Please don’t think Im being cynical about it, nor do I feel that the Chairmans Award is a simply unattainable thing. Im just curious…blame it on idle hands 
i think that anyone can win it, but that with fundraising, size, and experiance a teams chance of winning is increased a lot
Which teams have won the Chairmans Award/ were Chairmans Finalists in the past…and what was the one thing that stuck out about their submission that made it so spiffy?
Ok, I’m just going to spit it out although I know I’m gonna get hate mail. I’ve been at it for five years now and can’t find any logic what-so-ever to this award and you know how we engineers cave without logic. I’m frustrated with it because it consumes a lot of resources on our small scale team and the chances of winning are low (kind of like winning the lottery). I personally believe that the ‘bot’ building does more to impress our students. I know FIRST puts priority on this award over every other award but I’m not buying into it anymore. I think the final decision is based on some sort of random number generator. Sorry, I love FIRST, but not this part.
In what i can imagine what other teams face and what I’ve seen in my personal experience is that smaller and less funded teams experience more difficulty in putting together a chairmans award. They have less money, time, resources, and things to put into the Chairman’s Award. Larger teams have more people available to work on the chairmans award and more people to do the jobs needed to have stuff to put together into the chairmans award. If you are a small team you don’t have enough time or people to be able to spare them in order to get out into the community to spread the word about FIRST. This makes it more difficult to get material to put together into the submission. If your team is less funded you can’t spend all the time working on a submission, you need that time to fundraise. Also If your team is less funded, your submission is obviously going to be less put together and professional looking because it will be to much to afford. Basically I feel chairmans award favors large, heavily funded teams, much like the rest of FIRST.
I have watched over the last 8 year of who gets the award.
When you see a Big corp. enter into this competition. One of those teams they sponsor gets the award. Just look back at all the winner.
For you to win you need to get a big corp to give lots of money to FIRST to help out and surpise you get something.
I have seen this in all awards. If your team is sponsored by a great company, you will most likey get a award.
They do this to make all the big company happy.
So if you are a team that goes out and gets all these small corp. to give money you have a slim chance of winning.
*Originally posted by Mike Norton *
**I have watched over the last 8 year of who gets the award.When you see a Big corp. enter into this competition. One of those teams they sponsor gets the award. Just look back at all the winner.
For you to win you need to get a big corp to give lots of money to FIRST to help out and surpise you get something.
I have seen this in all awards. If your team is sponsored by a great company, you will most likey get a award.
They do this to make all the big company happy.
So if you are a team that goes out and gets all these small corp. to give money you have a slim chance of winning. **
I have to agree with you that large teams with big corporate backings tend to win the chairman’s award, but not for the reasons you have. Large teams have more time and resources to go out into the community and recruit and mentor new teams. I’m not saying that smaller teams don’t have the opportunity to win the award, it’s just that bigger, more established teams tend to have more time to spread FIRST.
Also, I’m confused by who you consider to be a “Big corp.” Looking back at last year’s winner (Chatsworth) I don’t see any companies that I would consider big corporations. What about all those 180 or so teams sponsorsed by NASA? You can’t get much larger than NASA.
As for the other awards, most judges (the one’s who give out the awards) are guests and so they don’t know who the super-power teams are. It is very hard for them to be biased when the only information they know about teams is what they find out by asking the team members.
All you have to do is mentor some FLL or robotics teams and exemplify the ideals of FIRST and you have a good shot of winning the chairman’s award, especially with the new regional chairman’s awards.
We do a lot of going to local elementary schools and doing a presentation with last years robot.
And sometimes the video camera is remembered and brought!
(not to name names, you know who you are)
I think everyone has a chance if they’ve already got their foot into some really great stuff. We’ve helped with FLL, we have the Virginia state competition at our town. We’re mentoring a team. More specifically, people like me are on two teams.
I think we have a chance. The Chairman’s award is my deal to organize and get the award done. We’re getting a good bit of footage and getting professionalhelp with the editing and everything. Easy to get help in a college town for a low price. shoot, this person wanted to do it for free, but she just bought a house
Now, the difference this year is that I think it will give people more of a chance with Regional Chairman’s Awards.
We’ll see. For a lot of teams namely ours it’s the type of thing we need to get a good sponsor.
*Originally posted by Jay Lundy *
**As for the other awards, most judges (the one’s who give out the awards) are guests and so they don’t know who the super-power teams are. It is very hard for them to be biased when the only information they know about teams is what they find out by asking the team members.
All you have to do is mentor some FLL or robotics teams and exemplify the ideals of FIRST and you have a good shot of winning the chairman’s award, especially with the new regional chairman’s awards. **
This is not necessarily true. Judges can be quickly educated on how the politics work. They can ask about teams and form an opinion but I’m sure that someone will mention that this team also does this or that and it doesn’t really take much to recognize some names as being sponsored by a big corp. Also just mentoring FLL teams and what not isn’t as easy as you may think. Yeah sure you show up tell kids some stuff and write down that you did that. What about actually doing something with those kids? Something extra like show them how FRC goes, show them your shop and try to get them interested in what you do during the build season. OK just my thoughts.
well, i have been on the chief delphi team for a couple of years now and when we won chairman’s award in '97 we were not a big team. I don’t know if you guys received some papers explaining what should be mentioned in the chairman submissions.
For one thing, FIRST looks for student made products and creativity (must stand out from all others, colorful, appealing to the eye, and most of all short and to the point). Please, don’t have paragraphs in the submission (if it’s a book). Stick to the guidelines and rules and show that you really have fun with the idea of FIRST.
Just show that you are spreading FIRST in your community and almost everything you do. Most importantly, have fun with it and don’t forget your main goal.
Um, you’re in Chief Delphi. Doesn’t that kinda help prove our point? I do have to say, but don’t take me wrong, with eveything I’ve seen Chief Delphi do, you guys deserve to have won it.
What my fellow alumni and roommate is actually trying to convey is what the JUDGES are looking for and HOW to get their attention. I was the co-captain for our Chairman’s team last year and was also a 2 year member of the Chairman’s team. It’s best to keep the judges interested and if you want them to look at your submission try to follow Sai’s advice. It really does help.
If it’s too loud, turn it down~ weezer
My point is that anyone can win chairman’s. You don’t have to come from a widely recognized team to win. Just show them that you are taking advantage of what FIRST has to offer through your partnership and community service.
I know that some teams feel like they don’t have the time to spread FIRST and fundraise but try to find a way to do both. FIRST is only a four month long engagement and you have the other 8 months to do fundraising and spreading FIRST. Even if your team is small you could make it happen.
You guys may think “She’s from Chief Delphi, they don’t have to worry about being recognized.” To tell you the truth, we do worry. A LOT! 
We worry about putting together a good submission and publicizing it. I know I worked on Chairman’s last year and tried my best to be involved with as much of the other activities our team was involved with.
Just remember that the students are what make a team a team. Not the engineers nor the coaches. You guys, the students. That is what the judges look for.
Sai
~This I Promise You- NSYNC~
I understand that, but for some teams we do things 12 months a year. We work with the First Lego League and go all over South West Virginia. We’ve visited every business within a 100 mile radiusexaguration, but you get the point.
Don’t let my name decieve you. I may be a “mentor” persay, but I am younger then a lot of the seniors on the team and I took that role just so I could be involved. I try and get my team involved with this award, but they don’t seem to understand the importance and prestigiousness of it. This is actually the first year that our team has put more then 2 days on it.
I respect Chief Delphi a lot. I’ve never heard a bad thing about them at all. And I realize that they are just another team that are extremely lucky to have such great sponsers and great people. And I realize the they have to work just as hard as any other team.
The one thing I also realize is that it makes it a lot harder for a team with 15 students, all of whom work on the bot the majority of the time, compaired to a team who has 50 students and has 10-20 to exclusively work on awards and other projects. It also makes it difficult for some teams who haven’t gotten so lucky with how the economy has hit their geographical area and don’t have the resources to do a professional job on it without going “out of house” to have it finished.
So in theory, yes anyone can win, but in truth, only those teams who have the person-power and the resources can win it. It was said before, it needs to be flashy and asthetically appealing. Well, that takes money and/or equipment.
I don’t mean to start a fight with this. I just feel that the Chairman’s Award is tainted for those who have the resources. I hope that this year with regional Chairman’s Awards will help to change this…
Yes, i feel that this year may help the other teams and that is a great thing.
To clear things up, we only have about 30 students or less and there are only 7 to 8 people that could be spared to work on the chairman’s book.
The book does not have to be all that flashy. In 2000, we just made a 4-5 page scrap book showing all we did. It was just some pages with pictures and lines of words explaining the picture, in a binder. They only spent about a week or less on that book and we won finalist. Nothing expensive or time consuming. That shows that you really don’t have to do that much to win. Just tell you to not be discouraged about not winning this award. Just come back every year with a submission and you just might win.
I do not want to start an arguement either but I just had to tell you that we do have it as hard as other teams. Usually not all the team members are as dedicated as the ones in your team but we always try and pull through. Hey, miracles could happen. Good Luck to your team this year (robot and chairman’s).
Sorry about my babbling. I just feel that it is hard to say what i want to say through the forums. I feel that ie is easier person to person.
Have fun at your competitions (I wish I could be at the competitions too). Since I am an alumni, I don’t get to go to the competitions. <<sniff, sniff>>
Sai
Hey thanks, you too.
The 50 members wasn’t reffereing to your team, but others I’ve heard about. We have a really hard time on our team getting people to understand the importance of this award, and so every year we have a crappy one. Anyways, no harshness intended.