Nemesis Navigator: How To Do the Impact Award
The Impact award is one that presents a vast sea of challenges. Whether it's the essay, the executive summaries, or the presentation, it isn’t easy to create a submission for the impact award that truly gathers the essence of a team. That’s why it’s so important to treat each element of the award differently, preparing ahead, and making sure to develop infrastructure compatible with the award.
Timetable
The first thing that has to be done when developing an Impact presentation, is creating an outline on how the work will get done. Every team works differently, with various different amounts of meetings and manpower. Teams with more people, or even simply more people dedicated to the award, can usually begin work shortly before the season begins. There are a few benefits to this approach if it is possible, primarily that it allows new team members to be involved more so than an earlier start might. Additionally, it offers a more coherent process, as it keeps every part of the process generally following one another, continuing momentum. If you have less manpower dedicated, or if this might be one of your first years competing for the award, a better approach may be starting in the summertime before the season. This offers flexibility in a few key areas: timetable, and commitment. Initially, it may be difficult to get people to even participate in the development of the award, given the magnitude of the commitment is as large as it is. This is a concern that can be significantly mitigated by the implementation of a larger timetable, as each individual person can dedicate less time to the development of the award, and more time to the normal build cycle they’ve committed to by joining the team. In addition to this, the quick turnarounds, and scheduling difficulties that may cause issues in an 8-week timetable should subside in this scenario.
Executive Summaries
Now, understanding when you might need to begin the work on the award, work can begin. The first thing that should be worked on is the executive summaries. This is usually the most straightforward part of the award, and usually the easiest to complete efficiently as a large group, given each answer operates independently from the others. Initially, teams should look over the questions, and inventory what can be referenced under each, making sure to also keep an overall list of what’s being referenced, as it will be important later when documentation is developed. Not only does this offer each writer the opportunity to understand what needs to be talked about in the mere 500 character responses, it allows the team to form an idea about where future outreach can target to fix shortfalls in a given team's outreach operations. Rough drafts should be finished in around a week. Though timetables can be adjusted to need, a week's timetable offers teams the opportunity to allow the majority of the work to be completed at home, rather than during meeting time. Once the summaries are drafted, those who worked on them should meet for a few hours, and pick apart each response, making sure wording portrays events' reach, especially in specific numbers and percentages, and the overall method of operation for the events. This is another opportunity to understand where a team has opportunities to improve, as one can see what events have specific stats associated, and which have opportunities for growth. After a final list of edits is developed, each should be reviewed, and a final decision can be made, creating your final copy.
Creating Coherent Messaging
One of the key elements of any Impact presentation is its message. When the judges hear your presentation, and read your submission, what do you want them to think about your team? Ultimately, your presentation and essay should be completed with this in mind. The message should be quick and flashy. Something that can be summarized in 1-2 sentences. But most of all, it should fit a team's outreach and history. There should be a coherent line of reasoning to get to a certain point, whether it's based on a team's internal training bringing students back as mentors or its based on creating an impact internationally, and all throughout the world, it should have to store backing in outreach.
Essay
The essay is oftentimes the most challenging portion of the submission, due to the coherent nature of it. In 10,000 characters, you have to portray your entire team's outreach from 3 years, with a flow that makes sense and creates a storyline. This is why planning out the essay is so important. Creating an outline of where it’ll start and finish, and how to get it is vital to creating a solid submission. Like the executive summaries, a timeline for rough drafts should come in at somewhere around a week. After this though, the editing process needs to be more thorough. Once all of the submissions are in, work should be done to create transitions between paragraphs. Some can be sectioned off with different headers to avoid this altogether, but some of them will inevitably need to bleed properly into the next paragraph. Content-wise, this should be similar to the summaries, but should go into more depth on each program, exploring its full reach in narrative form. The easy should be a more personal look into your team and should be one that gives a better idea of how your team works, rather than a cold summary of programs. Make sure that the essay highlights the things that make your team unique. What programs do you have that nobody else does? These will be the programs that make or break a submission, because ultimately when judges review the submissions, this is the primary thing that makes a submission compelling. Make sure to also take note of concepts that weren’t fully explored. These are likely to be questioned during the presentation, especially if they also weren't explored in executive summaries.
Presentation
Now, with all of this done, the good news is, you only have a few steps left. The bad news is, these might be some of the most time-consuming steps of them all (particularly the presentation). With only 3 presenting spots, you're going to want to decide very quickly who the presenters will be if this hasn’t been decided already. The people chosen need to of course be comfortable with presenting and should have writing skills, but ultimately, the biggest factor should be the level of commitment to the team. Not only is Impact a huge commitment, taking huge numbers of hours, but it’s also important that your chairman’s team truly represents your team in all facets, especially in commitment. The first step of the presentation is deciding on a level of theme implementation. In Impact, anything can work if done properly. Whether it's jungle explorer costumes, pilot hats, or just business attire, it’s really up to teams what they think represents their team and narrative best, with memorability in mind of course. This should be established up front and should be represented in the presentation’s script. Dressing up as a theme that only gets a passing mention in the presentation can often become more of a hindrance than a benefit. Ways of theming include
- Costumes
- Accessories
- Poster boards
- Computer presentation theming
Now, moving on from this, a script has to be written. Of all the written materials involved, this is likely the most challenging, due to the pure necessity of cohesiveness. Unlike the previous writing prompts, this cannot be delegated, and will generally have to be written in meetings by a small group of students. I’d personally suggest limiting this to no more than 3 (the presenters ideally) to avoid excessive delays, and constantly moving writing styles. It’s also beneficial for presenters to write in a way that reflects how they comfortably speak. In our experience, just under 3 pages in length can fit in the provided 7-minute window, as long as the script is sufficiently practiced and memorized, though this can vary from team to team due to speaking speed. So what can fit in the presentation content-wise? Generally, you're going to want to keep only the most important of your events. Remember, everything should already have been talked about. This presentation is, in essence, a last plea to the judges. The presentation should feel personal. Stories from presenters, or about team members are always going to be most impactful in these scenarios and generally should be prioritized. The stories should reflect not only how your team impacts the community, but should inherently bring forth the events you’ve established in the past. It’s important to keep in mind that you want to build emotional impact through this presentation: you want the judges to not be FORCED to pick you, but rather WANT to pick you. The visuals in the background should show what you're speaking about and should document the events. Don’t overload the slides, and avoid words on slides. The slides should allow the judges to have a visual to put for a program, but should not draw attention away from the content of the presentation. Present in front of anyone who will listen. Get as much feedback as possible, and don’t be afraid to take risks. The impact award is vague for a reason. Make it yours. Timeline-wise, leave at least 10 days for practice and memorization. Trust me. You will not enjoy having to memorize on a shorter timetable than that.
Video & Documentation
The video, while inconsequential to winning the actual award, is still a key component of the submission process. If your team wins the award, it is important to ensure that it represents who you are, who your team is, and what you all have contributed. One way to do this is by using video clips and action shots of your team from throughout the season, representing your growth during the 6-week journey and the connections that were formed. Using inspirational and uplifting music is always a good choice for an emotional video, but going with something more lighthearted can make the video fun. Just make sure that the tone of the video doesn’t clash; it can make the viewing experience quite strange.
Documentation is another aspect that virtually any team can accomplish, but it is crucial to prove that you actually completed the outreach events you claim. With this, using the FIRST template will never steer you wrong; in fact, it simplifies the process and explains the system of documenting. Just make sure to take pictures and videos at every outreach event.
Conclusion
Hopefully this article has contributed to expanding your knowledge of FIRST’s most prestigious award. One final tip: treat the process and the award with the respect it deserves. Working on this will take a lot of time, but that time is well spent in order to promote your team’s impact and FIRST’s mission.