I think that FIRST is making a mistake by not recognizing 3 or 4 Chairman’s Award Finalist at each regional.
I like that FIRST has gone to the Regional Chairman’s Award format, but I think that there are a lot of teams that are doing great work in the promoting the ideals and goals of FIRST dept.
There are definitely more than the 5 that FIRST used to recognize for their efforts (the winner and 4 finalist).
17 Regional Chairman’s Award winners is a step in the right direction but another level of recognition for 50 or 60 teams out of the almost 700 in FIRST this year would be an even better proposal.
This souonds like a wonderful idea to me. My one other problem would be the lack of feed-back on the cratique form.
I don’t know about at KSC or any other regional, but the only feedback was a regurgitation of the video, nothing that said, this is something that could make it better. I guess it’s kinda hard to do that for the regional with the most submissions. 28 submissions for VCU, that’s over one third of the attending teams.
In past years, FIRST has sent a written feedback sheet to teams giving them some idea where they did good and where they could improve.
I liked the practice. I hope that this practice is carried over to the new regional format.
Joe J.
P.S. if 1/3rd of the teams actually submitted a Chairman’s Award application, the new regional format is already a HUGE success. FIRST was getting very low participation for this award and the regional format was, in part, in response to that problem. JJ
Joe you are right.
So many teams do so much work, to promote FIRST and create partnerships. However it is impossible for some teams due to the size of the teams, and teams budget, to put things on like off-season competition, pre-regionals, and other big demos like the Big E!. But these teams do deserve lots of credit for their over above work they put into effect.
I have always liked Mike Martus’s idea of a Deans List, where it would recognize teams efforts without a fixed amount of teams.
Anyways a few finalist at regionals would be great. And maybe if enough people suggest it at the forumn in August, than it could come into effect.
There is a written feedback form that they give back to you after the award ceremony. Unfortunately, there was little written on them, and none of it was constructive. E-mail me and I will show you what ours said.
The other thing about the VCU regional is that there are a lot of NASA involved teams. I won’t give out the exact number, but every single one of those teams is required to turn one in for funding. It makes me wonder how many of those teams actually spent more than a very small amount of time to throw something together. I’m not saying that that’s an atrosity, our team had to do that last year. Some teams have the time/ability to do it, some don’t.
Even if half of those teams really put some hard work into it, that would be a GREAT improvement in comparison to years past.
Picking 3 or 4 regional Chairman’s award finalists would be a great way to increase the number of teams that can go home and say that they won “something”. Trophies are not even needed.
All though you bring up a good point, there could be some difficulties and problems with this. Sure, it is good that more awards for spreading the meaning of FIRST is good, but too many would defeat the purpose of the award, the award is given to a certain team that stands out above the rest, to acomplish the goal. Another complication would be the cost of the awards. I’m not sure how much they cost right now, but looking at them and seeing how great they look, would cause me to think they cost more than your average trophy.
These are just MY views. (They arent effected by the fact that we won the Drexel Chairmans award.)
I don’t think additional awards are needed. I just think that acknowledging a few more teams might be good. These teams did great, but, this team wins it for being the best.
We award the finalists for the competition, yet this is the most prestigious award and only one team has anything said about it.
I was happy to hear that the judges at GLR decided to mention finalists, and hope that other judges at the remaining regionals take their lead.
I believe that the National Chairman’s award is like a piece of cheese, teams need something to strive for, besides a national champion title. Sometimes their robot might not perform as well as others do; but that does not mean that the team is any less qualified to win the Chairman’s award. The Chairman’s award is not all about the robot, it is about the people. If this prestigious award is given to three or four teams it looses it’s appeal and makes it easier to win. [Besides, I don’t think Dean wants to make three more clocks.]
I do agree that only one representative from each regional is a little strict. As in many other competitions, including regional Science Olympiad competitions, at least two teams are sent on to states [from my experience with S.O.] That would mean that 17 more teams could be recognised at a regional level, to continue on to nationals where they would compete with the 34 other teams.
I propose that all teams that submit a video, scrapbook, ect… at a regional event be recognised by having an area set-up where other teams can view submissions and possibly get ideas to further the FIRST spirit in their hometown(s); which could help with their submissions for the next year.
I do not think that I do agree on the idea of recognising the finalists without giving them something. Even if it is just a framed sheet of paper or a small plaque. You could be surprised at how much a simple recognition of work done can improve the spirit of a person, a team, and anyone around them.
I feel that whatever direction FIRST decides to take this competion in, it will be well thought out and hopefully it might include / soothe everyone’s comments and concerns.
-DUCKY-
PS- if they gave out comment sheets last year, I never saw ours… so I’ll agree with you… the more constructive criticism, the better.
I agree that the lack of recongizing more than one team at each Regional is limiting the field. If we where to take the pool of people that have commented, worked on or just remember the importance of the Chairman’s Award. Maybe we could help the program by offering suggestions to help it grow after all their are so few people actually running the entire program and they are swamped.
If I was to offer suggestions:
Regional Winner and a Runner up. Have both teams compete at the Championship thus providing an opportunity to improve and show growth throughout the season.
Additionally I would allow a team to submit at all Regionals that their Robot competes at. This would enhance the opportunity.
If I was to offer suggestions:
Regional Winner and a Runner up. Have both teams compete at the Championship thus providing an opportunity to improve and show growth throughout the season.
**
The problem with having a defined winner and runner up is the unlikelyhood of the runner up winning the national chairman's award, since another team has already been recognized as more qualified than they are.
Perhaps having chairman's recognition in several catagories- with so much criteria going into the award submissions, FIRST could have, for example, an award for the best community involvement, an award for the strongest team bond, or an award for the best sponsor/team relationship. That way, more teams can be recognized without 'cheapening' the award.
Just wondering on average how many teams entered Chairman’s award at each regional. Anyone have a guess? I figure, take LA for example. 60 teams…probably about half are rookies, right? No offense to rookies, but i don’t see how one could ever win chairmans, even at a regional. So out of 30 teams at our regional, figure maybe 20 turn in submissions…one wins and four get honorable mention. So basically, you have a one in four chance of getting an honorable mention. It just doesn’t seem as special to me that way. Having regional winners, to me anyway, is a sort of honorable mention, but with more prestige.
They think FIRST is about the robot and the competition. They just don’t get it. Some teams don’t get into the whole spirit of FIRST. They bring that “sports” mentality to the compettions. “My robots’s better than yours and your team stinks,ect”. Just basically being really nasty jerks. I’m not gonna name any names but they know who they are.
FIRST is so much more than competition. I think the best part is the cross team comraderie. You don’t see that anywhere else and if FIRST loses that because they’re getting too big then maybe they don’t need to get big.