I'll weigh in on the thread about the awards ceremony and the role of trophies.



First, I like the parade of teams. It's a way for every team to get 

some special attention, no matter how well their work stood up under 

competition, and no matter how poorly their robot may have performed 

in the same physical space for the same audience, earlier in the day.



Second, I think its appropriate to award plaques and trophies to 

exemplary teams and exemplary volunteers. We -like- to see deserving 

people get recognized, we -like- to cheer teams to celebrate their 

great accomplishments, and we -like- to thank volunteers for their 

hard work. FLL already does a nice job of spreading the joy and kudos 

by ensuring that single teams earn (at most) single awards. (Yes, 

there's the possibility of a second award for robot performance, but 

those are different than the judged awards, and the kids understand 

that.) I also disagree with Rakesh's proposal that judging be 

eliminated be "quantitative criteria will be always preferred." This 

does not match the goal of FLL to encourage and celebrate 

well-rounded teams and outside-the-box thinking, nor does it match 

the real world where science and engineering may be quantitative, but 

the choice to employ their results is a judgement call.



Yes, I acknowledge the point that closing ceremonies can be "too much 

about the trophies." But the solution is not to eliminate the 

trophies. The solution is to increase the -content-!



Teams work hard for all fall to perform original research, to prepare 

and practice a compelling presentation, to create unique and clever 

strategies for solving table missions, to design and perfect an 

autonomous robot, to learn and employ a computer programming language 

to drive a robot, and to learn to work together as effective teams. 

Judges spend a long day hearing, seeing and exploring these wonders, 

and then tackle the Herculean task of deciding among worthy choices 

of who will receive plaques and trophies. But despite all this, there 

seems to be a reluctance to say even a few words about those things 

when handing out trophies.



Awards are often made by simply announcing the team name, failing to 

mention what they did to earn the award. Sure, it's great to cheer, 

and cheers come from teams disappointed not to have been chosen, but 

it would be great to know -why-. In Sterling, the research awards 

were given out by team name only, despite cries of "Tell us what they 

did!" coming from kids on the floor. This focuses on the trophy as 

the thing that matters, and misses the opportunity to educate the 

audience, teams and coaches--and to atta-boy the winners--by 

mentioning the accomplishments that made them stand out to the 

judges. Unless something is said in the closing ceremony, teams will 

have very little opportunity to expose their great work to the 

receptive, eager audience of fellow FLL'ers, especially at one-day 

tournaments given the hectic pace.



It would only take a sentence or two. For example, it would be 

terrific to hear something like "Team X built a strong, gear-driven 

robot that moved quickly on the table, using LEGO hydraulics to lift 

the house. They combined their missions into logical groupings, 

organized their programs using MyBlocks, and documented their work in 

a binder shown to the judges. For this terrific work, they earn 2nd 

place in Robot Design." Or "Team Y studied the effect of snowfall and 

snow removal on local businesses. They interviewed business owners, 

and created recommendations for altering the priority of snow removal 

to reduce business losses, and presented their recommendations to the 

town council. For this great work and a clear, organized 

presentation, they earn 1st place for Research."



Adding this detail wouldn't prolong the awards ceremony--it takes me 

less than 30 seconds to read both of those sentences. It would give 

the ceremony interesting, meaty content, would justify the awards 

without saying a word about scores or rankings, and would celebrate 

the hard work of the kids, giving us something real to cheer about as 

the grinning kids rise to accept their well-deserved awards.



Cheers,

Mike Blanpied

Reston, VA

2006 #4809 Nano People

2007 #1666 Power Bunnies

2008 #5013 BLT--Brilliant LEGO Team



=======



At 10:52 PM -0500 12/11/08, Nicholas Duan wrote:

>I can't agree more, considering the fact that about half of the 

>awards/trophies were given to adults, not kids.  If I was a young 

>child, waiting in the hallway and going though the closing ceremony 

>after a long day would be very tiring, and there isn't much 

>value-added in the spirit of FLL and learning.  If I was a kid, I'd 

>like to have fun and more excitement at the closing ceremony:

>

>1. Skip the team intro entirely (we could save at least an hour). 

>Let the kids enter the gym freely, play some dance music (just like 

>the closing ceremony at the Beijing Olympics).  It's party time! 

>

>2. Give awards only to kids, not adults.  I'm not saying that we 

>shouldn't recognize the contribution of our volunteers, but this may 

>not be the right time.  We may find another way to give out the 

>volunteer awards, for instance, having a party for 

>adults/volunteers/parents/coaches the night before.  Or hosting a 

>parent/coach conference for exchanging ideas in 

>coaching/judging/parenting, while the kids were doing their 

>activities.

>

>3. After announcing the winners, have each one do a live 

>presentation to the whole audience, and have the judges providing 

>comments on the uniqueness of each winner.  This will give our kids 

>another opportunities to learn, and also eliminate any doubts about 

>fairness of the judging process.

>

>FLL is all about kids getting interested and learning science and 

>technology.  If we could focus on this goal, 

>coaching/judging/running the championship will become much simpler 

>and easier...

>

>Nick

>

>----- Original Message -----

>From: Rakesh Bahadur <[log in to unmask]>

>  >

>  > Let me share my observations as a rookie coach.

>>

>  > FLL need to de-emphasise award giving and put more emphasis on

>>  learning. As long as awards are given at the end of the

>>  tournament, winning will be the major driver of participation. In

>>  FLL spirit (all about having fun and not about winning), just give

>>  only two awards, one for div 1 champi on and othe r for div 2

>  > champion.

>  >

>>  Robotics and FLL is all about science and engineering. For

>>  anything to be scientific, it must be quantifiable and verifiable.

>>  Judgement at regional and state FLL tournament (team work,

>  > project, design) does not meet that criteria. A quantitative

>  > criteria will be always preferred over a qualitative one.

>  >

>  > FLL should decide

>  >

>>  1. Whether it wants to  stay in the realm of sound science or soft

>>  science.

>>

>>  2. What  it wants to stand for?  L earning by the teams or

>  > competing parents/coaches.

>  >

>  > Rakesh



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