Hi all, there’ve been some talks about recognition of individuals on different teams by schools. Thinking about recognition reminds me of the very same thing in FIRST, the awards: the awards that celebrate different aspects of the competition achieved by different individuals or teams all over the country. Now, I am not saying FIRST’s success is represented by how many awards it give out, but they do demonstrate how FIRST influence its participants to strive for the best of the region, if not the nation… So, with that in mind, here is the question of the week…
Question 7/15/01 : Do you feel that the awards in the FIRST competition are sufficient in recognizing the achievement of individuals and teams around the country?
Now, the answer shouldn’t just be a yes or no… This question is open to any comments about the existing awards, as well as suggestions for new awards in the competition. Maybe some of you think that a certain award need a few modification to its criteria, maybe someone else have some opinions about how certain teams are always taking away other awards other teams will never have a chance to…
Have fun,
-Ken Leung
P.S. I am open to suggestions of any questions you want as the “QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!!”… So e-mail me at [email protected] and show me what you got…
Anyhow, the awards that FIRST gives out for the team’s is sufficient enough (especially with the divisions), but FIRST really doesn’t really acknowledge individuals as much as it should. Granted, they do give out the Founder’s award, but is that really enough? How about a pin collectors award?
Ok, all joking aside, The High Priest really thinks that individuals should be recognized more. Teams get recognized enough.
You should not recognize individuals very much in a team sport. That takes away from the team and could cause rffs between the members. The object is to have a team, not a collected group of individuals.
I’d like to see awards for teams based on the number of members on the team. Some of the teams are really small so they don’t get noticed for most of the bigger awards. I was on a five student team, no one noticed us for anything. This could also help the Rambots… You guys get what I mean. More recognition needs to go to the smaller teams.
C~ya,
Carolyn who feels like a little fish in a big pond.
im all for having more awards. not only do some smaller teams sometimes net get as noticed, it sometimes seems that its the same big teams who get awards every year. personally i think there should be more awards for teams that do it with nothing. teams like carolyn’s who have 5 members, and another one whos pit was right next to our…cant think of theyre name/number…who had i believe 5 college students and 3 high school students, and team like ours whos total budget was less then what some teams spent on uniforms…
Maybe all of the small, low budget, etc. teams should get together and try to win something for the group. Couldn’t hurt, might help. We’d get noticed because we’d be so “different”.
C~ya,
Carolyn
*Originally posted by Carolyn Duncan *
**Maybe all of the small, low budget, etc. teams should get together and try to win something for the group. Couldn’t hurt, might help. We’d get noticed because we’d be so “different”.
C~ya,
Carolyn **
then again, some of us are so “different” as it is that if there was a large group of us no judge would ever talk to us
Did you see the team with the kilts and bag pipes last year? They were different. You may be suprised. I’ve been “different” my whole life. People will notice and draw attention when they cannot be ignored. We just won’t let anybody ignore us. Judges won’t be able to resist asking us about why we do soething. Last year I wore a silver wig (the one in the pic on the little girl in front of me). My team thought I would scare people away because they would think I wasn’t a very good person based on appearance. I actually attracted attention and people remembered the girl with the silver wig. It will be fun! I don’t do things without them being fun. I can’t concentrate on them if I can’t enjoy them. Just a little ADD.
C~ya,
“Saucy” Carolyn who got this nickname after last year’s nationals because of her idea of fun.
I think that FIRST already does a very good job at awarding teams that stand out from the rest in certain aspects of the game. At any given competition, judges can (and do) give out judges award if they see something out of the ordinary. I’ve seen these awards go to a number of teams for a wide variety of reasons. Although leaving over half of the teams without awards may be disappointing to those teams, it gives the teams and students all the more incentive to try even harder at the next competition or during the next season.
I know it isn’t that hard for small or new teams to get awards at regionals but I have know idea about the nationals. I would think it would be a lot harder for small teams to get awards at nationals. Pretty much I think the awards at regionals are fine the way they are.
At nationals it’s really hard to get awards if your team is small. The judges don’t see you and most of them are looking for the teams whos numbers are one and two digits, rarely three, or they have won awards before. Being a rookie and having a team number somewhere in the multiple hundreds makes it impossible. I feel bad for the teams in the 700’s.
C~ya,
Carolyn
Yeah. Like you said before being diffrent would help your team stand out if you were one of those teams and it would increase your chances of getting an aword
Before this year, we were one of the smallest teams. Hardly anybody recogonized us or knew who we were, except for how much we SUCKED. We knew we needed something to get our name out there so we decided to start messing around with the control system. Thats when our electronics guy dreamed up with our wearable control arm. We never left a comp. without an award for it. And we prolly would not have won the MMR without it. We’re still FAR from being a big team. We may never get there or be sucessful again. Just never give up and have fun.
The key there is that you guys had the ability to create such a control system. Many of the smaller teams don’t have the ability to do such things, either because of knowledge or money.
IMO, the set of awards given out at the nationals are sufficient; They covered every major aspect of FIRST’s mission and the game.
Everyone is a winner in FIRST. If your team becomes the national champion, or places last, they will still receive medals for participating. These medals received for participation in FIRST can’t be handed out during the award ceremony due to the restrictions of time, but every team receives these in the mail.
One has to also remember that they can’t be awarded for every single thing they do. Those individuals who volunteer countless hours to the nurturing an advancement of their team, are to be appreciated by their team, but should not automatically expect to receive the ultimate honor at the national competition. After all, that is not the purpose of volunteering.
It’s not so much looking for recognition for what was done. It’s more like preventing people from knowing the winners before they are announced, a change of scenery. The medals are nice and all but it’s kinda like better luck next time have a cookie and try again.
