WFA at Champs

Competition Championship Event
#1

When is the Woodie Flowers Award normally announced at the Championship Event?

We did not qualify for the event, but we have nominated one of our mentors for the award. I need to let my team know when the award will be presented so as many as possible can be there in case he wins. I’ve dug through http://www.firstinspires.org/ and can’t locate a schedule for specific awards.

Thanks!

#2

Last year it was right before matches began on Einstein, which is Saturday afternoon.

#3

Awesome. Thanks!!

#4

Also, when you say you nominated him, did he win the award at a regional? Or did you just send in the submission?

#5

He is a past WFFA winner, so he is eligible for the WFA.

#6

I’m pretty sure your WFFA has to be won this year in order to qualify for the WFA

#7

Nope. In addition to submitting a yearly WFFA nomination, teams with previous WFFA winners can resubmit one of their winners for the Championship WFA (with a new essay).

In addition, teams who have a mentor that is a WFFA winner but didn’t win it with that team can actually submit their mentor for WFA at Champs as well (or at least this was true a couple years ago from a conversation I had with a WFA winner).

#8

From the Admin Manual:

6.8.1
Eligibility
Each year, students may submit an essay nominating one mentor from their team to be considered for this award. FIRST will recognize one adult mentor at each Regional or District Championship to receive the WFFA. If a team already has a mentor who has received the WFFA in a prior year, then that team may re-submit that mentor in the current year in addition to nominating a mentor for the WFFA if they wish.
The current year WFFA recipients, along with those mentors who received a WFFA in a prior year and have been re-nominated, will be judged to receive the
WFA at the FIRST Championship

#9

At least one previous year, they presented it earlier in the event (Friday) as I heard people wanted to be able to wish them well over the course of the weekend.

#10

For a while it was done during opening ceremonies on Friday.

#11

I liked this, but I could see how it would be a major distraction for a likely very valuable mentor…

#12

It sounds like a very reasonable thing to do.I’ve heard the same thing but can’t find confirmation one way or the other. I guess I’ll email FIRST.

Is the old frcteams@usfirst.org address still active or is it frcteams@firstinspires.org now?

#13

I think they switched it last year because closing was the only time all three programs were present. So I’m guessing they intentionally saved it for that.

#14

From my past misadventures in email: the latter is preferred, but the former forwards (for now, at least).

To split hairs, Einstein is still FRC territory; everyone then had to march around the Dome after that (and the WFA presentation during it) to get to the stands for closing ceremonies and the Champion’s/Inspire/Chairman’s Awards.

(To split hairs even finer, there are four programs. :wink: )

#15

I just got an official response from First. The WFA will be presented on Saturday before the Einstein division matches.

#16

My bad, misinterpreted the top section of that to mean that a previous WFFA winner can be nominated for a WFFA award again.

#17

That’s fair! I was thinking that Einstein wasn’t “competing” against any other programs. And yes, I should absolutely count FLL and Junior FLL separately. Thanks for the correction!