Dr. William Murphy founded the Woodie Flowers Award (WFA) in 1996 to recognize one mentor yearly whose effective communication skills motivate and inspire their students to understand the challenges, opportunities, and satisfaction that engineering and design can provide. In 2004 the award was expanded to include one Woodie Flowers Finalist Award (WFFA) recipient at each regional competition and, in 2009, to each District Championship event.
As the number of FIRST® Robotics Competition teams has expanded in areas operating under the district system, we understand that the distribution of WFFA has not remained equitable to all regions. We are making a change to improve this for the 2023 season.
WFFA District Championship Allocations for 2023
- The FIRST® in Michigan District Championship will award 3 WFFA recipients.
- The following districts will award 2 WFFA recipients at their respective championships.
- FIRST Chesapeake District
- FIRST In Texas District
- FIRST Mid-Atlantic District
- New England District
- Ontario District
- Pacific Northwest District
- The remaining District Championships will continue to award 1 WFFA recipient.
- FIRST Indiana Robotics
- Peachtree
- FIRST North Carolina
- FIRST Israel
The number of WFFA recipients at each District Championship was determined by analyzing the number of teams registered in each district and the number of submitted essay nominations in each district in the previous season. We understand that this is an imperfect system, but we believe it is an improvement, and we will continue to reevaluate WFFA allocations in the coming years.
The Woodie Flowers Award submission process opens on Thursday, November 3, 2022, at 12pm ET. Please encourage your team to nominate one of your outstanding mentors for this honor. The details and requirements for the nomination are on the Submitted Awards webpage.
The Woodie Flowers Award Committee