This award celebrates the art of digital animation and its close relationship to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics).

The award is offered to help encourage students to cultivate skills in design and creation of animation including, but not limited to, storytelling, creativity, use of computer software, and an understanding of different techniques and forms of animation. This award is open to all FIRST Robotics Competition teams.

THEME: “SPACE”
“SPACE” – you can interpret that however you want. It could be the how your team has SPACE for new team members or how your team provides a maker SPACE for the community to use. It could be about a deep SPACE mission. It could be about the empty SPACE your team fills in the lives of its members. This is completely up to you. For this award, what you choose for a story is not nearly as important as the skill and expertise you use to tell the story. Videos that use the theme will be prioritized over videos that don’t.

JUDGING
Judging is purely subjective. We are looking for excellence in animation skills and in the use of animation to tell a story. The Judges will be a diverse panel of Technical Marketing, Visual Effects and Animation experts from around the world. We will be specifically looking for:

Mastery of Animation
Quality of Animation
Complexity and Presentation of Images
Expertise in Medium
Ingenuity
Originality of ideas
Effectiveness and efficiency in execution
Use of original 3D models and modeling technique
Clarity
Comprehensibility and organization of ideas within the animation
Pacing
Artistry
Aesthetic Appeal
Implementation of Artistic Elements
Use of Medium

AWARDS
Official FIRST Trophy presented at a Regional/District event.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
The following requirements must be met for an animation to be submitted to the judges and displayed for other teams to watch.

A single animation may be submitted by any registered FIRST Robotics Competition team. Submissions may be 2D, 3D, mixed media, stop motion or anything else you can use to animate a story.
The submitted animation must be no more than 30 seconds long including credits (does not include title screen). Animations more than 30 seconds long will not be judged.
It must be relevant to the Challenge stated above. (see Theme Section)
30 seconds is only an upper limit. Teams may submit an animation of any length up to that limit, and the duration will have no impact on how the animation is scored.
Animations must be submitted as QuickTime files. Animation must also meet the following requirements:
Animations must use the MPEG-4 or H.264 codec.
The animation must have a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (720p).
The animation must be recorded at 30 frames per second.
The submitted file must have a name in “Teamxxxx” format (e.g. “Team0116.mov”).
Title Screen
The animation must begin with a title screen displayed for a 2-second duration followed by a one-second black slate, leading into the primary work.
The title screen display will not be included in the total duration limit.
The title screen must include your team number, team name, school/organization, title of the animation, and animation duration.
Animation must be free of copyright issues. Do not use copyrighted characters, music, or other elements, unless you have the legal right to do so.
Animation should be supportive of the FIRST Core Values.
Credits
Credits should follow a one-second black slate at the end of the animation.
Make sure to include team members, mentors, software used, list of public domain sources, and licensed sources in credits.
Send your video to AnimationAwardSubmission@AutomationDirect.com via a file transfer website. We like http://www.WeTransfer.com – up to 2 GB for free and you get a confirmation when we receive/download the video!
Videos will be published for public viewing approximately within one week of the submission deadline. Keep an eye on official FIRST channels as well as unofficial channels such as Chief Delphi for the announcement.
All submissions and uploads must be completed by 11:59pm EST on Thursday, January 24, 2019. Any entries after this deadline will not be judged. Winners will be announced before the first Regional/District events.
If there are any questions, please feel free to contact us at
AnimationAwardSubmission@AutomationDirect.com.

REFERENCE:
2018 Winner (Team 1317)

2018 Judges Picks

All 2018 Submissions (98 videos)

2017 Winner (Team 1317)

2017 Judges Pick: Top Ten (no particular order)
Team 6184 Team 0503 Team0246 Team 2521 Team 1676

Team 0192 Team 4191 Team 0008 Team 2587 Team 5804

ALL 2017 Submissions (103 videos)

COPYRIGHT
By making a submission, the Submitter irrevocably grants to FIRST and FIRST's designees the right to use any or all of the submission in any and all media for the purpose of describing the submission, describing the Award, and/or otherwise promoting FIRST and FIRST's programs.