I’m just wondering what everyone thinks this year’s animation topic will be… If you have an idea on what you think it should be please feel free to post it here…
I really hope it’s something different than the last few years topics,
“What does FIRST mean to you?”
So feel free to post your ideas…
Hopefully something a tad more original.
I think it should more be an open topic where we can show off more about the indvidual teams instead of something about First. The teams work hard on doing more than just building our robot. I would and I am sure other teams would like to show off what they have done other than building robots. It would be a great way to show that this is more than just building robots.
Cyber Blue 234
^ agreed.
I’m tired of this “What does FIRST mean to you?” topic. Hopefully they’ll think of something better for this year.
I agree with him ^
TRUE DAT!
Yeah, they have this it is called the Chairman’s awared
True, but isn’t “What does FIRST mean to you?” kind of vague?? What if FIRST meant staying up late, drinking mountain dew, and eating krispy kremes to me?? 
Maybe this is one reason Chairman’s Award got put down to paper entries only.
So do that for your animation… I don’t see any problems with that…
What first means to our team is some really neat team logo going around building a robot.
I have to say that “What does FIRST mean to you?” is pretty open…
If you move it to concentrating on teams, then those with an awesome robot or “bigger” and more popular teams are going to fare much better than rookie teams or teams with a less-than-super-awesome robot and work schedule. I think things that do more with the team than FIRST are reserved more the Chairman’s Award. This award is supposed to be concentrated more or less on making a “spot” (their words not mine) for FIRST…sort of like an advertisement.
I can’t picture this ever changing in that way. Like Jeremy said, it’s kinda like a FIRST ad.
I could turn this into a discussion of the FIRST philosphy, but I’ll keep my mouth shut.
I dunno… is it just me, or does it feel like they can’t come up with a new topic?? I mean, how many years have they been using this “What does FIRST mean to you?” 
The contest should be more about the person or persons ability to use the software, not the ability to convey a message. While an animation should make sense, to give them a closed topic like, “What does FIRST mean to you?” is shortchanging peoples talent. Why? You basically just told people to model their robot. The entries I saw before I came onto the Royal Oak robotics team were basically disregarded if it didn’t have the following:
A FIRST logo
Something to do with their robot
A lot of the entries I saw (Speaking of the 2002 entries I saw) had excellent graphics and technique, yet they didn’t place well simply because their topic meant something to them a purely them.
First is not all about a robot though. This is a large part, but not all of it. People could make an animation similar to a Chairman’s award. Plus there is like the 2002 Technokats entry, I know I’m biased but still good point, it is the design process. It involves the robot but does not directly revolve around it. This was the only one I could think of off the top of my head, but I am sure there are others out there. That are what FIRST is about but never show a robot, or at least don’t focus on it.
The ones that I saw, if it didn’t have the logo of FIRST or their robot, it placed low. Thirty seconds really isn’t enough to define something that’s not so generic.
And that’s the challenge isn’t it? 
It seems like FIRST wants basically an advertisement, so maybe we’ll try hitting on that some this year, but guys just do what you want and have fun with it and know that you made something from nothing, cause that’s basically what we’re doing. We start with absolutely no idea of what we’re going to do, and within 6 weeks time of long and tedious work (cough rendering cough) we have a finished product. Hmm… kinda sounds like building a robot… only we have so much more freedom 
Actually in 2002, when they first started this, I was on the animation team of team 45 and we all basically agreed they are looking for a commercial that could potentially have air time bought for it. The usual limits for a commercial are 30 seconds and you would want all people to be able to understand what message is being conveyed.
They’re peer judged so I’m not sure why you’d say the topic needs to be changed as opposed to the way students judge?
I don’t know if they still did this last year or not, but in 2002 they had an award for “Technical Execution” or something like that was the most technical and “pretty” use of the given software.
I don’t really see how “What does FIRST mean to you?” is a closed topic. If they said “Tell how your robot affects your FIRST experience” or “Convery a strong message about the relationship between mentoring and the FIRST experience” then I could see your point of view.
I don’t know, I just feel, “What does FIRST mean to you?” Is a dull topic. I’ll still obviously try to get as creative as I could with it.
From talking to Ted Boardman over the summer, don’t expect much change in the animation topic for atleast another year. Sorry guys…