I was wondering if we would loose our rookie status as an animation team if we submit our forms, but fail to finish our animation.
Quick feedback would be apreciated! We deen to make a decision soon on the matter of sending in forms for our animation
I might add this is our second year as a team, but our 1st submitting an animation.
sorry, have to do this
BUMP
Yeah, I’d like to know too… Deadline looms!
No you don’t lose it.
My team submitted the entry forms and an animation last year (It was rejected due to an inexperienced technical foley) and we are rookies. So if you don’t finish this year, you will be a rookie for the next.
Wow, I didn’t know that. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. My team didn’t submit an animation last year so we’re rookies again!
if u are a rookie team but your animation is good, can u get the other award?
This is from the Award info in the manual and on Streamline:
Schools, which have submitted previously but have been disqualified, do not qualify as “Rookie” teams under these Guidelines. Should a “Rookie” team win the 2004 Championship Award there will be no ”Rising Star” Award presented.
So if you have submitted before and got disqualified it seems as if you are not rookies, thats the way I see it.
Are you DQ’ed if you turn in paperwork but no final animation? The dorms at our school couldn’t get online, and now we have no SFX to use… I’d like to be able to be a rookie team next year, but for some reason I don’t see that being the case.
For this year, you can be a veteran team and still submit an animation as a “rookie” if, and only if, your team has never submitted an animation before. As noted above, if your team has submitted an animation in prior years but it was disqualified for any reason, then it still counts as a submission and you can no longer claim to be a rookie.
However, and this is the important part, this definition is good for this year only. DO NOT assume that the rules will be the same next year. Personally, I believe that a rookie team is a rookie team, and a veteran team is a veteran team (i.e. words mean what words mean). If your team has participated in the FIRST competition for more than one year, then the team is a veteran team - including the animation group. If the team chose not to submit an animation during their rookie year, then it is their choice to pass on this opportunity and they should not be able to submit as “rookies” later.
Otherwise, you could make the same case for every other subgroup on every team. Your team didn’t submit a Chairman’s Award nomination for the first seven years? No problem, just claim to be a rookie “Chairman’s Award Group” and send it in and apply for the “Rookie All-Star” award. Your team never submitted anything for the “Controls Innovation” award, but wrote control system software for the first five years? No problem, just document your six years of experience, claim to be a rookie “Controls Innovation Group” and apply for the award. etc. etc. etc. I think you can see where this would lead.
So I would recommend that if you developed an animation this year, go ahead and submit it. Even if you think it doesn’t stand a chance against some other animations, give it a shot. You never know what might happen! And don’t automatically assume that the rules will be the same next year. If you want to withhold your submission and try it again as “rookies”, and the rules are different in 2005, don’t say you were not warned.
-dave
Personally, I believe that a rookie team is a rookie team, and a veteran team is a veteran team (i.e. words mean what words mean). If your team has participated in the FIRST competition for more than one year, then the team is a veteran team - including the animation group.
I would have to disagree with you on that, simply because a lot of rookie teams don’t have the time or resources to be able to do an animation or website, plus the animation is a lot of times a personal thing, only one or two people work on it. So technically if this is their first time doing it, they should have a chance to be a rookie. Being a rookie in the animation is just as hard as being a rookie in the robotics competion; alot of times the rookies of the animation have to figure out the program on thier own, develop their own stories and finally, get everything together for the first time, not knowing any tips or tricks. While teams with more experience in doing the whole animation thing should, in turn be able to turn in higher-quality animation simply because they have more experience…
Just my $0.02
We definitely disagree.
Let’s imagine the following hypothetical situation. The “animation team” for a team consists of just one student, who starts to develop an animation for the 2004 competition. The animation is started at the same time as every other team, and worked and developed throughout the season. As submission time nears, the animation team decides that they are not happy with the quality of their efforts, and do not submit in 2004. However, the team continues to work on the animation over the spring, summer and fall, improving it with each iteration. By the time the 2005 competition rolls around, it is a photo-realistic quality, near-professional product.
Why in the world should that team be allowed to participate in the 2005 competition as a “rookie team” entry? At that point, the team has over a year’s worth of experience with the software. The animation has nearly a year of development effort behind it. Every other legitimate “rookie” team gets just six weeks to learn the software, develop their ideas, and create their animation.
It would be beyond reason to put a group like the team described above in the same class as the true “rookies” and then try to call it fair. And yet, as we have seen in this and a few other threads, we know that some teams are going to try this. “Rookie” status should be determined by your experience and knowledge base, and not by your entry status from last year. If the full team has been in existance for more than one year, then they have had the opportunity to gain that experience and knowledge. If the team, not FIRST, makes the decision to opt out of the 2004 competition, then I believe that they should live with the ramifications of that decision (just like professionals have to do every day).
-dave
But what about those teams who find someone who has already had several years of experience? 
There is no way to be able to tell who has experience and who doesn’t, you could say by the quality, but what if the newbie was just a fast learner? Had a good eye for asthetics? Then what?
Rookie award should be to those who SUBMIT and animation for the first time…
Almost all of the important things that we all extract from the FIRST process come about as a result of doing the process. The value of entering a robot in the competition is the experience of creating, designing and constructing the robot. The competition rounds at the end are just the frosting on the cake. The value of the animation competition has to do with the creation, development, and generation of the animation, and what you extract from that process. That experience is what is important. Actually submitting it in for judging at the end adds little to the experience.
Applied to this question, when you have never been through that experience, you are a rookie. If your animation team has someone with professional animation experience, but has never been through a FIRST animation competition before, then they are a rookie. But if you have been through the experience of creating an animation for the FIRST competition before, then you are a veteran. Whether you actually submitted it for judging or not actually doesn’t matter. Particularly when the choice to submit or not is entirely your choice.
Let me put it very bluntly, for the case of our hypothetical team mentioned above. They work during their first year to create an animation, and it turns out it is not quite up to the cinematic standards of Cecil B. De Mille. But they still submit it and let the world know “I may be a rookie, and not at the same level as the veteran’s but I want you to see what I have done” and they let the awards chips fall where they may, then they deserve our respect and approval. Whether they win or lose the “rookie of the year” award or not doesn’t matter. But if they withhold their animation, work on it for a year, and then submit the following year as a rookie just because they are afraid to be fairly and honestly judged for their original rookie efforts and afraid of losing, then they don’t deserve our attention at all.
The rookie award should only go to those that are in the competition for the first time. As I said, we disagree on this. Let’s just leave it where it is.
-dave
yea its a gray area. i mean last year my team’s animation was DQed becuz we sent in a corrupt disc 
so, we are technically not rookies, but are we considered rookies by the judges? or is this only if say a team with 5 years experience finally decides to start an animation team? ::