Poor Dean's Homework 2013 Turnout

FIRST General Forum
#57

Libby,
Thanks for bringing the conversation back to the original question.

We dedicated a few resources to complete the assignment because we felt it had a net benefit. Specifically, the video gave us a jump start on our Chairman’s Award process going into our sophomore season. It became the “first draft” of our message.

Getting awards organized early may also give us a better shot at winning a few. Winning our way to Championship is definitely a strong incentive. Documenting our history and having additional promotional materials to recruit sponsors are other benefits.

The November 1st target was a little early in my opinion. A mid December deadline would still have forced us to finish before kick-off, which I felt was the true goal. The early completion date could have discouraged boarder participation of other FIRST teams.

I know my rational above was focused on the benefits to my team. However, the actual goal of Dean’s Homework was to provide “Make It Loud” content for the benefit of FIRST as an organization. Maybe Dean should provide examples as to how other homework assignments have used to benefit FIRST. I am assuming these videos will be used to convince future sponsors or agencies to join our mission. But it is just an assumption…

David

#58

I can’t speak 100% for why the video wasn’t accomplished on 1071. I know we had discussions about it back in the spring, and we said we we’re going to do it. However I know myself (PR leader at the time) and my PR mentor, along with many others in the PR sub-team got wrapped up in planning for our off-season event, and it got pushed to the way side. Summer is always hard for the team to accomplish things so that didn’t happen. As for this fall, with over 50% of our 2013 membership now at college, the team was busy training new membership and it couldn’t be accomplished.

With that said, most of the reasons 1071 didn’t get it done was reasons specfic to our situation. However there are some things I recomend FIRST could change to hopefully increase participation.

  • Increase the maxium length of the video to 5 minutes.
  • Extend the Deadline to at least kick-off of the next year.
  • Provide an example video or two.
  • As it has been already said, a little more promotion on FIRST’s part would help as well.

With that said, even with these and other changes suggested, sometimes teams just won’t be able to make it happen. Thats okay, every team needs to focus on what it considers a priority based on it’s own needs and situation in the moment.

#59

We were one of the teams that did do it, and I think I know why. We were able to cut it down to a 2 person team to make the video – one of our guys has a great story, so he told it, and our video person made the video. However, we have a relatively big team, so we were able to spare the manpower to get this done (while also running three offseason events).

As for ways to make more teams do it, I like the idea that someone suggested earlier of having it be a prerequisite for a Chairman’s submission. It’ll get far more teams to submit, while also making the quality better (Chairman’s teams often have awesome stories to tell).

#60

An interesting idea, but I don’t think a carrot or stick approach is the answer to this homework problem.

#61

I think extending the deadline until a week before Christmas could be beneficial. Teams likely to do this are in high gear right now, they can use some footage to tie into their RCA video, and a lot of events teams do happened around this original deadline or after it.

Tying in a video requirement to the RCA submission on top of the RCA video (which isn’t even judged) isn’t the solution, but I think if FIRST came out, asked for more submissions, and gave teams some more time, they could double or nearly triple the submissions.

I hope FIRST/Dean will offer up the homework at kickoff this year. It’s important to realize the circumstances surrounding the homework/make it loud call to action took place under very unique and personal circumstances in the first place, so the unique timing of the announcement may be just that.

#62

How is getting the homework at the start of the build season going to help? All the teams are going to be busy at that time. He gave the homework out that the end of the season and gave 6 months (give or take) to do it when teams are supposed to be less busy and look at the results. imagine what would happen if he gave it out at the beginning of the season.

#63

At least everyone would know about it. Maybe teams with dedicated media students will make amazing videos that will impress people. Teams that struggle to get by during build season are most likely in the group that didn’t make a video already anyway. This was, in my short tenure, the first time that homework wasn’t a part of kickoff. This is also the first time we haven’t done it to some degree.

#64

Because almost everyone in FRC watches Kickoff?

#65

In this instance, you can make this an easy opportunity to develop b-roll for build and competitions, or use the time for just about anything else under the sun. Maybe a team holds a kickoff event for rookies or has a special night with the community to show off their robot and program. Maybe a team has a really cool outreach event in between events. Teams can do anything on any given day of the year, why impose limits over a deliverable that can be independent of the submit construction?

#66

This is what I meant in my post earlier in the thread – if the deadline was extended to next CMP, they could be using the entire year & build season to compile the media they’re going to use, and make a quality product by the time the next homework is given out.

Something that’s this big of a project needs more time than just April-November (and in the cases of teams who didn’t see Dean’s speech, August-November – or whenever it was that the guidelines were released.)

FIRST has heard about the discussion going on here – well, the relevant and useful parts of it. (Not so much the arguing about JrFLL.) Hopefully something will come of that. I’d love to see the submission box left open so that people can continue to produce content.

#67

As Akash pointed out, nearly everybody watches kickoff. This is compared to the less than 20% of teams at or watching Championships, or the even smaller amount of teams that may stumble upon an assignment given at any other time of the year. Quite basically, Kickoff is the only time that FIRST can reasonably expect to reach the majority of participants in a way that is more meaningful and exciting than an email during the off-season.

Clearly the method they used last year didn’t work, at least in terms of getting a ton of submissions, so something has to change-- probably from both sides of the equation. Yes, maybe teams should be more willing to jump into “non-essential” activities like Dean’s Homework, but there are several things (which have been previously expressed more eloquently than I am able to previously in this thread) that FIRST can do to creating that sort of internal culture change.

#68

Here’s the thing - in the past, the homework has been much easier in comparison.

“Write your representative, invite them to your regionals.”
“You’re not just a robotics team, you’re a FIRST team!” (help make FIRST a household name)

This video project requires a lot more time and effort. The barriers to being able to do this are pretty high given the time constraint that was placed on teams. Without the Nov 1 due-date, I think more teams would be able to work on it, either as practice with their media-passionate students pre-kickoff, or as a sidebar to their Chairman’s video production as they’re collecting media on their team over the course of the season.

I don’t think the issue is that people don’t want to do Dean’s Homework - it’s that this homework was a lot harder than the timeline given can accomodate.

#69

Not only that, these weren’t objectives with a set due date, they were more of a new way Dean wanted teams to promote themselves on a rolling basis, but not a one time deliverable to FIRST. This was a very different assignment for teams for a lot of reasons, and that’s probably the result of a much different (lower) turnout.

#70

Sorry, I didn’t mean to limit the “method” to only how they assigned it-- I meant to encompass the entire assignment-- from how it was assigned to what the assignment was. I should have been more clear about that.

I’m not entirely in agreement that the timeline was unrealistic-- I think that it’s possible for significantly more that the amount of teams submitted to have completed the project.

I think in particular though, the main problem was that “zero-to-sixty” feeling from this assignment-- as was mentioned, previous assignments have been significantly easier. Going from “track your alumni and nominate students for Dean’s List” (2012), stuff that most teams should be doing anyways, to “find a story, learn to edit video, find mentors to help to edit video, make a presentable video (to say nothing of making an awesome video)” is a rather massive leap. Perhaps if FIRST wants to scale up to “larger” homework assignments (such as a video), it would be a good idea to gradually scale up the difficulty of assignments-- teachers (at least for high school students) typically don’t expect you to complete a final project before you’ve done any homework-- likewise, some sort of build up of the willingness of teams to take on increasingly challenging homework assignments would probably go a long way towards more teams fulfilling the requirements.

#71

I have to chuckle at some of the expectations that a few people posting in this thread have for FRC teams, their leaders and their members.

It is important, I think, to remember that being part of an FRC team is just one part of the life of an engaged, enthusiastic human being. FRC team members, mentors and teachers do more than just FRC.

We hike, bike, sing, dance, play sports, travel, read… and should be proud of that. Our lives don’t have to revolve around FIRST. (Well, not for the entire year at least. :slight_smile: )

I would tell my students that I expected a small part of their extra-curricular attention for part of the year, and a very large part of their efforts for a few months of the year. Outside of the December-March “Robot Season” I expected them to bring the same professionalism, committment and dedication to their other activities that I expected from them for FRC activities, and that meant giving them the time to do those activities properly… and I used the time to enjoy my other, non-FRC activities, too.

So I think it is perfectly acceptable to respond to the question of “Why didn’t more team’s do Dean’s homework?” with the simple response that they had something better to do. Diversity is good. There is no need to apologize for it.

Life > FRC

Jason

#72

It was an easy answer for us: Other things came first

We are in the process of changing everything and how we do everything on the team. Training has increased, sub teams created, and our fundraising goal multiplied by 10. To be completely honest this video was not at all on our list of things to do.

An incentive might help alot more (ex. sponsorship/money to best video)

#73

Amen to that, Jason.

Also: Dean still gives homework? I…I had no idea. (Like, literally.)

#74

The timing of the announcement/deadline doesn’t bother me. They probably have their reasons for making the homework due on a seemingly random autumn date. Perhaps they’re processing the submissions to have a polished video for kickoff? Or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade?

FIRST HQ is full of pretty smart people. I’m not going to question their methods. Given, sometimes they get excited and push ideas out before they’re fully developed or with poor timing (first year of Dean’s List, for example). But I’ll forgive them that because the ideas they push out are good ones.

When Dean gave the homework, it was at a collection of (most of) the best and brightest and most motivated teams FIRST has, across the spectrum. Dean is surrounded with folks constantly asking him, “How high would you like us to jump today, Sir?” To expect a more-than-paltry result from his homework request is not out of line. Especially since a good chunk of the teams at CMP have experience making videos for Chairman’s - along with strong footage and b-roll from their Chairman’s video that could feasibly be tweaked for the homework

I do wish they had hyped it more on twitter and facebook and other social media to reach and charge the students and keep the task top-of-mind.

#75

For all the platitudes about being the best examples of a FIRST team or not needing external motivation, here are a few carrots and sticks that FIRST employs to drive behavior:

Carrot: How many teams would do STEM outreach and help other teams if Chairman’s Award wasn’t touted as the most prestigious award and come with an auto-bid to the Championship (i.e. if it didn’t exist)?

Stick: How many teams would make a Chairman’s Video if it wasn’t required for a Chairman’s submission?

Carrot: How many teams would make a business plan if there wasn’t a judged award for it?

Stick: Do you honestly think every student and mentor would wear safety glasses and closed toed shoes in the pit if there wasn’t a rule about it?

I’m not saying a team wouldn’t do these things without the carrots and sticks, but incentives provide motivation. If FIRST wants to drive behavior, that’s what they need to do.

#76

People in aggregate respond predictably to incentives and disincentives. This is perhaps the foundational truth of economics, law, and human behavior in general. People might expect FIRST to be fundamentally different than the whole of mankind throughout history, but there’s no compelling reason they should.