season. We have one lead of “Game Mechanisms,” but last year, we split that role in two and put him in charge of the bridge manipulator and the existing Game Mech. head in charge of the shooter. I expect we’ll do similar this year - good leaders can adapt to different roles. (He even threw some of his animation prowess into the job, putting together an animated demo of the bridge manipulator in 3DS Max).

I hope your students can make the most of it.

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Is there a pdf version of the manual? I just got a nook and I was hoping to put it on there.

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There is a link to save a PDF at the upper right corner of this page. http://frc-manual.usfirst.org/viewItem/2

Direct link: http://frc-manual.usfirst.org/upload/pdfs/Item21354835555.pdf

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@BugByte There is also an Andriod app coming soon (you would have to root the nook I think…)

I am disappointed that the Digital Media Award is only going to be presented at championships. Team outreach with technology is very important and I think that the regional should recognize it. I guess it could be part of the entrepreneurship award…

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Have your Animation Lead start working on something to show in your pits. He can animate the history of the team, how you do outreach, how you choose your design, or many other aspects of what you do. Find a way to mount a monitor to your pit and show it. Also put it on your website. He could also animate something for your Chairmans Video.

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I know a lot of people are disappointed to hear this news. Team 116 takes a lot of pride in its animation team and has been discussing multiple options as far as what these students could do on the team that they would still be interested in. I would recommend considering keeping your animation subteam together and trying to find another reason to create an animation. Some of the things we discussed were creating an animation to go along with our chairman’s submission or simply an animation to show to kids/interested parties at outreach events. I think the animation portion of the competition played an important role in encouraging a variety of people to become involved in FIRST and I’m sad to see it go, but hopefully teams can still find reasons to continue making animations. Good luck this season.

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Team 116 has decided on a course of action: we will be holding our own competition this year for animation. The thread is here.

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There are a lot of good reasons to create animations: to impress FIRST judges, to help with team “marketing”, maybe create a public service announcement for your local TV station, or just for the joy of learning.

But contests really motivate us. Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic for the Orteig Prize. Scaled Composites, the first private company to launch a man into space, did it to win the X-Prize. How exciting would it be to build a robot if you weren’t competing against other very tough teams?

I see on the 3D Animation forum Team 116 is organizing a contest. That’s awesome, but others might also want to help out.