The 2011 Chairman's Award 'morphed' into the 2011 FRC Championship Engineering Inspiration Award!
Read below to learn more...
In our continued commitment to Gracious Professionalism and CoopertitionTM FIRST FRC Team 1629 will share our progress and results of our Chairman's Award submittal. This year also resulted in an Engineering Inspiration Award submittal.
Click here to see the final draft of our 2011 Chairman's Award Main Essay.
Click here to see the drafts of the seven Executive Summaries required for the Chairman's Award Submittal.
The primary factors the judges evaluate relate to the following questions:
How strongly does the submission document the impact FIRST has on the learning experience of the students, school curriculum, engineers, and/or community during the 2010/2011 team year as well as in prior years? Click here for Team 1629's answer.
Has the team explained/demonstrated why/how it should be a role model for other FIRST teams to emulate? Click here for Team 1629's answer.
How well has the team communicated its excitement and impact within the entire school, community, and beyond (state/nation) through participation in FIRST during the 2010/2011 team year as well as in prior years? Click here for Team 1629's answer.
Has the team documented an innovative way to spread the FIRST message? Click here for Team 1629's answer.
How strong of a year-round team partnership effort is reflected during the 2010/2011 team year as well as in prior years? (You can define partnership in many ways, including: the partnership among the team's students/corporate sponsor/enigneers; school/university sponsor/engineers; students/adults; community/team). Click here for Team 1629's answer.
As a whole, does the content of the documentation exemplify the true meaning of FIRST?
We submitted our Chairman's Award at the Pittsburgh Regional. We were up against some very good competition! While we did our best, Team 63 won the Chairman's Award. They had an excellent presentation and are definitely worthy of the award.
We will redesign our presentation for the Buckeye Regional and try for the Engineering Inspiration Award...
Buckeye Regional
We won the Engineering Inspiration Award! What did the judges like? Our ABC Book, restaurant placemats, STEMfiti, local efforts to spread STEM, our STEM action plan (see judge's package), and that our entire team was enthused about STEM!
We gave it our best shot and our robot did reasonably well (7-3-0). Unfortunately, we were not selected to move on to finals. This was a big disappointment for the team.
However, in the background and drama of the judging, the two Archimedes Division Engineering Inspiration judges came through the pit independently on Friday morning (no judges on Thursday). After our Awards Team members with support from other team members talked to them, used the Judge's package as a guide/show&tell, and showed them our Chairman's Award Video, the judges told us we would see more 'blue shirts' (judges). Three more pairs of judges visited us on Friday afternoon (the other three division Engineering Inspiration pair of judges: Curie, Galileo, and Newton). Each time, the Awards Team headed the conversation with support from team members, used the Judge's package as a guide/show&tell, highlighted the STEM effort bullet points, and showed the Chairman's Award Video. First thing Saturday morning (4/30/2011), a final set of six judges visited us. You guessed it, same story, the Awards Team headed the conversation with team support, used the Judge's package as a guide/show&tell, and showed them our Chairman's Award Video. Early Saturday evening the final announcement was made...WE WON!
FIRST FRC Team 1629 is the 2011 FRC World Championship Engineering Inspiration Award winner!
Lessons learned?
The Chairman's Award can, with some minor effort, be transformed into a strong Engineering Inspiration effort. Remember that Engineering Inspiration is more STEM related!
If going for a Chairman's Award at one competition, try for Engineering Inspiration at the others.
Pit Administration: Keep at least one member of the Awards Team in the pit at all times as well as one technical person (other than the Drive Team). Their only job is to corner judges as they come into the pit in order to ensure the important bullet points are highlighted. Keep a mentor 'lurking' on the outside of the pit to call for reinforcements (other Awards Team members, other techncial expertise) as needed. Keep 'reinforcements' primed and ready to come the pit if needed. Keep the pit clear of excess team members so the robot can be tended to as needed, but the judges can be handled efficiently.
While the robot is very important for the team, there are other things a team can work on that are important to FIRST as well (Chairman's, Engineering Inspiration, Woodie Flowers, Web Site Award, and much more).
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Never give up hope.
Lastly, and most importanly, have fun on the journey! |
