Greeting Teams
Due to the current local and state guidelines, the WRRF Board of Directors (BOD) realized many teams may not have access to their school or robot to allow participation even in a virtual robotic offseason competition. In order to continue to provide opportunities for teams to be involved in these challenging times, the WRRF BOD have decided the 2020 CalGames will continue without the Robots. The 2020 CalGames will be limited to presentation based judged awards to be completed remotely. This will allow teams to participate even without access to their robot, prepare material as a team virtually, but still gain valuable experience in interacting with judges and presenting their ideas. In particular, some of the awards will include feedback from our experienced judges back to the teams to help better prepare for the upcoming competition season.

Teams are encouraged to follow state, local and school guidelines when preparing material for these interviews. And the WRRF’s expectation would be that team’s presentation material can be assembled without in person preparations if not allowed.

No cost to register. Registration will initially only be available to Bay Area teams. Teams do not have to participate in all judged awards, but would have to declare which awards they would like to participate in when they register. If interview slots are still available after initial sign up period for Bay Area teams, registration will be opened up to out of area teams. Note that Founders and Entrepreneurship awards require a written submission and would be followed with an interview. The System Design Strategy and Imagery awards, the team can make a presentation to the panel of judges. Each interview session should assign one team facilitator who coordinates the speakers on their team for each of the awards.

The Outstanding Mentor Award will not be tied to team registration noted above. Nominations will be much like prior years and would be limited to Bay Area teams. Interview will be setup with nominators and other team members.

For teams going through interviews, we suggest no more than 4-6 team members participate in the virtual interview session.
Details are still being worked out, but the below list of awards are being considered for the 2020 CalGames. The WRRF is targeting signups to begin in the next week or so, with virtual judging sessions in October.

Volunteer to support the event- Send interest to VolunteerCalGames@WRRF.org

Questions can be sent to CalGames@WRRF.org

Outstanding Mentor Award
A MENTOR earns this award with support for a team and its members or the WRRF community at large. An effective mentoring relationship is characterized by mutual respect, trust, understanding, and empathy. Good mentors are able to share life experiences and wisdom, as well as technical expertise. They are good listeners, good observers, and good problem-solvers. They make an effort to know, accept, and respect the goals and interests of a student. In the end, they establish an environment in which the student’s accomplishment is limited only by the extent of their talent (National Academies, 1997, p. 2).

WRRF Founders Award
This award recognizes outstanding effort in promoting STEM, celebrating STEM and passing it down to youth, across to peers, and up to alumni/adults/seniors. The team has an ultimate goal of inspiring respect and honor for science and technology and encouraging more of today’s youth to become science, engineering, and technology leaders. The award honors the accomplishments and measured successes that the team has sustained over the past three to five years. The WRRF Founders Award is a submitted award with an interview at the venue. INTERVIEW would be with a maximum of 3 students and timed (12 minutes maximum). Students may present information at the interview (maximum 7 minutes) with Q&A (5 minutes), or just Q&A for the allotted time.

Entrepreneurship Award
This award recognizes that it takes money to make robots and to compete in robotics competitions year after year. This award recognizes a team that has developed a process to find, foster, and grow funding resources, allowing their team to be successful. This award recognizes more than simple fund raising; it recognizes the team spirit and enthusiasm needed to develop a strong set of sponsor-team relationships. A business plan or display would be helpful.

System Design Strategy Award
In general, this award recognizes an exceptional robot system design and how it is intended to meet this year’s game challenges. The winner of this award may demonstrate a unique or exceptional design element (software and/or hardware) to the judges with a solid robot system design. Since the judges will not be able to see your robot operate, teams should utilize material such as CAD, sketches, videos, calculations and other evidence to support your design strategy.

Imagery Award
Awarded to the team with the most visually attractive design of their machine, team appearance, and uses these to create a marketing strategy and executed implementation plan to generate awareness and build interest in the team and their robot.