Hi Guys,
We’re a rookie team from Australia, who will be competing at the regional event in Hawaii this year.
We haven’t made a safety animation, and were wondering if that took us out of the running to win a rookie award.
I know we’ve missed the deadline, but should we still make an animation? Do we need to?
We were looking, but couldn’t find any exact parameters for the rookie award. Can anyone advise us?
Many thanks.
Welcome to FIRST.
No animation is needed for any awards except the animation award.
There are two rookie awards:
Rookie All Star Award
Award celebrates the rookie team exemplifying a young but strong partnership effort, as well as implementing the mission of FIRST: To inspire students to learn more about science and technology.
Rookie Inspiration Award
Award celebrates a rookie team’s outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering and engineers both within their school and in their community.
Those two awards are about the rookie experience. Your students need to explain to the judges why they are doing FIRST, how it’s affecting them and their school and what they had to do to get to compete.
The students are the only ones that will be talking to the judges, so prep them for that experience. Make sure they have specific talking points to use. Have them practice.
Have fun and good luck.
Thanks a lot. That was really helpful, and I appreciate it.
Hi again,
Another team asked us if we had finished our rookie award documentation. We checked the awards section in the manual and couldn’t find anything as to rookie award submission. Were they just getting the another award confused? Or, is there something we need to submit?
As we understood it, judges will ask students on the day, questions about why they’re involved in FRC, what they like about the team, ect.
Many thanks.
Some teams, because of their sponsorship - are required to submit a Regional Chairman’s Award entry (even though they are not eligible for the RCA).
The Rookie All-Star winner (sometimes described as a-Chairman’s-Award-winner-in-the-making) earns a slot at the World CMP so some teams get in the mindset that they want to “compete” for this.
As John said, these rookie awards will be chosen based on the experience of the judges interacting with the students, primarily in the pits. It may be helpful to have a handout of some kind to give to the judges illustrating why your team should be considered for these rookie awards (or any other awards) to back up your pit interview.
Several of the FRC awards require a pre-submission due February 21st including the Woodie Flowers Award, Chairman’s Award, FIRST Dean’s List, and new this year the Entrepreneurship award.
There is a page about your team that is filled out in the STIMS/TIMS to help the judges. I am forgetting what it is called.
There are lots of resources out there re: awards.
Besides the official awards section of the manual, look for examples here in the white papers; on http://www.firstnemo.org/resources.htm and with the http://www.assistingcreativeenergy.com/award-resources.html
Best wishes for a fun and learning year!
Have your students practice their “Elevator Pitch”. It’s a short speech/conversation about the team and what FIRST means to you.
Search Chief Delphi for examples like this one.
Jenny pointed you to some great resources. Check them out. There is a lot of material in the Nemo site.
Have your students practice engaging someone role playing the judge. I see so many teams that are not aware that a judge is there. Greet them, introduce yourself, shake their hands and engage them in a dialogue. You have a built in advantage that you are from another country. Use it.
Good luck, Have fun
I think you missed Highest Rookie Seed, which I believe goes to the highest ranked rookie team at a competition.