2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[Koko Ed]

What happened in 2013 that FIRST could stand to improve upon?

[Koko Ed]

The real time scoring left much to be desired.
Need more districts. Now.
The afterparty wasn't just unappealing it was overcrowded and dangerous. The food was rather nice though.
Einstein ran far far too long AGAIN.
The season ended. Not cool.

[Joon Park]

Definitely agree with the scoring. Last year's auto scoring was quick and accurate, and match resets were quick as well, allowing more qualification matches for each team at champs. I missed that.

Also, no captain's armbands during champs?

[Tom Ore]

I didn't like the difficult to enforce rules like the 54" cylinder, whether or not a climbing robot bumped the corner post in the next zone, whether or not a robot was touching the pyramid when it got bumped (when it was close.)

[Jay O'Donnell]

There isn't very much, but FIRST can't be changing big rules at the end of build season, our team built a ground intake because we thought human players would be able to throw lots of frisbees full field. Also, real time scoring was a problem.

[prerob96]

The real time scoring left much to be desired.
Need more districts. Now.
The afterparty wasn't just unappealing it was overcrowded and dangerous. The food was rather nice though.
Einstein ran far far too long AGAIN.
The season ended. Not cool.

I mean, with all the frisbees being shot, it was really hard to get the score and you also had to see how many fell out. So this years game was just hard to keep up with

[bardd]

There isn't very much, but FIRST can't be changing big rules at the end of build season, our team built a ground intake because we thought human players would be able to throw lots of frisbees full field.

FIRST changed that rule as it was a major safety hazard they didn't forsee and didn't know about until the week 7 scrimmages, I do not hold it against them, even though I understand your point.

[Jay O'Donnell]

FIRST changed that rule as it was a major safety hazard they didn't forsee and didn't know about until the week 7 scrimmages, I do not hold it against them, even though I understand your point.

I know that was the reason, and I definitely agree to it, but 3 days before build season ended was just poor timing.

[bardd]

I know that was the reason, and I definitely agree to it, but 3 days before build season ended was just poor timing.

Oh... Sorry I must have misread your post.

And while we're at it I think FIRST should test their games actually playing matches. I don't know if they do or not, but I think if they did it would prevent this sort of things from happening. It'll be terrible logistically for the GDC though.

[rsisk]

The inconsistency of counting game pieces at some regionals.
The video quality on the webcast of some regionals. Would love this to be consistent and good.

[Donut]

The real time scoring left much to be desired.
Need more districts. Now.


The sooner we get everyone to Districts the better off all of FIRST will be. I hope they come up with a good system to handle those of us in remote areas (maybe read some of the threads on CD for a few ideas ;) ) but I'm willing to be inconvenienced on what competitions we can attend short term for the huge economic benefits. Plus I think forcing the system may be the best way to spur growth in the areas that haven't seen it.

FIRST needs to stop using custom/rare game pieces. There have been a few games where it would have been easy to use a standard size, readily available game piece without needing to tell the suppliers about it and they've gone to custom or hard to find ones every time (this year stands out in particular). Orbit balls (2009) are still the only game piece that I think they have made any legitimate attempt at this, but it was made by a single supplier that stopped producing it at the worst possible time.

[Robby Unruh]

The video quality on the webcast of some regionals. Would love this to be consistent and good.

Not to brag or anything, but Crossroads and Buckeye were streamed in 720p. ;)

ninja-edit: Midwest districts pls

[Michael Hill]

Commercials during webcasts

[MARS_James]

Lets do this in Sections:

The game:
Nothing to really complain about besides another shooting game in a row which as a complaint is the most minor one I have ever had.

Kick-off:
I honest to god thought that when they began to announce the game it was a joke being played on us since it happened so early and with no fan fair. Give us some heads up.

Build Season:
If the purpose of the Q&A is not to answer hypotheticals or design specific questions. How about we make a system that does?

The new Jaguars were horrid and I am sure many teams who used Jags as their main controller, such as my team, will never use them again.

Regionals:

Nothing to complain about here Orlando and South Florida are still great events, in great areas with tons of space and easy access and I would recommend any teams from out of state or country to consider these events when picking regionals.

Champs:
As a team who went to Champs via wait list I will freely say, I wish FIRST would make a decision by week 3 saying: "Because of field reset times and the desire to give teams as much playing time as possible the number of wait list teams given will only be enough to make the divisions equal this year." 100 teams is way to much and to just vent a little among the top 8 teams in Newton my team played with 1 and against 1, and I am sure that their are teams who can say "We played against 4 and that was it." or "We never played with or against any of them".

FIRST has evolved beyond our current structure for Champs and something needs to change. To many teams, not enough time, speeches go on for way too long. At the dean's list presentation our team had to leave before the 3 college representatives finished speaking for our match but I did hear what the Representative from MIT said about making this longer and I wouldn't be opposed to saying "Load in Tuesday night, practice is first half of Wednesday then matches start Wednesday afternoon" This would have given teams 4 more matches minimum with only needing 1 more day off from school.


We have big huge screens showing our rankings hanging above our heads, why couldn't we have another screen with no audio showing us the field? This also would have allowed for people in the pits to see the opening ceremonies and the start of eliminations.

Pit Admin should be centrally located among the four fields being on Newton it was a great location but It must have been a hike for Archimedes.

Now here is the big one for me and this resulted in a conference with Pit admin:

When returning from a match a woman from Underwriters Laboratory stopped my crew and asked us which division we were in, when we told her it was Newton she said well all newton teams have to walk around the other way to return to our pits meaning instead of walking along the area meant to lead on to the stadium field Newton would have to walk around all 3 divisions. Since there was 5 other teams from Newton with me the coaches all said that can't be right and to let us go the way we came and we would consult pit admin and ask them to make an announcement or send someone to all the pits if this was the case. She agreed and let the other 5 teams go but when we tried she actually grabbed the handle that we use to pull our cart out of our Human Players hands and said "Well all of you can't go that way" and pulled our cart sharply resulting in our robot falling out. Another person from Underwriters saw this came over told her to leave, assisted us in getting our robot back on and personally escorted us to our pit.

Now here is what I have gathered from this experience:
The women felt that since the coaches on the other 5 teams were all men who looked 30+ years old that she could pick on my team since I am the coach and will freely admit that I do not look any older then a Sophomore in High School.

Unless the robot is in danger of hurting someone no one (volunteer, ref, safety personal, Dean, Woody) should touch your robot our your cart without your teams permission.

The people from Underwriters were very good to us when we all went to Pit admin and explained the situation, they even stated that if anything broke they would go speak to the machine shop about having us cut in line. I feel this was one member of one company who was not doing what should have been done and should not have her actions reflected on her company, I just felt this story needed to be told and this was the thread to do it in.

Overall:
Even though this post was much longer then my positive one I felt this was one of the best games and seasons I have ever experienced

[Robby Unruh]

Commercials during webcasts

Unfortunately those are from the website hosting the stream. FIRST/the webcaster has no control over this. BUT, you can install AdBlock (Google Chrome extension) and it'll get rid of those pesky ads and more.

Unless the robot is in danger of hurting someone no one (volunteer, ref, safety personal, Dean, Woody) should touch your robot our your cart without your teams permission.

I feel like this needs to be in writing somewhere. Our team had this happen this season and it was completely unacceptable. We were lucky that our robot did not fall.

[Michael Hill]

Unfortunately those are from the website hosting the stream. FIRST/the webcasters has no control over this. BUT, you can install AdBlock (Google Chrome extension) and it'll get rid of those pesky ads and more.

Does Adblock really take care of those? I guess we never installed it at our shop.

[Steven Donow]

Does Adblock really take care of those? I guess we never installed it at our shop.

It does; with Ustream, I never see a single ad.

[IndySam]

The Game: I must say that this might have been one of the hardest games for refs this year. I saw refs that I know and trust struggle at times. To many ambiguous rules left to many things open for the head ref to interpret. Also the nets caused sight line problems that were difficult to overcome. The GDC really needs to put more thought on how the game design effects the refs.

Real Time Scoring: need I say more than what's already been said.

The Champs: Too many teams in each division. Less teams attending champs or more divisions, something has too change. For the most part the top 8 teams are determined by luck of the schedule not on field performance. Saturday afternoon = just way to long, speeches go too long as usual. FIRST really needs to do something about this, it really ruins the finals. Seating, the way the dome is arranged there isn't near enough seats for teams during opening ceremonies or Finals. Open the upper decks or arrange the fields like Atlanta.

[hiyou102]

I think the speeches on Einstien went on for too long this year. Imagine if at any other competition the speeches were plentiful and went on for this long. We want to make FIRST exciting, not bore the audience.

Another thing that's already been beaten to death is that we had 8 matches. This needs to be fixed for next season. Maybe 400 teams is too many.

[xraymypanda]

The champs webcast quality left something to be desired. Even if it was not possible to broadcast in 720p with 4 fields running due to bandwidth, they probably could have gotten 720p at least for Einstein.

[bardd]

The champs webcast quality left something to be desired. Even if it was not possible to broadcast in 720p with 4 fields running due to bandwidth, they probably could have gotten 720p at least for Einstein.

There was a high-quality webcast on NASA's website, and it was really good... Better than Midwest's quality IMO.

[Steven Donow]

There was a high-quality webcast on NASA's website, and it was really good... Better than Midwest's quality IMO.

There was a link under the VLC/WMP stream link that was an HD flash stream. Also, the best quality stream (up until 6 PM EST) was the Ustream stream that is(I think) whatever's on NASA TV. Sadly, at 6 it skipped to the regularly scheduled NASA programming.

Also, the HD Flash stream was a few seconds ahead of the VLC/WMP stream for me-and it was definitely significant.

[xraymypanda]

There was a high-quality webcast on NASA's website, and it was really good... Better than Midwest's quality IMO.
Huh, I was watching that stream for a while and it didn't seem to be much better than 480p. I figured that the Blue Alliance sourced its stream from the NASA stream. Or maybe my Internet wasn't doing too well.

[bardd]

Also, the HD Flash stream was a few seconds ahead of the VLC/WMP stream for me-and it was definitely significant.

I'm pretty sure they were globally 15 seconds apart.

[Bryan Herbst]

The sooner we get everyone to Districts the better off all of FIRST will be. I hope they come up with a good system to handle those of us in remote areas (maybe read some of the threads on CD for a few ideas ;) ) but I'm willing to be inconvenienced on what competitions we can attend short term for the huge economic benefits. Plus I think forcing the system may be the best way to spur growth in the areas that haven't seen it.

I wish it were that easy! Sadly, moving to the district model is quite difficult for some regions. Take Minnesota for example. We would probably be a good candidate for the district model because we have the 3rd largest number of robotics teams (I believe highest per capita). Unfortunately, we haven't really hit a high volunteer base yet. If we were to switch to the district model, we would likely have to about double the number of events we hold [citation needed], which would certainly overburden our volunteers. I'm already pushing the limits of the time I can take off work, and I know many of the other volunteers are as well.

There are a few more issues that we've run into when considering the district model here, but I'm certainly not the most qualified to talk about them. I do know our planning committee is watching the other districts closely to see how it goes.

[A. Estrella 78]

"The season ended not cool."

[A. Estrella 78]

Something to add to the webcast...
It was good up until the point Archimedes
lost audio for 30 minutes.

[Carl C]

I loved this season and this game was a lot of fun, but there were some things that need to be fixed.

First, scoring this game was really tough this year, so I am not totally surprised (though still disappointed) that there was a mistake at Einstein. Looking back at some of our own matches, I have actually found some incorrect official scores.

Second, I feel like the goals were poorly designed as many discs simply bounced out. Especially during championships, it became obvious that the chains simply could not absorb multiple shots at once or ones at slightly the wrong angle. I know at North Carolina, we ran into an issue where the chains were too tight on the red alliance goal, which caused disks to bounce off often. When we told the officials, however, nothing was done to try to fix the issue. Now I do not mean to badmouth anyone (overall, everyone involved was excellent), however, it can be very frustrating when those in charge do not even care about an issue.

Overall, this season was still a ton of fun and I hope next season is just as good if not better.

[Wendy Holladay]

FIRST Choice crashing and running out of many items, after, it seemed like day 1. We ended buying most of what we really needed and used the FIRST Choice credits on extras

[Bochek]

Commercials during webcasts

Working on it :)

[DampRobot]

IMO 30 point climbing either should have been easier or worth more points. Is telling that only one team out of 16 on Einstein could 30 point climb

[jbsmithtx]

I'm ready for texas to move to a district system. There were so many great teams in texas that we never even got to see, such as the world champion texas torque, or the (expected champion) robonauts. If I heard right from an MC, Texas has the 4th most teams (142), behind California (216), Michigan (211), and Minnesota (181). Why shouldn't we and several other states have our own district system? It would make championships simple and easier. Which also means that championships should expand a bit. I believe in the 6 division system, which might be easier in the long run. There are lots of teams which don't get recognition, and are truly great.

However, FIRST truly did get everything else right this year. This is only a small complaint, as this season was challenging and exciting. Already looking forward to another good season.

[treffk]

The sooner we get everyone to Districts the better off all of FIRST will be. I hope they come up with a good system to handle those of us in remote areas (maybe read some of the threads on CD for a few ideas ;) ) but I'm willing to be inconvenienced on what competitions we can attend short term for the huge economic benefits. Plus I think forcing the system may be the best way to spur growth in the areas that haven't seen it.

I do agree with the other comment, determining the districts is not an easy task. As you have sort of touched there are some remote areas. This is caused both by high concentrations of teams in certain states and by low numbers of FRC teams in a particular state.Between Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa there were 17 teams for the 2013 game. Add Colorado, Kansas and Missiouri to that number and you are only up to 147 teams. Then if you include New Mexico, Oklahoma and Arkansas you reach 218, this is 7 more teams than in Michigan.

That is a huge expanse of land to get a high quanity of teams. How do you arrange the the district competitions let alone determine where the "State" tournament is without making it to where certain teams have to raise a large amount more than normal to even compete? I'm not saying that some of these teams don't already have to travel a distance to get to a regional but that what if it would cause them to have to raise more money than a normal season.

I feel that because of this, as much as districts currently seem like the best thing for everyone FIRST has not grown enough in certain areas to make it a viable solution for everyone.

[Mark Sheridan]

I am struggling at thinking of negatives. I only got obvious big stuff and trivial.

The obvious big stuff:
1) more districts
2) more qualification matches for championships
3) more competitive teams

The trivial
1) keep the sound systems quieter. I went to vex world champs, the sound level was much more comfortable and had all the emotional impact.
2) Why can't more Safety judges be like the Las Vegas ones? They were polite, kind and caring. I was having a good time and so were they. I trusted their opinion completely. I think some other judges feel like they need to constantly catch people not being safe, resulting in some very trivial calls.
3) stop using the 54" (or whatever dimension) cylinder rule. Make it a square or something easier.
4) Can we start getting each regional/district to have its own youtube channel (or equivalent) to post recorded matches? Maybe make it a committee person who primary responsibility is this.

[Tetraman]

Needed Improvements:

1) A design overhaul to the on-screen graphics. For the real-time-scoring bar at the bottom of the screen, no one can easily see the team numbers unless you're watching a webcast. The Alliance Selection screen does have a limit to the number of team numbers visible, and the Elimination Bracket is impossible to read - even on a webcast. These graphics have been around for years and its time to change these graphics. Someone make a call to ESPN and get in contact with some interns.

2) ...

..uh..

Well I'm done!

[CalTran]

This may not be something easily fixable, and probably not a problem for other people, but for those of us on the upper concourse (the 400 section nosebleed seats), the lights scaffolding for Einstein is placed exactly so you cannot see the score.

[holygrail]

Personally, I liked this year's game, but as with all thimgs, there was room for improvement.
Champs:
The match schedule had far too much impact on team standings. The rankings were all over the place, and it seems that a great scheduling system would create a situation where the best rise to the top and the not best settle to the bottom. Maybe it was because there were only 8 matches.

I would also like to see screens that show matches on all fields in the dome as well as in the pits. I personally wanted to get a glimpse of other fields and I found myself walking in circles around the dome a lot.

There are a couple other small things, but generally, our team had a great experience overall this year.

[FoleyEngineer]

First, THANK YOU to all the refs, judges, and volunteers. You were all so kind and your work was great and really appreciated! On to suggestions for improvements:

1) Webcasts should be FULL FIELD. When there are 6 robots all playing and with today's technology, a decent resolution full field shot is all we need. Closeups of robots picking up frisbees, joysticks being moved, etc. is extremely frustrating. It's as if the video directors are only used to following ONE game piece (football, basketball, etc.) at a time. With up to 6 flying simultaneously you MUST have a full field view. I love replaying a video of a match 6 times and watching a different robot each time. It's so nice!

2) Agree with the real time scoring being a bad font (especially the match number). Been frustrated with this for years. Also, make the alliance selections and everything fill the screen. There's a LOT of wasted space there.

3) During Einstein, do not blow 5 minutes of our time after every match dancing the hokey pokey or YMCA or whatever while you calculate the score! Just end the match, darken the field a bit, switch over the the podium put in one of the 5 minute speeches while the field is reset and the score is calculated. Otherwise with the 8 matches played there (this year), the day lasted 40 minutes longer than it needed to. Wow, getting out 40 minutes sooner and not cutting one second of speeches out? Why not? Let's do two things at once please.

Thanks again for a great event!

[EricLeifermann]

The Game: I must say that this might have been one of the hardest games for refs this year. I saw refs that I know and trust struggle at times. To many ambiguous rules left to many things open for the head ref to interpret. Also the nets caused sight line problems that were difficult to overcome. The GDC really needs to put more thought on how the game design effects the refs.

Real Time Scoring: need I say more than what's already been said.

The Champs: Too many teams in each division. Less teams attending champs or more divisions, something has too change. For the most part the top 8 teams are determined by luck of the schedule not on field performance. Saturday afternoon = just way to long, speeches go too long as usual. FIRST really needs to do something about this, it really ruins the finals. Seating, the way the dome is arranged there isn't near enough seats for teams during opening ceremonies or Finals. Open the upper decks or arrange the fields like Atlanta.


Einstein is located where it is because of the VIP/hospitality suite there isn't a good location for it on the side of the Jones Dome so they have the current field locations.

My negative for champs was that each field had a different policy on volunteers and VIPs watching the field, while on the floor, as well as each field had a drastically different proximity(just like last year though i didnt think it was a problem till this year) to the stands and robot load in/out procedure. Why can't each field be located in similar locations to the stands as Curie and Galileo and have the same load in/out procedure for the robots?


This isn't a thing FIRST did but what RI3D did. I both loved and disliked the RI3D process. I liked it because it upped the level of game play but I disliked it because it changed the game too much. What I mean by that is if they didn't do what they did, I believe that many many more teams would have been pure climber/dumpers. Would that have made the game better? I don't really know, it just would have been a different game, and I think it would have been the game the GDC designed it to be.

Overall I think this was a good game. Most people have already said my other negatives so I won't repeat.

[Peyton Yeung]

1. Need more qualification matches at Champs.
2. Better realtime scoring.
3. Some regionals didn't have a visible screen for both alliances.
4. Climbing past 10 points were undervalued.

[F22Rapture]

IMO 30 point climbing either should have been easier or worth more points. Is telling that only one team out of 16 on Einstein could 30 point climb

It seems like all of the 30 point climbers got taken out by falls before they could get to Einstein.

[JohnFogarty]

Why don't they set the fields up like they did in Atlanta. Please someone give me the reason. I thought the domes had the relatively the same size floors.

[EricLeifermann]

Why don't they set the fields up like they did in Atlanta. Please someone give me the reason. I thought the domes had the relatively the same size floors.

See my last post.

[Michael Hill]

Game pieces not being Readily available in massive quantities. This has always been one of my biggest gripes. Quantities are extremely limited and expensive. Give us something that we can get at any national chain of store. Also, while the pyramid was cool, it was pretty unfair to teams with limited build space. Also, the team field drawings for the pyramid were poor at best at simulating the actual pyramid. Make actual field obstacles/goals more affordable for teams with little funding.

[IndySam]

Einstein is located where it is because of the VIP/hospitality suite there isn't a good location for it on the side of the Jones Dome so they have the current field locations.


Prioritizing VIP suite over 25000 team members is a terrible reason to do it. I would bet everyone who was in the VIP/Hospitality area would agree.

That suit is only good for viewing during opening ceremonies and the finals and is not crowded during either.

[Alex Cormier]

The wildcard system is good, but needs work.

Week 1 winning teams don't qualify into the wildcard system. That's just plain stupid.

[EricLeifermann]

Prioritizing VIP suite over 25000 team members is a terrible reason to do it. I would bet everyone who was in the VIP/Hospitality area would agree.

That suit is only good for viewing during opening ceremonies and the finals and is not crowded during either.

Agree 100%.

But those are the only "cushy" seats in the house and some even have tvs in front of them so people with bad eye sight can still see the action.

Not saying it right or wrong just showing why they do it that way.

[efoote868]

The Championship event needs more matches per team. Suggestion:
Increase the size of the playing field or cut the frame perimeters of robots and have alliances of 4v4 or 2v2v2v2, and you can keep the 100 team divisions or even increase it to about 120 while still fitting 9-10 matches per robot for the same amount of time.

The matches need less turnaround time. Suggestion:
I'd recommend decreasing the amount of playing pieces on the field but have them never leave play or enter back into play after being scored. This will keep for shorter amounts of turnaround time and allow for high amounts of scoring.

The field needs mobility. This year was good.
Keep the option to have the playing field wide open. Bridges last year were fine, but the rack from 2007 was way too big. This year was fine since teams had the tradeoff of being big and unable to be blocked or small with a wide open field.

[Sam390250]

One part of Championships that has been a negative in my mind the past few years, is that on Saturday (the day most of the outside public would be able to attend) most of the booths and activities in the pits are closed. It seems that if you want to expand FIRST to more outsiders, the main attractions need to be pristine on the day most people would be available. You can't really expect people to take off of work or school to attend during all the action, especially if you are trying to attract people who have never been a part of FIRST before. I remember even as an FLL member attending our local FRC regional on Saturday mornings because that was the only time my family was available to take me.

The logistics of this are admittedly not easy. It does not seem like the FLL and FTC matches could possibly still be going on Saturday morning. However, some of the LEGO booths, scholarship booths (mainly just for students, but it still shows one of the many facets of FIRST), and other fun booths that are either shut down or picked clean by Saturday should still be open and available. Maybe this would mean not having them open as early in the week? Whatever it takes, I think expanding FIRST means putting the best foot forward, and showing everything we have to offer, on the day most newcomers will be in attendance.

[Basel A]

This is not a new problem; in fact, it's been around for as long as I've been in FRC: The rankings at the Championship were sub-optimal. I don't think anyone approves of 5-way ties for 1st place (Galileo) or 7-way ties for 2nd (Arch, New). Rankings could be improved in two obvious ways: fewer teams and more matches per team. Having fewer teams addresses both of those two ways. I would not complain about 60 team divisions, let alone 80.

Webcast quality. Frankly, it's pathetic. There's a few places where the webcast quality is great (Canada, for example), but far too many where the webcasts are unwatchable. It's time to standardize the webcasts by including webcasting equipment with the fields and assigning an official volunteer to maintaining it.

If you feel obligated to qualify XXX teams to the Championship, qualify more of them via wild card and less of them via waitlist. Eliminate the bias in the system against early-season regionals. I kinda understand why you don't want to qualify a team based on a Chairman's team's slot, but even the current solution doesn't solve that problem entirely. Winner-then-CA doesn't open a slot, but CA-then-Winner does open a slot. If the goal is bringing more competitive teams to the Championship, then this year was good. But next year, bring even more more competitive teams.

Game pieces should not overflow the goals. This did not happen often, but it did happen and it shouldn't. Make the goals much larger than you think they need to be. Shots bouncing out isn't cool either.

[CENTURION]

Einstein is located where it is because of the VIP/hospitality suite there isn't a good location for it on the side of the Jones Dome so they have the current field locations.


Honestly I feel like this isn't a good enough reason.

I know we want to be nice to VIPs and all, but really, the event is for the teams. They could at the very least let teams onto the first balcony instead of forcing them all the way upstairs where, as somebody else mentioned, the lighting fixtures for Einstein are perfectly in the way of the scores, and you can't see anything too well.

In Atlanta, you could fit all the teams in without having to go up to the nosebleed seats.

[JohnFogarty]

If you were to look at how clean the Atlanta floor layout looked in comparison to the St. Louis layout. One looks way more organized and professional. Guess which one.

[BrendanB]

Honestly I feel like this isn't a good enough reason.

I know we want to be nice to VIPs and all, but really, the event is for the teams. They could at the very least let teams onto the first balcony instead of forcing them all the way upstairs where, as somebody else mentioned, the lighting fixtures for Einstein are perfectly in the way of the scores, and you can't see anything too well.

In Atlanta, you could fit all the teams in without having to go up to the nosebleed seats.

I am pretty sure the nose bleeds were full in Atlanta as well when I attended 2009 and 2010.

[JohnFogarty]

No way.

[OZ_341]

Prioritizing VIP suite over 25000 team members is a terrible reason to do it. I would bet everyone who was in the VIP/Hospitality area would agree.

That suit is only good for viewing during opening ceremonies and the finals and is not crowded during either.

They also block off the entire second level so that the VIPs don't have to share the same level of the stadium with the huddled masses. This eliminates many available seats. I can understand insulating your VIPs from the crowd but, I thought that is what the VIP box was for in the first place.

[Peyton Yeung]

I actually liked sitting in the nose bleeds because I got a birds eye view of the field. In 2011 we sat way lower and I had a harder time seeing the whole field.

[cgmv123]

They also block off the entire second level so that the VIPs don't have to share the same level of the stadium with the huddled masses. This eliminates many available seats. I can understand insulating your VIPs from the crowd but, I thought that is what the VIP box was for in the first place.

To be fair, the second level ("club" level) doesn't have nearly as many seats as the lower bowl ("concourse" level) or upper deck ("terrace" level).

[Kstuck]

It would be nice to have a quick way for people who are working in the pits and not part of the drive crew to get to the stands so they could watch their team matches then get back to the pits quickly.

Being on Currie and having to walk all the way out of the pits and around to the opposite side of the stadium took quite a while.

[Patrick Flynn]

They also block off the entire second level so that the VIPs don't have to share the same level of the stadium with the huddled masses. This eliminates many available seats. I can understand insulating your VIPs from the crowd but, I thought that is what the VIP box was for in the first place.

There are actually 4 levels to the Edward Jones dome. The First level where teams are always allowed. The second level was entirely blocked off and is basically the club level. The club level housed the media check in and has seats that are significantly nicer than the 1st and 4th levels. I'm not entirely sure why this wasn't used for teams, but I can only imagine the mess they would have to clean up if highschoolers were allowed free reign of the restaurants and bars that reside on the 2nd level. These aren't like the food shops on the first level while not staffed for FIRST events they are open and hard to sanction off. The 3 level is the boxes where VIPs where and then the 4th nose bleed section.

[Boe]

hate to help this thread get longer then the positives but here are a few things i noticed that FIRST could stand to improve on.

-Put a live display of the matches in the division pits
-better webcast quality if FIRST is going to grow this needs to improve
-smaller/more divisions, this one really bugged me its hard for ranking to be accurate if you only play a fourth of the teams in your division
-also more matches at champs per team
-less long dance sings between Einstein matches, put in guest speakers to save time during scoring

[CENTURION]

To be fair, the second level ("club" level) doesn't have nearly as many seats as the lower bowl ("concourse" level) or upper deck ("terrace" level).

It would still be an improvement though.

It would be nice to have a quick way for people who are working in the pits and not part of the drive crew to get to the stands so they could watch their team matches then get back to the pits quickly.

Being on Currie and having to walk all the way out of the pits and around to the opposite side of the stadium took quite a while.

Yes, this was quite irritating. But I just figure that's how it has to be, there aren't many options there besides cutting across the floor (unlikely to happen for safety and organization issues), or some system of vehicles ferrying people back and forth (likely expensive, and hard to implement, especially with the hundreds of people constantly going back and forth)

[Mike Marandola]

The season ended. Not cool.

Yeah I agree. FIRST really needs to fix this next year.:)

[Asymons]

Personally, a little more awareness around the match, in sense of if a robot hit a robot close to a pyramid that was not touching it, that robot gave the other team 20 points. Also the Einstein final matches were a little too over extended with all the songs. Otherwise this experience was great for a rookie team like mine :)

[Ernst]

I don't know if it's been brought up on Chief Delphi before and it is not specific to this season, but I am always frustrated by the seating at FRC tournaments.

The current free-for-all that exists at the beginning of the day is dangerous. After the mad rush and the initial kinks have been worked out and teams are seated as a general group, assuming that they had a group of students at the doors at least an hour before the venue opened, seats are lost throughout the day by encroachment. I found it especially frustrating to get to the stands from the pits only to find that there weren't any open seats by my team. Some kids end up sitting on the stairs. Mentors, parents, students, and team sponsors that arrive late often have to sit elsewhere.

I don't know how to solve this problem. I don't care if my team doesn't always end up in the most favorable seats. I don't care if the seats turn into a lottery based on how many members you have registered to attend an event. I just want some kind of order to allow teams to sit together and prevent the dangerous morning mad rush.

[Rynocorn]

I don't know if it's been brought up on Chief Delphi before and it is not specific to this season, but I am always frustrated by the seating at FRC tournaments.

The current free-for-all that exists at the beginning of the day is dangerous. After the mad rush and the initial kinks have been worked out and teams are seated as a general group, assuming that they had a group of students at the doors at least an hour before the venue opened, seats are lost throughout the day by encroachment. I found it especially frustrating to get to the stands from the pits only to find that there weren't any open seats by my team. Some kids end up sitting on the stairs. Mentors, parents, students, and team sponsors that arrive late often have to sit elsewhere.

I don't know how to solve this problem. I don't care if my team doesn't always end up in the most favorable seats. I don't care if the seats turn into a lottery based on how many members you have registered to attend an event. I just want some kind of order to allow teams to sit together and prevent the dangerous morning mad rush.

This is a huge problem! I know that at Peachtree this year, the walkways on the bleachers were completely full of sitting kids to the point that everyone had to stand in order to let one person down from the top row of seats. This mainly occurred during finals with the pits closed, but all of the seats were always full. On the other hand, Smokey Mountain had plenty of seats but somehow was the only regional I saw without a live webcast on TBA. These small issues go a long way to helping people have a better experience with FIRST.

[CENTURION]

I don't know if it's been brought up on Chief Delphi before and it is not specific to this season, but I am always frustrated by the seating at FRC tournaments.

The current free-for-all that exists at the beginning of the day is dangerous. After the mad rush and the initial kinks have been worked out and teams are seated as a general group, assuming that they had a group of students at the doors at least an hour before the venue opened, seats are lost throughout the day by encroachment. I found it especially frustrating to get to the stands from the pits only to find that there weren't any open seats by my team. Some kids end up sitting on the stairs. Mentors, parents, students, and team sponsors that arrive late often have to sit elsewhere.

I don't know how to solve this problem. I don't care if my team doesn't always end up in the most favorable seats. I don't care if the seats turn into a lottery based on how many members you have registered to attend an event. I just want some kind of order to allow teams to sit together and prevent the dangerous morning mad rush.

I agree, this is something that could really use some work. Maybe there could be some kind of advance sign-up system? Teams sign up on a first-come, first-served basis (just like it is now, except with everybody rushing to a website, not a stadium), and teams reserve blocks of seats.

[Carl C]

I don't know if it's been brought up on Chief Delphi before and it is not specific to this season, but I am always frustrated by the seating at FRC tournaments.

The current free-for-all that exists at the beginning of the day is dangerous. After the mad rush and the initial kinks have been worked out and teams are seated as a general group, assuming that they had a group of students at the doors at least an hour before the venue opened, seats are lost throughout the day by encroachment. I found it especially frustrating to get to the stands from the pits only to find that there weren't any open seats by my team. Some kids end up sitting on the stairs. Mentors, parents, students, and team sponsors that arrive late often have to sit elsewhere.

I don't know how to solve this problem. I don't care if my team doesn't always end up in the most favorable seats. I don't care if the seats turn into a lottery based on how many members you have registered to attend an event. I just want some kind of order to allow teams to sit together and prevent the dangerous morning mad rush.

We've run into this problem also. At Palmetto, there were 61 teams and hardly any seats, so there were many who acted ungraciously and darted in front of everyone, even going so far as taking other team's seats. What made this worse it the fact that no team was allowed to reserve seats for the next day (though many did it anyways), so this was a daily occurrence. We did not care so much about where we sat as ling as we all could sit together, but with a medium-sized teams with many parents, siblings, and mentors, this was nearly impossible.

At North Carolina, we had a similar issue, but thankfully Team 3196 kindly allowed us to use their empty seats before eliminations. Afterwards, however, our team was unable to sit together as we made a run to finals, which was rather frustrating.

It is probably up to the respective regional directors, but I hope this issue could be resolved at one point.

[cadandcookies]

And while we're at it I think FIRST should test their games actually playing matches. I don't know if they do or not, but I think if they did it would prevent this sort of things from happening. It'll be terrible logistically for the GDC though.

Not to derail too much, but from talking with Mr. Merrick about this at Northern Lights/ Lake Superior Regionals this year, he explained a bit about their testing process for games-- basically the have their challenge, and HQ builds some preliminary designs (he was very clear that these were not something any team would want on their robot) in order to see how "hard" a given challenge is. I was going to ask him how they tested something like a 30-point climb would be tested, but unfortunately our time ran a bit short.

So no, from talking with Mr. Merrick, they don't test actual match play, but rather individual mechanisms. I agree that some "internal" matches, or even some better analysis (for example, of the "blizzard") might be in order, especially for a game as complex and awesome as Ultimate Ascent.

[PVCpirate]

So no, from talking with Mr. Merrick, they don't test actual match play, but rather individual mechanisms. I agree that some "internal" matches, or even some better analysis (for example, of the "blizzard") might be in order, especially for a game as complex and awesome as Ultimate Ascent.

This was hashed out when the rule change was made, but I still don't get how the GDC didn't see the blizzard coming. :confused:

[cgmv123]

I don't know if it's been brought up on Chief Delphi before and it is not specific to this season, but I am always frustrated by the seating at FRC tournaments.

The current free-for-all that exists at the beginning of the day is dangerous. After the mad rush and the initial kinks have been worked out and teams are seated as a general group, assuming that they had a group of students at the doors at least an hour before the venue opened, seats are lost throughout the day by encroachment. I found it especially frustrating to get to the stands from the pits only to find that there weren't any open seats by my team. Some kids end up sitting on the stairs. Mentors, parents, students, and team sponsors that arrive late often have to sit elsewhere.

I don't know how to solve this problem. I don't care if my team doesn't always end up in the most favorable seats. I don't care if the seats turn into a lottery based on how many members you have registered to attend an event. I just want some kind of order to allow teams to sit together and prevent the dangerous morning mad rush.

I agree, some sort of registration system would help. They did block off the seats in front of Einstein for the division champions, but other than that, it was a free for all.

[Nemo]

Holding regionals in expensive arenas with expensive lighting and sound and charging $9000 for two events is a bad model that stunts FRC's potential to grow. Put events in high school gyms with fewer teams per event. Make it possible for every team to attend two events for their initial $5000 registration fee. Zondag says it better than I do (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1253411) in his FIRST in Michigan district system FAQ.

The excessive speeches on Einstein are a huge gaffe that they keep repeating every year. Find different way to honor and thank our generous sponsors that are not counterproductive. Bombarding students with speeches is quite ineffective. At least make them really short and sweet - they are not supposed to be keynote speeches, are they? Or limit the number of speeches to ONE or TWO. And as much as I respect and admire Dean Kamen and all of his contributions to society, his quiet manner of speaking is not very energizing. I couldn't even understand half of what he was saying because he speaks so quietly.

Einstein should be shorter. Give out more of the awards at a different time such as the opening ceremonies. Maybe give out a couple more awards at the division level, or heck, give all of the awards except CA and a couple others as division level awards. For the time slots that need to be filled between Einstein matches, how about some compelling videos? I think a well made 1-2 minute video can be more effective at delivering a message to high school students than a speech by the CEO of a company.

Let's get rid of the 6 week build season (also discussed in Zondag's FAQ). We built these robots in 6 weeks... except we didn't. It took my team the whole time leading up to the Championship to get our robot to where it ended up. We used the withholding allowance and installed stuff at each event. It is pointless to make us bag it and work on a practice robot - it simply consumes a bunch more resources and slows us down some. I think the attachment to the 6 week build season is mostly sentimental.

It has been a great season overall. I posted in both threads, and I listed a bunch more items in the positive thread than I did in this one. Great job on 2013. I hope FIRST continues to make some changes in places where it makes sense.

[Walter Deitzler]

One major negative thing that I am seeing is that FIRST had too many teams at champs this year, yet a major positive is the wildcard system. Yet these two have a direct correlation. How are we going to keep the wildcard system (allowing more teams/regional finalists to come) and have less teams/more competing time? I have seen proposals for more divisions, but the only way they would fit this in is if we (shudder) moved some of the divisions to the pits. Longer competing time? This means that all of the volunteers, who are already have to give up a whole lot of their time, would have to lose another day of work or school. The wildcard system was awesome, we want to keep that (but that is for another thread).
I do see the the concerns that many teams have, with the massive seeding ties and fewer matches, but I am not seeing a viable way to fix them.

[coalhot]

I have to say this year, the game was quite impressive. While it may have been slightly boring (shooting game, 5 out of the last 6 games have also been shooting games), it was an incredibly fun game to watch. This will be one of those games that they use film from in promos for years to come.

The refing from throughout the season was quite inconsistent. Trying not to bash too much here, so I'll be breif. I don't mind bad calls, but if there's going to be bad calls, call them consistently. Don't call qualifications and eliminations differently.

Then again: GDC, please make an easier game to Ref. :)

One more thing, someone in FIRST needs to run workshops for the cameraguys as to what part of the field they are aiming the camera during the webcasts. I saw a lot of matches yesterday where a lot of exciting play was happening on one side of the field, and the camera was aimed at the other side where nothing was happening.

[Steven Donow]

This was hashed out when the rule change was made, but I still don't get how the GDC didn't see the blizzard coming. :confused:

They had too much confident in the atheltic ability of the FRC community ::safety::

[coldfusion1279]

Woe is me, the game! It was essentially the same thing as 2012 with the same drawbacks. Except this year, the GDC over-compensated for last year's end game by NERFing this year's end game. Games have been unoriginal since 2009- altered versions of previous games. That's what bugs me most. Oh, and 100 teams per division. That's just silly.

[Pat Hart]

FIRST compares the competition to the sports world and Einstein is the Super Bowl of the mind. With this thought, the matches on Einstein should be the most approachable and entertaining matches for the general public. However, the long delays between matches remove the excitement and tension of the moment. The result is a series of matches that become tedious for outside viewers.
A reason sports are entertaining is the tension created by the pace at which things happen. It is difficult to sustain the excitement for eight 2 minute matches across 4 hours. To change perceptions and culture the matches need to remain exciting for viewers across all backgrounds.

[coalhot]

FIRST compares the competition to the sports world and Einstein is the Super Bowl of the mind. With this thought, the matches on Einstein should be the most approachable and entertaining matches for the general public. However, the long delays between matches remove the excitement and tension of the moment. The result is a series of matches that become tedious for outside viewers.
A reason sports are entertaining is the tension created by the pace at which things happen. It is difficult to sustain the excitement for eight 2 minute matches across 4 hours. To change perceptions and culture the matches need to remain exciting for viewers across all backgrounds.

They should run two "Einstein" fields! ;)

[pntbll1313]

FIRST compares the competition to the sports world and Einstein is the Super Bowl of the mind. With this thought, the matches on Einstein should be the most approachable and entertaining matches for the general public. However, the long delays between matches remove the excitement and tension of the moment. The result is a series of matches that become tedious for outside viewers.
A reason sports are entertaining is the tension created by the pace at which things happen. It is difficult to sustain the excitement for eight 2 minute matches across 4 hours. To change perceptions and culture the matches need to remain exciting for viewers across all backgrounds.

I agree with this. As a first time viewer of champs in person (I watched online in the past but was lucky enough to qualify this year :) ) I was able to see how unengaged the students in the stands became. I personally still enjoyed every minute of being there but had to remind students around me to do the same. Many seemed to be more focused on their phones or making paper airplanes by hour 3. After the last match had been played people immediately stood up and started rushing out to get to the last hour of the Finale that they had paid so much money for. Before the confetti had fallen teams were already out of the stadium. I know Einstein has the most viewers and it makes sense to announce all of the awards, hear important speakers, and give the most important messages. There just has to be a better way to condense it. The huge delays in between matches completely lose interest of the students, even if Gangnam style is being played during that break haha.

[Anupam Goli]

One major negative thing that I am seeing is that FIRST had too many teams at champs this year, yet a major positive is the wildcard system. Yet these two have a direct correlation. How are we going to keep the wildcard system (allowing more teams/regional finalists to come) and have less teams/more competing time? I have seen proposals for more divisions, but the only way they would fit this in is if we (shudder) moved some of the divisions to the pits. Longer competing time? This means that all of the volunteers, who are already have to give up a whole lot of their time, would have to lose another day of work or school. The wildcard system was awesome, we want to keep that (but that is for another thread).
I do see the the concerns that many teams have, with the massive seeding ties and fewer matches, but I am not seeing a viable way to fix them.

Just get rid of the waitlist. Wild cards can stay; with wild cards in play, I believe we had 378 teams qualify for championships. Let's leave it at that.

[Oblarg]

Someone really needs to reign in Dean Kamen's speeches before they cause the whole friggin' event to run two hours late. His first speech during the opening ceremonies was a great, touching speech. His speech before the final matches, however...ugh, that was terrible. The fact that you couldn't understand 80% of the words in the upper-level stands didn't help.

The field to the right of Curie (can't remember which that was) had use of the actual field speaker system for its award ceremony, and Curie did not. The result was that, as both award ceremonies happened simultaneously, it was nearly impossible to hear anything said for any of the Curie awards.

Did anyone at all think through the logistics of transportation to/from the finale? Christ, that was terrible.

Also, giving out awards between every single match on the Einstein field is a horrible idea that did nothing but try everyone's patience. They don't do this at regionals, and no one complains about the regional award ceremony procedure. Why do it at championships?

All that negativity aside, championships were a blast, and I truly hope to get back there in the near future.

[iv597]

Hmm. This will be a bit of a rant I guess, but most of my complaints were larger items overall. This being my first season, perhaps I just haven't been around enough to appreciate the smaller issues :)

- For lack of a better adjective, "better" webstreams overall, to get to a larger audience of lesser-dorky folk (read: people like my mother). I've seen some events on Youtube which were streamed in very much an ESPN style, with some volunteer announcers + between-match commentary, fancy scorekeeping, interviews, etc. I'm aware this would cause a manpower issue, but it'd still be nice to have if we stirred up enough demand.

- Faster match resets with less clunky live scoring. I don't really get why bins were chosen over, say, a coin-slot system here. The weights seemed to have nothing but problems, whereas a mechanical switch would be much more reliable. The only plausible reason I suppose is space to get a return pipe for any slots made for counting. And resets... wow. A match every 10 minutes (or more) isn't a great way to keep energy going.

- On the energy note... a little less time spent between Einstein matches would be nice. While there does need to be time for sponsors and awards, I think speeches between almost all QF/SF matches was overkill. Why not run through Chairman's and EI and similar between QFs and SFs, and GP, EE, etc. between SFs and Finals? Longer bunches of speeches, yes, but would make the actual match structure more fun to watch in my opinion.

- An extra day of CMP would be fun, too. Not just in the "cool, more time around dorks just like me!" sense, but in the "can we please play more than 8 matches?" sense. As a scouting application developer (IPA from #3138) I have to admit it's sometimes a hindrance to only have 10/11 matches at a regional to average out with, let alone 8 at Worlds. Also, as was noted above, not playing over half the teams in the division at CMP is a bummer - with 8 matches, assuming you never duplicate teams, you're playing with/against 40% of your division. Yikes! Compare that to 3138's two regionals this year, at Crossroads we saw every team there if I'm recalling correctly, and at Queen City we saw all but about 10 I believe.

- A flame-inviting complaint I'm sure, but the WiFi war really needs to end. I understand the issues with Einstein last year, however if I read right the Rev. B DLink was to fix the deauth attack issue, which was the issue as far as I recall. "Interference" is a pretty simple fix - run the robots on some 5GHz channel way out in uncommon territory. However, I'm also of the opinion that routers do a pretty darned good job of eliminating cross-talk, and as such the "please shut down your hotspot" bit is probably unnecessary. A related side note, having FTAs walking around the stands with the sensors was... interesting. I understand there were FTC fields having issues, however (ignoring my rant about WiFi radios above) patting me down with the little triangular sensor like they were the TSA as I apparently looked suspicious enough (and was within the general vicinity of an iPhone hotspot) was interesting if not a bit awkward (there wasn't even a shared laugh afterward or I'd have thought he was just messing around...) Again, I might be only eclipsing the scope of the WiFi issues, and if anyone'd like to enlighten me a bit more on this one, I'm all ears.

Overall a fun first year for me, even with these few complaints.

[zzzag]

Something I haven't seen so far on here...
Why must regional events operate on a Thursday-Friday-Saturday schedule (or Fri-Sat-Sun in NYC)?
While waiting for my team's week 6 regional, I enjoyed watching the webcasts on Friday and Saturday, but for the rest of the week all there was to do was read threads here on Chief Delphi and occasionally meet with the team. And on weekends where two of the teams I wanted to watch were competing in eliminations? Most of the time I ended up going with the higher quality webcast. I also would have liked to see webcasts from the weekend we competed, as a lot of exciting regionals were scheduled for that weekend.
I understand that many mentors can only get the two days (if that) off from work, but why must we have ALL of a week's events running at the same time?
What if we made some events Sun-Mon-Tues?
Even if we assume we can't get fields turned around and moved to a different venue overnight, something like Minnesota's two regionals in the same building simultaneously could be done back-to-back. This would certainly lend itself to the district setup, as two smaller district events could be run back-to-back in places like New York City, to name just one.

tl;dr: Sun-Mon-Tues regionals in addition to Thurs-Fri-Sat

[runneals]

FIRST needs to stop using custom/rare game pieces. There have been a few games where it would have been easy to use a standard size, readily available game piece without needing to tell the suppliers about it and they've gone to custom or hard to find ones every time (this year stands out in particular).

I would say this year's game piece concept (frisbee) was pretty decent, but I must agree that they could have gotten it standardized. If Wham-o "sponsored" FRC this year, they could have used one of their brand name ones that anyone could easily pick up at the store. However, the nice thing with these custom frisbees is that each graduating senior (high school) member and (college) mentor received a signed frisbee. But overall, I do agree.

[Gregor]

Something I haven't seen so far on here...
Why must regional events operate on a Thursday-Friday-Saturday schedule (or Fri-Sat-Sun in NYC)?
While waiting for my team's week 6 regional, I enjoyed watching the webcasts on Friday and Saturday, but for the rest of the week all there was to do was read threads here on Chief Delphi and occasionally meet with the team. And on weekends where two of the teams I wanted to watch were competing in eliminations? Most of the time I ended up going with the higher quality webcast. I also would have liked to see webcasts from the weekend we competed, as a lot of exciting regionals were scheduled for that weekend.
I understand that many mentors can only get the two days (if that) off from work, but why must we have ALL of a week's events running at the same time?
What if we made some events Sun-Mon-Tues?
Even if we assume we can't get fields turned around and moved to a different venue overnight, something like Minnesota's two regionals in the same building simultaneously could be done back-to-back. This would certainly lend itself to the district setup, as two smaller district events could be run back-to-back in places like New York City, to name just one.

tl;dr: Sun-Mon-Tues regionals in addition to Thurs-Fri-Sat

This is actually a neat idea that I've never read anywhere before.

[fb39ca4]

This may not be something easily fixable, and probably not a problem for other people, but for those of us on the upper concourse (the 400 section nosebleed seats), the lights scaffolding for Einstein is placed exactly so you cannot see the score.
In addition, don't leave teams waiting to get to the seats. There was a mob of people that just swarmed around the Edward Jones dome staff trying to prevent them from going there.

[EricH]

This is actually a neat idea that I've never read anywhere before.

I think there's a reason for it.

Let's assume that field transport isn't an issue (say you're running back-to-back regionals in the same building, don't bother tearing down the field).

First, for many many people, Sunday is a day to go to church, and they can't go another day. (Saturday is also out for a number of people, though a rather smaller number unless you're attending the Israel Regional--which is held Sunday-Tuesday or Monday-Wednesday, I forget which.)

We'll assume the the second possible reason--Monday "here's what you need to work on this week" meetings/assignments for both mentors and students--can be worked around, though that could be an issue.


But the #1 reason not to use that schedule is...

NO spectators! That's right folks, if you run an event Sunday-Tuesday, the spectators are most likely to come on PRACTICE day! And we all know how awesomely inspiring it is on practice day, with one or two robots at a time thinking about moving or testing out their new doohickey that manipulates the whatsit or interacts with the whodijingle. Eliminations are where the excitement is--imagine no non-FIRST-affiliated spectators showing up for finals.

And if we're trying to inspire people, and get them involved, having your most spectator-friendly day be on a day when most spectators have to go to extra effort to come is not going to help.

[Oblarg]

Also, the pyramid was an obnoxious field element; it was prohibitively difficult to built an accurate mock-up of the corner, you needed access to a skilled welder and metal shop, which is not something that all teams have or can easily obtain. If a game element cannot be accurately simulated for testing with means available to the bulk of FRC teams, it should not be on the field at all. End of story.

[Koko Ed]

My negative for champs was that each field had a different policy on volunteers and VIPs watching the field, while on the floor, as well as each field had a drastically different proximity(just like last year though i didnt think it was a problem till this year) to the stands and robot load in/out procedure. Why can't each field be located in similar locations to the stands as Curie and Galileo and have the same load in/out procedure for the robots?


When We arrived on Thursday we saw that Curie and Archimedes were very close to one another at one point causing a huge pinch point that would have made it very difficult to que teams. So I worked with Dave Ferrreria and Marin Kobin to come up with a solution that would help both teams flow in and out of their fields more easily. In order to do that we had to have both fields flow in opposite directions to one another so the pinch point could only be used as an exit much like a freeway on ramp.
We did not get the opportunity to help Becky(her last name slips me at this early hour) with her Galileo setup and the first thing I noticed was they lost their back alley I had last year when I was running the field that allowed teams to que up on the blue side and use that gate and they were only able to use one gate to get in which slowed them down alot.

[karomata]

I know that we rarely get any useful information from game hints, but this year the game hints were very very random, and I dont think anybody learned anything from any of them.

[Sam390250]

Holding regionals in expensive arenas with expensive lighting and sound and charging $9000 for two events is a bad model that stunts FRC's potential to grow. Put events in high school gyms with fewer teams per event. Make it possible for every team to attend two events for their initial $5000 registration fee. Zondag says it better than I do (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1253411) in his FIRST in Michigan district system FAQ.


I actually think this is a terrible idea. When funds were getting low at the Wisconsin Regional and there were ideas of downsizing it to a college gym, I shuddered at the thought! There is something so awe inspiring about being in a huge arena, running robots instead of watching someone playing sports. Seeing the huge event just for robotics was so inspiring to me when I was a young freshman, something that could only be topped by attending the World Championship in Atlanta.

Since so few teams get to attend the World Championship, (and everyone seems to want to continue downsizing that number) if you start just holding events in dinky gymnasiums, all that inspiration goes away. While attending more events like the district system for a lower cost is a really great idea, I think bringing down the magnitude also reduces the impact of FIRST around you. Instead of helping it to grow, I think you are impeding growth by having FIRST events wither away from large, very public venues to small high schools that are in all probability off the beaten path and not nearly as inviting to outsiders who we are supposed to be attracting to FIRST.

[Carolyn_Grace]

I actually think this is a terrible idea. When funds were getting low at the Wisconsin Regional and there were ideas of downsizing it to a college gym, I shuddered at the thought! There is something so awe inspiring about being in a huge arena, running robots instead of watching someone playing sports. Seeing the huge event just for robotics was so inspiring to me when I was a young freshman, something that could only be topped by attending the World Championship in Atlanta.

Since so few teams get to attend the World Championship, (and everyone seems to want to continue downsizing that number) if you start just holding events in dinky gymnasiums, all that inspiration goes away. While attending more events like the district system for a lower cost is a really great idea, I think bringing down the magnitude also reduces the impact of FIRST around you. Instead of helping it to grow, I think you are impeding growth by having FIRST events wither away from large, very public venues to small high schools that are in all probability off the beaten path and not nearly as inviting to outsiders who we are supposed to be attracting to FIRST.

I want to invite you to do two big things:
1. Read this link, provided by Jim Zondag, that explains the district model. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1253411
Zondag likes to say that districts are like watching your favorite band in a small venue. It's more compact, but the excitement is higher because it's more intimate. It's also already proven to help FIRST grow.

2. Come to Michigan and check out a district event! I suggest the Grand Blanc, Waterford or Troy events. All three of them are amazing examples of how exciting Districts are.

This year, I attended a Regional for the first time in three years. It was great, but I much preferred the Districts.

/derailing this thread.

[CENTURION]

I actually think this is a terrible idea. When funds were getting low at the Wisconsin Regional and there were ideas of downsizing it to a college gym, I shuddered at the thought! There is something so awe inspiring about being in a huge arena, running robots instead of watching someone playing sports. Seeing the huge event just for robotics was so inspiring to me when I was a young freshman, something that could only be topped by attending the World Championship in Atlanta.

Since so few teams get to attend the World Championship, (and everyone seems to want to continue downsizing that number) if you start just holding events in dinky gymnasiums, all that inspiration goes away. While attending more events like the district system for a lower cost is a really great idea, I think bringing down the magnitude also reduces the impact of FIRST around you. Instead of helping it to grow, I think you are impeding growth by having FIRST events wither away from large, very public venues to small high schools that are in all probability off the beaten path and not nearly as inviting to outsiders who we are supposed to be attracting to FIRST.

I'm with you, I really love the feel of the arena at Wisconsin. I think it goes a long way towards "legitimizing" FIRST as a "real" sport. When I was a new student to FRC, I too was inspired by the scale of the regional. I think if it was held in a gym, it would really lack that impact.

In a gym, FIRST looks like a "small" organization.

[Kimmeh]

I'm with you, I really love the feel of the arena at Wisconsin. I think it goes a long way towards "legitimizing" FIRST as a "real" sport. When I was a new student to FRC, I too was inspired by the scale of the regional. I think if it was held in a gym, it would really lack that impact.

In a gym, FIRST looks like a "small" organization.

I actually think this is a terrible idea. When funds were getting low at the Wisconsin Regional and there were ideas of downsizing it to a college gym, I shuddered at the thought! There is something so awe inspiring about being in a huge arena, running robots instead of watching someone playing sports. Seeing the huge event just for robotics was so inspiring to me when I was a young freshman, something that could only be topped by attending the World Championship in Atlanta.

Since so few teams get to attend the World Championship, (and everyone seems to want to continue downsizing that number) if you start just holding events in dinky gymnasiums, all that inspiration goes away. While attending more events like the district system for a lower cost is a really great idea, I think bringing down the magnitude also reduces the impact of FIRST around you. Instead of helping it to grow, I think you are impeding growth by having FIRST events wither away from large, very public venues to small high schools that are in all probability off the beaten path and not nearly as inviting to outsiders who we are supposed to be attracting to FIRST.


Can we please keep this thread about the Negatives of 2013, and not districts? There's plenty of threads discussing districts already.




And if MSC is an example of what a regional should be like, I'll take my "tiny, two day events in a dinky high school gym" please.

[Jared Russell]

* Scoring was atrocious (real time scoring was a failure, and the system for manual counting was ad hoc and error prone particularly at early events). At every one of our events other than Championships, we have evidence that at least one of our matches was not correctly scored. But this is the ONLY bone to pick with this otherwise great game.

* The diminished frame perimeter, 54", and 84" restrictions (and their reinterpretation halfway through build season) were the most frustrating rules to deal with. Even more so because in practice the 54" and 84" limits were nearly impossible to enforce. A little more leeway in these departments would have let many more teams climb successfully.

* 8 matches at a Championship is unacceptable. We need fewer teams, faster cycle times (working scoring system would have helped here), and/or better time management. Why not intersperse divisional awards with playoff matches? Why the enormous time gap between divisions wrapping up, and Einstein beginning?

* I know it is contentious, but as invitations to Championships get harder to come by, we need to start making hard choices about who gets in. There were many Championship robots that simply were not Championship caliber, and this combined with the 8 matches-per-team format meant that an unlucky alliance pairing could wreck an elite team's chance of seeding where they should.

* Another contentious one (considering many of the posters on Chief Delphi fall in this group): "Special Invited Guest" and "Media Passes" are handed out like candy to team mentors who know the right people. When I see a half dozen mentors from the same team scouting matches from the floor right beside the field, I just roll my eyes.

* FIRST needs to get Einstein to end on time. That means reducing the gap between Divisions and Einstein, or being more selective about the number/length of corporate backslapping speeches, or doing a better job of spacing them out, or simply altering the schedule so Einstein is designed to end later so teams can plan accordingly.

* As much as I love the functionality and weight of plastic air tanks, there were several cases of these tanks exploding due to over tightening threads or spilling solvents on the tanks. Of course well-mentored teams will treat the tanks as they should and will not have problems, but giving a bunch of under-mentored high school students access to these tanks is a disaster waiting to happen. We either need to outlaw the tanks, or come up with some sort of legal "sleeve" to at least contain the shrapnel if something goes wrong.

* Practice field policy at Champs worked fine after Thursday, but on practice day lots of teams just needed to plop their bot down in front of a goal to dial in their shooters, and the line for this was insane on the Newton practice field. The two additional fields in the annex were absolutely necessary, and it would have been great to have even more (especially some with enough carpet to practice midfield autonomous modes). Also, on Friday morning our full practice field started to turn you away if you weren't 10 minutes early to your scheduled time, which was not well announced prior to the change. By Saturday morning it was better communicated that this was the policy.

* Refs had to make a lot of judgement calls (ex. what is a 3 point foul vs. what is a 20 point foul for contact with a protected FCS), which makes things more difficult for everyone.

* Pyramids varied in tolerance a lot from event to event, which is almost certainly an assembly issue. Need more precise instructions for field crews so that they are correctly assembled every time. A similar thing happened in 2011 with the inflation of game pieces.

* Pyramids were among the most expensive and hardest to build field elements teams have had to build.

* FIRST Choice had numerous issues this year (already beaten to death in threads months ago)

* FIRST Finale was so crowded that it was unsafe.

[Oblarg]

* I know it is contentious, but as invitations to Championships get harder to come by, we need to start making hard choices about who gets in. There were many Championship robots that simply were not Championship caliber, and this combined with the 8 matches-per-team format meant that an unlucky alliance pairing could wreck an elite team's chance of seeding where they should.

This is garbage. FIRST is not about "elite teams." It is not about the finals on the Einstein field, though they certainly are fun to watch and an integral part of the experience. FIRST is about an engineering challenge, a program which allows high school students to gain actual engineering work experience and which inspires people to seek careers in STEM. This is why the Chairman's award, not winning the championship, is the most prestigious award in the competition.

When you lose sight of this, you lose sight of the entire purpose of FRC. If you honestly think that your success in the tournament better matching your robot ability should rank higher on FIRST's list of priorities than allowing teams you deem "unfit" the opportunity to attend and compete in championships, then you do not understand FIRST, and need to fix your attitude. Shame on you.

[chantal68]

A couple of things that might help seating. One is a scouting block of 6 to 8 seats per team, which I know has been tossed around. I realize it doesn't solve having the whole team sit together but properly placed in the best seats for actually seeing either the blue or red alliances, it sure does help with scouting.

Another is if people would not move during matches. Sit tight, and then get up and do your moving around between matches. It's always always always a huge issue trying get people to remember to stay "down in front" when EVERYONE is trying to watch and collect scouting data.


I agree, some sort of registration system would help. They did block off the seats in front of Einstein for the division champions, but other than that, it was a free for all.

[MARS_James]

This is garbage. FIRST is not about "elite teams." It is not about the finals on the Einstein field, though they certainly are fun to watch and an integral part of the experience. FIRST is about an engineering challenge, a program which allows high school students to gain actual engineering work experience and which inspires people to seek careers in STEM. This is why the Chairman's award, not winning the championship, is the most prestigious award in the competition.

When you lose sight of this, you lose sight of the entire purpose of FRC. If you honestly think that your success in the tournament better matching your robot ability should rank higher on FIRST's list of priorities than allowing teams you deem "unfit" the opportunity to attend and compete in championships, then you do not understand FIRST, and need to fix your attitude. Shame on you.

You do realize 341 is a Hall of Fame team right? They get what FIRST is about and I personally saw nothing wrong with his post, since as a team who got in off of wait list I would much rather have not gone and allowed for less teams thus more matches for those who did go.

[Oblarg]

You do realize 341 is a Hall of Fame team right? They get what FIRST is about and I personally saw nothing wrong with his post, since as a team who got in off of wait list I would much rather have not gone and allowed for less teams thus more matches for those who did go.

If being from a HoF team immediately makes your posts Word of God, then I guess I'm uninformed.

Bear in mind that his point was not to reduce the number of teams for the sake of event logistics or increased number of matches, it was purely because he felt that teams were being "cheated" out of their "rightful seed" because they had the terrible experience of being paired with a team that isn't "elite!" Oh, the horror!

This clique-y nonsense has no place in a competition whose ostensible goal is to spread interest in STEM, and I don't particularly care who it's coming from. Neither should you. If you find the idea of a FIRST in which a small number of "elite" teams get to compete in nationals more appealing than a large number of not-so-"elite" teams, simply because you value the competition more than the engineering, then I contend that you do not understand the point of FIRST, no matter how prestigious your background. Get off your high horse and realize that FIRST is not about winning the tournament, nor has it ever been, nor should it ever be.

[Akash Rastogi]

This is garbage. FIRST is not about "elite teams." It is not about the finals on the Einstein field, though they certainly are fun to watch and an integral part of the experience. FIRST is about an engineering challenge, a program which allows high school students to gain actual engineering work experience and which inspires people to seek careers in STEM. This is why the Chairman's award, not winning the championship, is the most prestigious award in the competition.

When you lose sight of this, you lose sight of the entire purpose of FRC. If you honestly think that your success in the tournament better matching your robot ability should rank higher on FIRST's list of priorities than allowing teams you deem "unfit" the opportunity to attend and compete in championships, then you do not understand FIRST, and need to fix your attitude. Shame on you.

As someone who has never remotely come close to getting to Einstein or to being an elite team, I disagree with this post 100% when it comes to the World Championship.

Jared is absolutely spot on with what he said.

[fb39ca4]

I want to invite you to do two big things:
1. Read this link, provided by Jim Zondag, that explains the district model. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1253411
Zondag likes to say that districts are like watching your favorite band in a small venue. It's more compact, but the excitement is higher because it's more intimate. It's also already proven to help FIRST grow.


I agree. Having been to both Seattle and Spokane regionals, I enjoyed Spokane, which was held in EWU's gym, more because the seating was closer to the field.

[Akash Rastogi]

If being from a HoF team immediately makes your posts Word of God, then I guess I'm uninformed.

Bear in mind that his point was not to reduce the number of teams for the sake of event logistics or increased number of matches, it was purely because he felt that teams were being "cheated" out of their "rightful seed" because they had the terrible experience of being paired with a team that isn't "elite!" Oh, the horror!

This clique-y nonsense has no place in a competition whose ostensible goal is to spread interest in STEM, and I don't particularly care who it's coming from. Neither should you. If you find the idea of a FIRST in which a small number of "elite" teams get to compete in nationals more appealing than a large number of not-so-"elite" teams, simply because you value the competition more than the engineering, then I contend that you do not understand the point of FIRST, no matter how prestigious your background. Get off your high horse and realize that FIRST is not about winning the tournament, nor has it ever been, nor should it ever be.

You completely missed the point why it is unfair to teams attending. I think I know pretty well that it meant more teams does mean an unfair set of qualification matches due to the number of teams attending. The quality of matches can go down and rankings are not perfectly accurate. Please don't put words in people's mouths.

[Oblarg]

You completely missed the point why it is unfair to teams attending. I think I know pretty well that it meant more teams does mean an unfair set of qualification matches due to the number of teams attending. The quality of matches can go down and rankings are not perfectly accurate. Please don't put words in people's mouths.

Let's look at the quote itself, shall we?

I know it is contentious, but as invitations to Championships get harder to come by, we need to start making hard choices about who gets in. There were many Championship robots that simply were not Championship caliber, and this combined with the 8 matches-per-team format meant that an unlucky alliance pairing could wreck an elite team's chance of seeding where they should.

Now, please tell me how you could possibly read this in a way other than "we need to make sure that non-elite teams don't get in, because being paired with a non-elite team is harmful to the ranking of an elite team." He did not say "we need to restrict the number of teams that get in," he said "we have to make hard choices about who gets in." The sense of that quote is very clearly discriminatory as to team quality, not quantity.

[Siri]

When you lose sight of this, you lose sight of the entire purpose of FRC. If you honestly think that your success in the tournament better matching your robot ability should rank higher on FIRST's list of priorities than allowing teams you deem "unfit" the opportunity to attend and compete in championships, then you do not understand FIRST, and need to fix your attitude. Shame on you.FIRST appears to believe in inspiration through competition. If this is the case, then Championships should be as competitive as teams are able to make it. Being at the mercy of the schedule after spending so much more time, effort and money to qualify and attend is uninspiring for everyone, it's just most obvious when known powerhouses get caught in it.

Now, please tell me how you could possibly read this in a way other than "we need to make sure that non-elite teams don't get in, because being paired with a non-elite team is harmful to the ranking of an elite team." He did not say "we need to restrict the number of teams that get in," he said "we have to make hard choices about who gets in." The sense of that quote is very clearly discriminatory as to team quality, not quantity.This is how: don't conflate "not Championship caliber" with your definition of elite. Yes, Daisy is elite. But the complaint isn't about not playing with elite teams, it's about not playing with teams that are on par with Worlds.

"...invitations to Championships get harder to come by, we need to start making hard choices about who gets in" is not a normative assertion. It's not an elitist attitude--it's not an attitude at all. It's simply true. At what point does inviting more teams to play fewer matches result in diminishing returns? How many people do you inspire pulling someone off the waitlist vs qualifying another wildcard team, versus even keeping it at 8+ matches? Whether we like it or not, we're coming up on the point that these decisions are non-negotiable.

[Akash Rastogi]

Let's look at the quote itself, shall we?



Now, please tell me how you could possibly read this in a way other than "we need to make sure that non-elite teams don't get in, because being paired with a non-elite team is harmful to the ranking of an elite team." He did not say "we need to restrict the number of teams that get in," he said "we have to make hard choices about who gets in." The sense of that quote is very clearly discriminatory as to team quality, not quantity.

"as invitations to Championships get harder to come by, we need to start making hard choices about who gets in."

This implies quantity of robots as well as quality. Quality and quantity can sometimes go hand in hand when teams are taken off the waitlist.

Sure, many teams who attend from the waitlist have terrific bots, but many times there are also robots that, as Jared said, are not Championship caliber. A way to alleviate this is a qualification system based on points like FiM and MAR. The fact of the matter is that teams off the waitlist make for larger divisions = fewer matches for those who qualified for Champs.

Until that happens, I fully agree with Jared's points. Why should we come to the point where a random team is taken off the waitlist, while a team who competed early in the season and was, let's say, a regional finalist but did not get a wildcard slot, cannot attend? I would much rather see teams who didn't get Wildcards be able to attend champs instead of random teams who had good luck and fast fingers during registration.

Good example of a team that should have deserved to attend: 2791. No wildcard, no nothing.

[Oblarg]

This is how: don't conflate "not Championship caliber" with your definition of elite. Yes, Daisy is elite. But the complaint isn't about not playing with elite teams, it's about not playing with teams that are on par with Worlds.

Please give a definition for both "elite" and "championship caliber," and explain what precisely the difference is and how precisely it changes the meaning of that post from how I had interpreted it.

[jdaming]

This is garbage. FIRST is not about "elite teams." It is not about the finals on the Einstein field, though they certainly are fun to watch and an integral part of the experience. FIRST is about an engineering challenge, a program which allows high school students to gain actual engineering work experience and which inspires people to seek careers in STEM. This is why the Chairman's award, not winning the championship, is the most prestigious award in the competition.

When you lose sight of this, you lose sight of the entire purpose of FRC. If you honestly think that your success in the tournament better matching your robot ability should rank higher on FIRST's list of priorities than allowing teams you deem "unfit" the opportunity to attend and compete in championships, then you do not understand FIRST, and need to fix your attitude. Shame on you.

I believe I fall somewhere in between you two. I think that 8 practice matches is too few. If the only solution to that is to not allow waitlist teams than so be it (one team I have mentored was a waitlist team that got in). BUT the quote about "many Championship robots that simply were not Championship caliber" is entirely off base. If a team builds a "not Championship quality robot" but does wonderful things in their community and wins a Chairmans award are you really suggesting that they shouldn't get in? I can safely assume you are not but this is the very grey line you are crossing. Should "not Championship quality robot" rookies get into champs? I think we should try to inspire as many teams as possible without severely impacting other teams. In this case I believe teams were impacted by not getting enough matches, but the "quality" of robots is not the point as Oblarg points out.

[Oblarg]

I believe I fall somewhere in between you two. I think that 8 practice matches is too few. If the only solution to that is to not allow waitlist teams than so be it (one team I have mentored was a waitlist team that got in).

This, I can agree with. Reducing the total number of teams that get in off the waitlist for logistical reasons, and to increase the quality of the event for the teams which qualified, is a perfectly reasonable aim.

BUT the quote about "many Championship robots that simply were not Championship caliber" is entirely off base. If a team builds a "not Championship quality robot" but does wonderful things in their community and wins a Chairmans award are you really suggesting that they shouldn't get in? I can safely assume you are not but this is the very grey line you are crossing. Should "not Championship quality robot" rookies get into champs? I think we should try to inspire as many teams as possible without severely impacting other teams. In this case I believe teams were impacted by not getting enough matches, but the "quality" of robots is not the point as Oblarg points out.

And this is essentially my point - and no, I do not think that he is advocating that teams which qualify but are "not championship quality" be denied access. What I took his post to mean is that we should continue to allow waitlist teams, but pick and choose which ones based on perceived robot quality.

That, to me, reeks of elitist nonsense and seems entirely contrary to the spirit of FIRST.

If I am, indeed, misreading this, and this is not what he was advocating, and Jared would like to clarify such, I would be very happy to hear it.

[Adam Freeman]

.

I could not agree more with every single one of Jared's points!

100% spot on!

Unfortunately, I can't add on to his rep, b/c apparently I agree with him too often.

[Siri]

Please give a definition for both "elite" and "championship caliber," and explain what precisely the difference is and how precisely it changes the meaning of that post from how I had interpreted it.Sure. Of course this is my own answer, not his, though I've already indicated my agreement. I second the statement under the definition that "elite" means teams who 'should' place (barring at-fault failures) in a specific range--for example the obvious division favorites. Certainly the entire division is not favorites. Altering the rankings (lack of matches*) to the point that these teams drop out changes a lot more than just their chances. In fact, it affects all "championship caliber" teams that come looking to perform their best with and against the best: from winners to wildcards to RCAs. It's not a competition if you can't actually compete.

As for how it changes the interpretation, it goes back to the waitlist debate. How inspiring is the waitlist? Is it really garbage to advocate inviting wildcards in place of waitlisters? Certainly there's a great deal of inspiration to be had there. What about expanding the district qualification model? None of these groups are inherently elite (e.g. 1640------->----->Daisy), but they are much more likely to result in a balanced competition fitting of what so many teams have put so much into making.


*"There were many Championship robots that simply were not Championship caliber, and this combined with the 8 matches-per-team format..."

[Oblarg]

Sure. Of course this is my own answer, not his, though I've already indicated my agreement. I second the statement under the definition that "elite" means teams who 'should' place (barring at-fault failures) in a specific range--for example the obvious division favorites. Certainly the entire division is not favorites. Altering the rankings (lack of matches*) to the point that these teams drop out changes a lot more than just their chances. In fact, it affects all "championship caliber" teams that come looking to perform their best with and against the best: from winners to wildcards to RCAs. It's not a competition if you can't actually compete.

As for how it changes the interpretation, it goes back to the waitlist debate. How inspiring is the waitlist? Is it really garbage to advocate inviting wildcards in place of waitlisters? Certainly there's a great deal of inspiration to be had there. What about expanding the district qualification model? None of these groups are inherently elite (e.g. 1640------->----->Daisy), but they are much more likely to result in a balanced competition fitting of what so many teams have put so much into making.


*"There were many Championship robots that simply were not Championship caliber, and this combined with the 8 matches-per-team format..."

Ok, having read your post I think this is a matter of talking past each other more than anything, and nothing other than a clarifying post from Jared will resolve it.

If he's advocating reducing the number of waitlist teams that are accepted for the sake of the competition's quality, I have no problem.

If he's advocating discriminatory selection based on perceived "caliber" among the teams who are to be accepted from the waitlist, then I have a big problem.

So, I propose we pause this here until we receive clarification. Sound reasonable?

[ASmith1675]

The thing I haven't seen mentioned yet that definitely needs said:

Karthik needs to be given a larger space for his presentation. (More time would be fantastic as well). The number of people who came and were thoroughly interested and engaged throughout was incredible, but I am sure there were many more who could not get in to the room, or did not want to fight the crowds. There was something to take away from this presentation to teams of all resource and ability levels.

This may have been true of other presentations as well, but I believe Karthik's in particuar was probably the most blatant problem.

[Akash Rastogi]

If he's advocating discriminatory selection based on perceived "caliber" among the teams who are to be accepted from the waitlist, then I have a big problem.


Why?

As I said before, why should a team with quick fingers be let in over someone who performed better at their regional but didn't qualify?

I take issue with who is let off the waitlist because it is a lottery. I would much rather see teams compete who performed well at their events. A universal point system would help create something like this.

[Oblarg]

Why?

As I said before, why should a team with quick fingers be let in over someone who performed better at their regional but didn't qualify?

For the same reason the waitlist exists in the first place, or at least what I have always imagined that reason to be. To allow teams who otherwise might not have the experience to compete in the championships, which is a lot of fun and very inspiring, indeed.

If you truly think this is a problem, get rid of the waitlist entirely and be done with it.

[Gregor]

If being from a HoF team immediately makes your posts Word of God, then I guess I'm uninformed.

Bear in mind that his point was not to reduce the number of teams for the sake of event logistics or increased number of matches, it was purely because he felt that teams were being "cheated" out of their "rightful seed" because they had the terrible experience of being paired with a team that isn't "elite!" Oh, the horror!

This clique-y nonsense has no place in a competition whose ostensible goal is to spread interest in STEM, and I don't particularly care who it's coming from. Neither should you. If you find the idea of a FIRST in which a small number of "elite" teams get to compete in nationals more appealing than a large number of not-so-"elite" teams, simply because you value the competition more than the engineering, then I contend that you do not understand the point of FIRST, no matter how prestigious your background. Get off your high horse and realize that FIRST is not about winning the tournament, nor has it ever been, nor should it ever be.

Please read the first line of my signature.

[Oblarg]

Please read the first line of my signature.

I apologize, please substitute "championships" for "nationals." Force of habit - that's what they've always been called on teams I've worked with.

Now, do we have anything else to discuss regarding the topic at hand? I think we're at a bit of an impasse, myself.

[Moriarty]

Something that I do not think has been mentioned is the practice fields at regionals.

I loved the full practice field at Worlds. When my team played at our regional competition, I was disappointed by the lack of chains / box on the small practice fields. This did not give an entirely accurate simulation of gameplay on the field. In addition, I saw many frisbees fly through the goals and into the pit area, which could have potentially been dangerous.

I would not suggest a full practice field at the regionals, but a practice field that is a closer replica of the field would be great, especially for calibrating autonomous and practicing lining up shots.

[Oblarg]

Something that I do not think has been mentioned is the practice fields at regionals.

I loved the full practice field at Worlds. When my team played at our regional competition, I was disappointed by the lack of chains / box on the small practice fields. This did not give an entirely accurate simulation of gameplay on the field. In addition, I saw many frisbees fly through the goals and into the pit area, which could have potentially been dangerous.

I would not suggest a full practice field at the regionals, but a practice field that is a closer replica of the field would be great, especially for calibrating autonomous and practicing lining up shots.

The loading station on the DC Regional practice field was simply a vertical piece of wood with slots cut in it. No ramps.

Yep, you heard that right. No ramps. Not polycarbonate, not wood, nothing at all. It was completely and utterly worthless, and 4464 had to scramble to bring our own because were still making critical revisions to our feeding system.

This is rather unacceptable, and I hope they're better next year.

[Siri]

For the same reason the waitlist exists in the first place, or at least what I have always imagined that reason to be. To allow teams who otherwise might not have the experience to compete in the championships, which is a lot of fun and very inspiring, indeed.

If you truly think this is a problem, get rid of the waitlist entirely and be done with it.I'm not really talking about Jared's opinion, just my own. (I happen to agree with what I think he said, but he's plenty capable of speaking for himself should he choose.) For myself, I'm curious about how you're measuring inspiration. If wildcards are ok, what's inherently wrong with, say, a points-based (a la districts) waitlist system? Why is getting rid of the list entirely better than inviting via performance rather than lottery?

The negative lesson learned here for me is that FRC is hitting the point where attending Worlds has the potential to be less inspiring to teams than actually qualifying. I don't think it's there yet, but this year's 8 matches is definitely going that direction. I don't envy FIRST is the decision of how far to diminish the Worlds experience for one set of teams in order to accommodate those that achieved less success in that season.

[Oblarg]

I'm not really talking about Jared's opinion, just my own. (I happen to agree with what I think he said, but he's plenty capable of speaking for himself should he choose.) For myself, I'm curious about how you're measuring inspiration. If wildcards are ok, what's inherently wrong with, say, a points-based (a la districts) waitlist system? Why is getting rid of the list entirely better than inviting via performance rather than lottery?

Because I do think there is a lot of value in having a small "lottery" system to allow teams who did not qualify to experience championships, and I think railing against that with only the rationale of improving the robot quality-competition seed correlation for "elite" teams is a pretty lousy way to view FRC. From a competition-logistics perspective it may indeed be necessary, but that was not how I read his given rationale.

Moreover, robot quality has never been, for me, the ultimate end of FRC. It's certainly not what is celebrated by the Chairman's award. Waitlist judgments based on robot quality seem to me to violate one of the most crucial underpinnings of the organization itself.

And, finally, that particular passage just struck me as very ungracious. The implication strikes me as very much "if you are at championships with a robot that does not perform, you should not be at championships, and should feel bad about it simply because you might hurt the seed of an 'elite team.'" This strikes a nerve, for me, and it additionally bothers me that it seems few other people here have a problem with it.

Ultimately, I think we can all agree that there needs to be a line drawn somewhere on the number of teams that go to championships. We can also agree that certainly we want the competition at championships to be of a fitting caliber, so that the event does not seem like a glorified regional. I simply think, and I believe the existence of a waitlist at all is evidence that FIRST agrees, there certainly is value in allowing for a number teams which have not qualified to attend, and furthermore that if any judgment is to be made about waitlist teams attending, robot quality alone is not a metric which is wholly indicative of the type of team FIRST wants to see at a regional.

[Moriarty]

I'm not really talking about Jared's opinion, just my own. (I happen to agree with what I think he said, but he's plenty capable of speaking for himself should he choose.) For myself, I'm curious about how you're measuring inspiration. If wildcards are ok, what's inherently wrong with, say, a points-based (a la districts) waitlist system? Why is getting rid of the list entirely better than inviting via performance rather than lottery?

The negative lesson learned here for me is that FRC is hitting the point where attending Worlds has the potential to be less inspiring to teams than actually qualifying. I don't think it's there yet, but this year's 8 matches is definitely going that direction. I don't envy FIRST is the decision of how far to diminish the Worlds experience for one set of teams in order to accommodate those that achieved less success in that season.

How about this: Instead of inviting teams that may end up discouraged from poor performance against extremely competitive teams, instead have less teams total and use some of the extra funds generated from a smaller amount of teams to bring some of those struggling teams to championship to watch. I suspect the teams that really need the championship experience are not the ones that can afford to pay full price, but the ones that cannot afford to, and cannot afford the travel cost.

However, I realize that logistically this would be a nightmare, but just a thought. Perhaps one that could spark a better idea?

[Tom Line]

FIRST is about an engineering challenge, a program which allows high school students to gain actual engineering work experience and which inspires people to seek careers in STEM. This is why the Chairman's award, not winning the championship, is the most prestigious award in the competition.

When you lose sight of this, you lose sight of the entire purpose of FRC. If you honestly think that your success in the tournament better matching your robot ability should rank higher on FIRST's list of priorities than allowing teams you deem "unfit" the opportunity to attend and compete in championships, then you do not understand FIRST, and need to fix your attitude. Shame on you.

I suspect there are far more diplomatic ways to communicate your point in an eloquent and respectful manner.

I, for one, happen to agree with Jared. Many students and teams, mine included, take a great deal of pride and inspiration out of the product that we place on the field. Keep in mind that we are a multi-time chairman winner, so I think our kids 'get' what the program is about.

It is not inspiring when the primary driving force behind your Championship robot result is pure random chance. That's the most non-inspiring situation I can think of. It's tantamount to randomly picking a Chairman's winner. How truly inspiring would that be?

I fully support adopting a country wide district system. If your team is unable to attend two regionals, you can submit a hardship form to FIRST that, when accepted doubles your result in your first district. Points are distributed in the same manner they are in the Michigan System, and at the end of the year a certain number of robots at the top are invited to participate in the World Championship.

I would eliminate the purchase / wait option and (gasp) the auto-chairmans invites as well.

The only option I see to bringing the number of matches up to what they should be (12 or more) is to reduce the number of teams at the Championship. You could also start matches much earlier on Thursday: this is champs and your robot should be pretty close to dialed-in after your districts/regionals/bag windows etc.

[Tom Line]

Something that I do not think has been mentioned is the practice fields at regionals.

I loved the full practice field at Worlds. When my team played at our regional competition, I was disappointed by the lack of chains / box on the small practice fields. This did not give an entirely accurate simulation of gameplay on the field. In addition, I saw many frisbees fly through the goals and into the pit area, which could have potentially been dangerous.

I would not suggest a full practice field at the regionals, but a practice field that is a closer replica of the field would be great, especially for calibrating autonomous and practicing lining up shots.

I'm fairly shocked at that. It sounds like we were spoiled here in the Michigan. Our practice fields were 1/3 fields that had pyramids, goals, and were surrounded by batting-cage style hanging nets that made it safe for everyone. Perhaps First-In-Michigan builds the practice fields and moves them around with the competition fields. That would explain their relatively high-quality. They were laminated plywood bolted together, all built in a folding style so they could be packed away.

[Moriarty]

I'm fairly shocked at that. It sounds like we were spoiled here in the Michigan. Our practice fields were 1/3 fields that had pyramids, goals, and were surrounded by batting-cage style hanging nets that made it safe for everyone. Perhaps First-In-Michigan builds the practice fields and moves them around with the competition fields. That would explain their relatively high-quality. They were laminated plywood bolted together, all built in a folding style so they could be packed away.

To clarify, they did have the nets and the same 1/3 fields.

I was referring to the frisbees that flew OVER the netting, sorry for that misunderstanding.

Did the goals at FiM have the full chain and box goal? Or just the frame one? My issue was with the frame one because it did not have the boxed backing or chains. Without these, the teams could not be sure that where they were shooting from would not have frisbees bounce out.

[Tom Line]

To clarify, they did have the nets and the same 1/3 fields.

I was referring to the frisbees that flew OVER the netting, sorry for that misunderstanding.

Did the goals at FiM have the full chain and box goal? Or just the frame one? My issue was with the frame one because it did not have the boxed backing or chains. Without these, the teams could not be sure that where they were shooting from would not have frisbees bounce out.

No - ours were the same plywood frame with no chains.

[Jared Russell]

This is garbage.
*snip*

Please let me clear some things up.

I said that we need to make hard choices about who gets in. This does not mean that I think you must be an elite robot to be invited. If it did, well, then 341 would not have been at the Championship many of the years we have been, and we would not be the team we are today. It means exactly what I said: we have to make hard choices! The best system I have seen for making these choices is the FIM/MAR system, which uses points accumulated over the course of a season (incorporating BOTH robot performance and off-the-field accomplishments, with automatic advancement for the highest culture changing awards) to select the most deserving teams in a given year.

To be clear, I do not think we were we impacted at all by unlucky alliance pairings (heck, we had the 5th easiest schedule in Newton by OPR). There were a couple of other specific teams I had in mind when I made the second part of my statement, which I concede was not tactfully articulated. It is not FIRST's obligation that the best robot seeds #1. But, on the other hand: There is a C in FRC, and the C is the biggest reason we are as popular as we are. The C is also our best shot at actually transforming the culture on a macro scale, because the sports model is something the public actually gets.

There is a knob we need to tune. On one end, every FRC team who is able to, comes to Championships and plays a single match. On the other end, only the 24 best robots in the world show up and they play 20+ qualification matches each. All I am arguing is that 400+ teams and 8 matches is not the optimal spot on the continuum, especially for $5000 per team. I do not think you should need to be elite to come to St. Louis, but when I know for a fact that there are teams who did not make the cut who can score lots of game pieces, who have done tremendous things in their communities and schools, and have changed lives and cultures - why are there still robots that can't score a game piece at the World Championships?

[PayneTrain]

Because I do think there is a lot of value in having a small "lottery" system to allow teams who did not qualify to experience championships, and I think railing against simply with the rationale of improving the robot quality-competition seed correlation for "elite" teams is a pretty lousy way to view FRC. From a competition-logistics perspective it may indeed be necessary, but that was not how I read his given rationale.

I don't believe you can find much of a cross section with well-resourced teams who perform poorly and still go off the waitlist.

When I make the decision to stick it out somewhere on any team for a year, I sign up for the organization known as For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology's Robotics Competition. And when I work with a team, I don't throw personal wellness and rational behavior out of the window just to see them do their ok-est every year.

Coming from a team that has earned precisely 1 merit based slot in its 14 years of fielding robots in the competition, and you know what? It sucks. It really, really sucks. But there are times where this team has finished second at an event after getting absolutely steamrolled by teams, specifically 25. So what did the team do? Dedicated to improving drive train quality so they don't get kicked around anymore. It inspired them to do better. This year, the team did not make picks without knowing everything necessary to build a successful alliance, something I noticed after I went back and crunched some numbers. After the students did the same, a web-based LAN scouting application was built and tested in 2 weeks for later use and will be continually improved upon, and it's because of the example set by elite teams.

However, after 8 matches per team in Virginia, a team with zero ability to do anything was carried by teams like 422 to alliance captain, and 2 other entirely non-functioning robots ended ranked ahead of 422 that were also carried by 422, team members came up to me and said "Oh, I guess the secret is to build a robot that can't work and hope someone wins for us." I took thoughts like that very seriously, because competition in FRC is not meant to be secondary to everything else, it is supposed to matter.

We do not compete in the FIRST Robotics Flowers and Rainbows Happy Place. Woodie Flowers doesn't slink on up to the podium every year to tell me "help people off the field, and don't compete like hell on it, but make sure everyone feels like they got something out of it during matches." No. Our competition is designed to only bring out the absolute best of our teams, FIRST itself, and each person that participates in it, but it is still a competition. The more competitive FIRST has become, the stronger it becomes on an organizational level, and it is becoming clear HQ sees this school of thought panning out well on the field and in the spreadsheets.

However, when teams are moved off the waitlist who didn't try like hell and ended up winning two judged awards, or get knocked out by the champs of both of their events in quarterfinals, or something else, that's bad. When you are moving teams who can't build a functional machine off the waitlist and keep finalists who picked bad events waiting or wholly excluded, you are doing something very, very wrong. You are instilling in children that no matter how much effort they put into their build season, HQ doesn't care and would rather have any old team willing to drop $5k and registration plus the insane costs of travel and lodging. Having merit based waitlisting is something that should be instituted. It is not fair to teams who are just "elite", it is unfair to any team that has ever busted their chops and just wasn't great enough to say that one team clicked the blue box on TIMS .xxx seconds faster so they earned it.

Teams need to take ownership of their successes and failures on and off the field. By providing a waitlist with conditions that have nothing to do with either, you are infinitely diluting the importance of those successes and failures, and the students in this program are very smart and they do notice this and some of them are getting really sick of it.

[thefro526]

Ok, having read your post I think this is a matter of talking past each other more than anything, and nothing other than a clarifying post from Jared will resolve it.



Jared and I had a reasonably long conversation about this subject after one of our matches on Thursday. I will not speak for him, but I will share my opinion on the subject with the hope that it may help your understanding.

From 2006 to 2010, I went with my team (at the time, 816) to the Championship via the wait list. Two of those years, we had no business being at a 'championship' since we were less than competitive. That being said, those two Championships (mainly 2006) were two of the most inspirational moments of my life. Seeing what could be done if one was willing to put their all into it was simply astounding. I am a fan of the waitlist because it gives teams this opportunity.

With that being said, the Championship is our Championship. As a group, a family, a league of competitors and as a culture, the Championship is our moment to get together and show each other and the world what we've got. There will always be unfair match ups and tough breaks just like any competition, but at some point we need to look at where we're going and make some difficult decisions.

There will be some point in the near future where FIRST and FRC reach critical mass and having a Championship like what we've got now will not be feasible or a good idea or whatever you want to call it. The situation is being addressed by both the wildcard system and the district model and both have shown promise for long term growth. They create a 'fair' way to allow teams to qualify for the Championship without doing it through one of the conventional methods.

Aside from the issue of the size of the Championship, we also need to address the question of 'what is FRC going to be' in the future. We're finally starting to break the boundaries of sports and some places are considering FRC to be equal to that of any other Varsity sport and personally, I think that's amazing. With that being said, if we keep allowing teams that don't meet some sort of minimum competitive threshold to compete at the Championship, are we really a sport?

I'm not trying to say that every team at the Championship needs to win an event, be a powerhouse or anything like that - it's not who we are. What I'd like to see is a small amount (and I mean really small) of robot related emphasis placed on any qualification method for the Championship - the easiest way to summarize it would be 'A qualifying team's machine must be able to complete the game objective'. Something as simple as scoring 3 discs in this year, or being able to hang from the 10pt bar would suffice. I know some of the qualification methods are not about the robot, which I can agree with, but if we're sending these teams to our largest most visible event, then I think that it would be in the best interest of all of us to have each team be able to at a minimum complete the game objective. *

If you can't understand what I'm trying to get across here, then that's fine. It is a bit controversial and different from the norm. Also, this is just my opinion and has nothing to do with any team so please keep that in mind.

*TLDR, there shouldn't be Machines at the CMP that cannot complete the game objective.

[EricLeifermann]

I suspect there are far more diplomatic ways to communicate your point in an eloquent and respectful manner.

I, for one, happen to agree with Jared. Many students and teams, mine included, take a great deal of pride and inspiration out of the product that we place on the field. Keep in mind that we are a multi-time chairman winner, so I think our kids 'get' what the program is about.

It is not inspiring when the primary driving force behind your Championship robot result is pure random chance. That's the most non-inspiring situation I can think of. It's tantamount to randomly picking a Chairman's winner. How truly inspiring would that be?

I fully support adopting a country wide district system. If your team is unable to attend two regionals, you can submit a hardship form to FIRST that, when accepted doubles your result in your first district. Points are distributed in the same manner they are in the Michigan System, and at the end of the year a certain number of robots at the top are invited to participate in the World Championship.

I would eliminate the purchase / wait option and (gasp) the auto-chairmans invites as well.

The only option I see to bringing the number of matches up to what they should be (12 or more) is to reduce the number of teams at the Championship. You could also start matches much earlier on Tuesday: this is champs and your robot should be pretty close to dialed-in after your districts/regionals/bag windows etc.

I agree 100%, though the argument for the chairman's auto qualifying is if you don't then how many teams are going to send their chairman's presenters to Champs just to present?

[waialua359]

Please let me clear some things up.

I said that we need to make hard choices about who gets in. This does not mean that I think you must be an elite robot to be invited. If it did, well, then 341 would not have been at the Championship many of the years we have been, and we would not be the team we are today. It means exactly what I said: we have to make hard choices! The best system I have seen for making these choices is the FIM/MAR system, which uses points accumulated over the course of a season (incorporating BOTH robot performance and off-the-field accomplishments, with automatic advancement for the highest culture changing awards) to select the most deserving teams in a given year.

To be clear, I do not think we were we impacted at all by unlucky alliance pairings (heck, we had the 5th easiest schedule in Newton by OPR). There were a couple of other specific teams I had in mind when I made the second part of my statement, which I concede was not tactfully articulated. It is not FIRST's obligation that the best robot seeds #1. But, on the other hand: There is a C in FRC, and the C is the biggest reason we are as popular as we are. The C is also our best shot at actually transforming the culture on a macro scale, because the sports model is something the public actually gets.

There is a knob we need to tune. On one end, every FRC team who is able to, comes to Championships and plays a single match. On the other end, only the 24 best robots in the world show up and they play 20+ qualification matches each. All I am arguing is that 400+ teams and 8 matches is not the optimal spot on the continuum, especially for $5000 per team. I do not think you should need to be elite to come to St. Louis, but when I know for a fact that there are teams who did not make the cut who can score lots of game pieces, who have done tremendous things in their communities and schools, and have changed lives and cultures - why are there still robots that can't score a game piece at the World Championships?
Jared, I'm with you on this one.

5000 for 8 matches and coming from Hawaii especially, is NOT acceptable.
If this means adding an extra day, or less teams competing, so be it.
If it means I have to win at events and not get the HOF exemption, then so be it. If my robot is poor, I won't subject our team to getting blown out.
If it means that if RCA's win, they compete only with the Other RCA's in a judges room, then so be it.
This is a competition event!
Champs is a big deal. Excuses that I can't get off work another day is a personal problem. For an event as inspiring as this, and a once in a lifetime opportunity for kids, you make the necessary sacrifices to make it happen.
It's my job to use it to inspire kids all of the other zillion of hours I put in to take care of the learning part!

[jdaming]

I, for one, happen to agree with Jared. Many students and teams, mine included, take a great deal of pride and inspiration out of the product that we place on the field. Keep in mind that we are a multi-time chairman winner, so I think our kids 'get' what the program is about.

It is not inspiring when the primary driving force behind your Championship robot result is pure random chance. That's the most non-inspiring situation I can think of. It's tantamount to randomly picking a Chairman's winner. How truly inspiring would that be?

I think we all agree that would not be inspiring, but that wasn't the case even this year. The number of matches only affects the seeding which is a big deal but doesn't make the final outcome completely random (hence we had a VERY competitive Einstein).

Secondly, that comparison is not accurate. I won't even go into why it is so far off base I think that is obvious.


I would eliminate the purchase / wait option and (gasp) the auto-chairmans invites as well.

I must have misunderstood this? Are you going to stop inviting Rookies too? FIRST has proven that the competition can be competitive and allow "less than championship quality" robots in at the same time. The MAIN problem here is with the number of matches not the "quality" of the play.


The only option I see to bringing the number of matches up to what they should be (12 or more)

Good Luck! I think it is far too restrictive and exclusive to get 12 or more matches with the current championship setup. You are talking about cutting 1/3 or more of the teams that is quite drastic.

[PayneTrain]

I'm fairly shocked at that. It sounds like we were spoiled here in the Michigan. Our practice fields were 1/3 fields that had pyramids, goals, and were surrounded by batting-cage style hanging nets that made it safe for everyone. Perhaps First-In-Michigan builds the practice fields and moves them around with the competition fields. That would explain their relatively high-quality. They were laminated plywood bolted together, all built in a folding style so they could be packed away.

Practice fields, IIRC, are built and maintained by regional committees. FiM used their practice fields over a dozen times while DC would only use theirs once, so building them better makes sense; people will actually get stuff out of them...

Point 1 for districts. For those of you keeping score at home, that's:
Districts: 5469
Traditional Events: 1 (because they tried)

[tkell274]

I really liked this game but there were a few things that needed to be changed.

The Game:
The endgame needed to be worth more. FIRST needs to work on balancing out teleop and the endgame.
Also the real time scoring needs a huge improvement for next year.

Districts:
I know that the New England area will be moving to a district system next year and I would love to see it put in place in more places. The system allows for more events and more chances to go to a big event like the region championship with a better chance for worlds.

Championships:
There either needs to be less teams or more divisions at worlds. I know that adding more divisions would be very hard because of space and logistics but there needs to be more than eight matches for all the teams. I have seen some people talking about extending the championships to starting with practice on wednesday and I do not agree with that. We need to keep in mind that FRC is high school students and, although they are all motivated and intelligent, they cannot be missing that much school. Finally I would like to see Einsteins placement moved so that more people can watch it without having to be stuck at the top of the stadium.

P.S.
this might be a little off topic but I saw someone talking about how they don't like jags and won't be using them next year. I just wanted to say that my team has been using jags with the can system for years now and we love it.

[Brandon_L]

To everyone complaining about time between einstein matches being used for awards, may I point out that Einstein is still a FRC field, which requires near 10 minute match cycles. Along with the 6 min minimum for back to back matches, and the timeouts, I think how they handle awards between matches is rather time efficient. Sometimes the awards run a little longer than a 10 min match reset, but overall it works out better.

May not be fun for spectators, but I'd rather watch awards then people resetting a field. Also works out for sponsors watching who would have no idea what's going on in the ~10 min gaps between matches.

2c

[Tristan Lall]

However, when teams are moved off the waitlist who didn't try like hell and ended up winning two judged awards, or get knocked out by the champs of both of their events in quarterfinals, or something else, that's bad. When you are moving teams who can't build a functional machine off the waitlist and keep finalists who picked bad events waiting or wholly excluded, you are doing something very, very wrong. You are instilling in children that no matter how much effort they put into their build season, HQ doesn't care and would rather have any old team willing to drop $5k and registration plus the insane costs of travel and lodging. Having merit based waitlisting is something that should be instituted. It is not fair to teams who are just "elite", it is unfair to any team that has ever busted their chops and just wasn't great enough to say that one team clicked the blue box on TIMS .xxx seconds faster so they earned it.
This strikes me as a kind of optimization problem. Given the current composition of the Championship, can it be demonstrated that the value of admitting an additional merit-qualified team in lieu of a waitlisted team will be positive?1 And how does this relationship change as you tweak the proportions and quantities of qualified teams? Is this relationship different for teams that only won judged awards versus the ones with more competitive robots?

I suspect that to answer that, we'll need to discuss the purpose of the Championship, and the criteria used to judge merit and calculate value.

1 Or, given the distribution of likely outcomes, at least a positive expected value and a low likelihood of drastically negative values.

[MrJohnston]

A couple of thoughts...

1) Championship Caliber vs. Wait List:
I suspect that part of the reason we accept robots from a waitlist to fill out the fields is financial. It costs a significant amount of money to rent out a facility such as the Edwards Jones Dome for a week and those wait-listed teams really help the bottom line. I have experience running select baseball tournaments. If I were to rent and prepare a facility for a 24 team tournament, but only got 16 teams, I'd be in a mess financially. However, were I to fill the tournament with 24, I'd make a pretty profit. Thought FIRST is not a for-profit organization, the concept is the same. The last thing we want is for them to be forced to raise the price on everybody in the event that the tournament does not fill.

However, I agree that, in this case, it causes some challenges. Eight qualification matches is not nearly enough to allow teams to adequately separate themselves and puts them all much more at the mercy of schedule pairings. I would much rather see eight 50-team divisions, 10 qualifying matches and a quarter-final round at Einstein.

Further, I would not want to dissuade teams from coming who qualified with less competitive robots. If we have enough qualifying rounds, those who have truly great robots would rise to the top and those who don't would fall out of contention. A team with a weaker robot what really wants to compete either 1) will be inspired by all the great robotics around them to learn and be come better or 2) will learn real fast that they didn't belong in the first place and will see what great teams are really capable of accomplishing.


2) Competition vs. Gracious Professionalism
This is such a hard balance sometimes. Yes, this was the World Champsionships, which, by definition, is very competitive. We were all there to win. However, what sets FIRST aside is that Gracious Professionalism is the core value and being graciously professional is more important than winning a trophy. Sometimes, in our desires to excel, we forget this. Some things I witnessed personally, that I would rather see go differently:

* One team, when approached about alliances, blasting another's mentor and effectively demanding that the first not choose them.

* A team continuing to practice on the practice field and looking nothing short of awesome, but looking like garbage on the real field. Later, this team is seen talking to a top alliance about being a third pick.

* Teams being upset when being selected by the "wrong" team for alliance selections.

* Teams "showcasing" specific skills during the last qualification rounds in hopes of improving their chances at being selected - at the cost of the match and their alliance partners' chances. (Consider a team that loses the #8 seed because of such a loss, then never gets chosen for eliminations!)

* Teams in the stands yelling obscenities about referee's calls - and not being calmed by mentors.

* Teams saving seats when specifically asked not to. I saw several instances when kids could not watch their own robot compete because the they were not permitted to stand in teh aisles to watch matches and the 100 (or more!) empty seats were all being "saved" by other teams.

[PayneTrain]

This strikes me as a kind of optimization problem. Given the current composition of the Championship, can it be demonstrated that the value of admitting an additional merit-qualified team in lieu of a waitlisted team will be positive?1 And how does this relationship change as you tweak the proportions and quantities of qualified teams? Is this relationship different for teams that only won judged awards versus the ones with more competitive robots?

I suspect that to answer that, we'll need to discuss the purpose of the Championship, and the criteria used to judge merit and calculate value.

1 Or, given the distribution of likely outcomes, at least a positive expected value and a low likelihood of drastically negative values.


I think there needs to be an algorithm that balances the merits of the team under a traditional points system with some leverage in times the team attended championships in its history/veteran status. I can't tell you what it should be, there should be some sort of consensus met by teams and HQ of what does merit a championship caliber team, but I think it should be pretty easy to reach the consensus that a fastest-finger competition isn't that.

[JackN]

I was personally not involved with any team for Build Season this year. I did help work with Team 70 during the competition season, so these observations and issues that I have noticed/felt this season and there are some potential solutions:

1) The number of qualification matches at Championship was too low. Everyone agrees with this being an issue, I don't think anyone is going to disagree with it. There are several proposed solutions that I think could solve it. FIRST needs to decide who they want to appeal to when it comes to Championship. Removing the wait-list will make it a more competitive and maybe a more positive experience for the teams that qualify. Expanded the divisions/adding another will certainly decrease the quality of play, but gives more students the opportunity to attend championship.

2) Third event teams at the Bedford District Competition. This is obviously a Michigan centered issue, but the fact that 22 of the 24 teams that were playing in eliminations were competing in their third event left a sour taste in my mouth. I am generally a fan of teams being allowed to compete in extra events to fill up the spots, but I really wish that there was a better distribution of teams at the events from earlier weeks to make it less likely something like this might happen.

3) Real time and Autonomous Scoring issues. I am not that mad about the real time scoring. For better or worse I have more or less given up expecting to see a quality real time score. One thing I wish they would have done is added in a pause following the end of Autonomous mode, similar to what was done in 2006 to give counters the ability to verify and accurately count the discs.

[BrendanB]

.....


I really hope FIRST HQ sees this. I agree 100% with this!

[GBK]

The camps were amazing and we were honored to be there.
That being said some adjustments need to be made to make it better for everyone.
Too many teams in a division and too few matches. The speeches are way too long. Too few good seats for Einstein.
If the Einstein speeches were cut way back there would be time to do a normal QF, SF, and finals match set up. This would require more divisions. More divisions means less teams for each division. Less teams per division means more matches.
Einstein needs to be setup on one of the long sides of the dome like it was in Atlanta. This would allow for better seating for Einstein.
Some people don't like the paper airplanes (I think they are just fine) if the speeches were shorter and more matches were being played, there would be less students and mentor bored and maybe less airplanes.
Some might ask where would you put the extra fields for the additional divisions... Why doe FTC need to be at the same championship. FTC is being limited at the championship by FRC just as much as FRC is being limited by FTC. Michigan has adapted FTC as a middle school program and the season as been adjusted so it does not interfere with FRC. This allows us coaches/mentor to do both teams. Makes for a great feeder system for FRC and allows 7th and 8th graders to be involved in something more challenging than Lego. Most of that age group is not interested in Lego any way. Michigan is still only allowed to send 2 teams to camps. This limits the growth of FTC in our state. If FIRST is going to continue to grow the way it should, some hard decisions need to be made.

[lanna.stars]

Far too many teams for Championships... perhaps getting rid of the wait list would narrow down numbers? Also switching to districts would also make for less teams at the world's. I'm not sure but just a suggestion.

Another issue I came across was the screens for each division were TOO small for those in the stands to read everything. Kind of pointless if the only ones who can read it are those on the playing field and they aren't paying attention to the screen anyways.

Scoring issues in real time. Kind of embarrassing to watch in all honesty... specifically in autonomous mode.

[Oblarg]

Please let me clear some things up.

I said that we need to make hard choices about who gets in. This does not mean that I think you must be an elite robot to be invited. If it did, well, then 341 would not have been at the Championship many of the years we have been, and we would not be the team we are today. It means exactly what I said: we have to make hard choices! The best system I have seen for making these choices is the FIM/MAR system, which uses points accumulated over the course of a season (incorporating BOTH robot performance and off-the-field accomplishments, with automatic advancement for the highest culture changing awards) to select the most deserving teams in a given year.

To be clear, I do not think we were we impacted at all by unlucky alliance pairings (heck, we had the 5th easiest schedule in Newton by OPR). There were a couple of other specific teams I had in mind when I made the second part of my statement, which I concede was not tactfully articulated. It is not FIRST's obligation that the best robot seeds #1. But, on the other hand: There is a C in FRC, and the C is the biggest reason we are as popular as we are. The C is also our best shot at actually transforming the culture on a macro scale, because the sports model is something the public actually gets.

There is a knob we need to tune. On one end, every FRC team who is able to, comes to Championships and plays a single match. On the other end, only the 24 best robots in the world show up and they play 20+ qualification matches each. All I am arguing is that 400+ teams and 8 matches is not the optimal spot on the continuum, especially for $5000 per team. I do not think you should need to be elite to come to St. Louis, but when I know for a fact that there are teams who did not make the cut who can score lots of game pieces, who have done tremendous things in their communities and schools, and have changed lives and cultures - why are there still robots that can't score a game piece at the World Championships?

Thank you for the clarification; it seems much of the disagreement was, indeed, miscommunication. No, the current system is clearly imperfect and does indeed need work - I can certainly agree there.

I apologize if my post was overly-confrontational, and am glad that what I took offense at was not your intended message.

[Libby K]

The thing I haven't seen mentioned yet that definitely needs said:

Karthik needs to be given a larger space for his presentation. (More time would be fantastic as well). The number of people who came and were thoroughly interested and engaged throughout was incredible, but I am sure there were many more who could not get in to the room, or did not want to fight the crowds. There was something to take away from this presentation to teams of all resource and ability levels.

This may have been true of other presentations as well, but I believe Karthik's in particuar was probably the most blatant problem.

Agreed. With the conferences being free this year, this was a BIG problem. Shutting out almost as many people as were in the room?! Time for a bigger room. I don't think this was something they were ready for with the change in attendance policy. I have heard that they're looking at using the Ferrara Theater for the more widely-attended conferences next year.

My other thoughts:
-Fewer teams, more divisions, or both. 8 matches was completely unacceptable.
-The Hall of Fame setup. Embarassing. These guys should have a way bigger display space - after all, they're the FRC role models. It wouldn't be that hard to find a better, bigger, more advantageous space for them a la Atlanta's HoF display.

I've got more, but those are the big two.

[apples000]

I agree with many of the points in this thread, but I found the finale to be dangerously overcrowded. I watched several students fall down the stairs, and by the time the bus I was on arrived, all we could find to eat were the cookies. Also, while down on the field during elims, I noticed that the back up robots (there were four per division) and their teams needed to be in the center area where they needed to sit still and wait. The kids weren't allowed to watch the matches, and a group of kids who worked hard, built a great robot, ranked 12, and weren't picked were forced to sit where they couldn't see the elimination rounds for any division is not a nice thing to do to a dedicated group of students. Also, I agree that 8 matches is not enough. Teams that didn't build great robots ended up in the top 8, and bad robots were chosen for alliance partners(making it easier for us to get far in elims).

[Oblarg]

Yes, the finale planning all-around was atrocious, from the transportation to the event itself. That volume of people in that space was not a good idea.

[ScottOliveira]

A couple of thoughts...

1) Championship Caliber vs. Wait List:
I suspect that part of the reason we accept robots from a waitlist to fill out the fields is financial. It costs a significant amount of money to rent out a facility such as the Edwards Jones Dome for a week and those wait-listed teams really help the bottom line. I have experience running select baseball tournaments. If I were to rent and prepare a facility for a 24 team tournament, but only got 16 teams, I'd be in a mess financially. However, were I to fill the tournament with 24, I'd make a pretty profit. Thought FIRST is not a for-profit organization, the concept is the same. The last thing we want is for them to be forced to raise the price on everybody in the event that the tournament does not fill.

I'm not certain how the financials for the Championship work, but having talked with some local organizers, many of the regional competitions have a very large percent (up to 100%) of the costs for reserving space payed for by sponsors. I would imagine that the Championship works in a similar manner, where most if not all of the facility costs end up being covered by sponsor donations, not team entry fees.

Someone who has more insight, please feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.

[Koko Ed]

-The Hall of Fame setup. Embarassing. These guys should have a way bigger display space - after all, they're the FRC role models. It wouldn't be that hard to find a better, bigger, more advantageous space for them a la Atlanta's HoF display.


The HOF looked nicer than it has in a long while but it was too small and seemed sterile and disorganized (where were teams supposed to set up?). I didn't even hear anything about the HOF til I talked to Dan Green at Midwest and I was hoping to start designing our HOF setup during the build season since I am the lead mentor on the promotions team. Instead we had to scramble to throw something together at the last second just to put something in the HOF. If the Chairman's award is so important to FIRST they certainly have a funny way of showing it.

[tgraham_533]

As a mentor for 15 years, I have noticed that the field is becoming more and more complicated and more and more important to testing. This year's pyramid was expensive and required alot of space. Our team is limited to an active shop classroom to design, build and test the robot. We could not build the pyramid due to space. In addition, the low cost field was not truly representative of the actual field. The small portion of the pyramid we did build drove us to make certain design decisions that were not appropriate once we saw the actual field.

[Koko Ed]

I just want to say, as a member of a team who has been around for over 10 years now, the concept of a hall of fame is just plane rediculous. We are here to work and play and spread the message of FIRST. To me, the hall of fame recignizes the teams who have the most money and are able to do great extravagent things with it. Dont get me wrong, they worked hard to earn it, and I am most definitely not knocking philanthropy or the value of becoming a chairmans winning team, but the hall of fame shouldnt exist. It is not fair to have a team like mine who can barely keep afloat, is using old equipment for design, programming, and building our robot, to have to compete against a team like Ms. Daisy (no offence) who has multiple heavy hitter sponsors, is able to travel internationally to show off their robot in the United Kingdom, as well as other wonderfull things like that. I believe that yes these teams types of teams should be an example to others, But I do not believe that other teams should get less of a chance to compete due to financial reasons.
We aint rich.
We share a build site with two other teams.

[Oblarg]

As a mentor for 15 years, I have noticed that the field is becoming more and more complicated and more and more important to testing. This year's pyramid was expensive and required alot of space. Our team is limited to an active shop classroom to design, build and test the robot. We could not build the pyramid due to space. In addition, the low cost field was not truly representative of the actual field. The small portion of the pyramid we did build drove us to make certain design decisions that were not appropriate once we saw the actual field.

This really needs to be repeated until FIRST acknowledges it - the pyramid was a prohibitively difficult field piece to simulate accurately, and it added another hurdle for teams of limited means. Every field piece should be easy to simulate accurately for testing purposes.

[BHS_STopping]

I just want to say, as a member of a team who has been around for over 10 years now, the concept of a hall of fame is just plane rediculous. We are here to work and play and spread the message of FIRST. To me, the hall of fame recignizes the teams who have the most money and are able to do great extravagent things with it. Dont get me wrong, they worked hard to earn it, and I am most definitely not knocking philanthropy or the value of becoming a chairmans winning team, but the hall of fame shouldnt exist. It is not fair to have a team like mine who can barely keep afloat, is using old equipment for design, programming, and building our robot, to have to compete against a team like Ms. Daisy (no offence) who has multiple heavy hitter sponsors, is able to travel internationally to show off their robot in the United Kingdom, as well as other wonderfull things like that. I believe that yes these teams types of teams should be an example to others, But I do not believe that other teams should get less of a chance to compete due to financial reasons.

You hold quite a controversial opinion, and I just want to let you know that this topic has been discussed time and time again.

The objective of the HoF and the Chairman's award is to inspire other teams to spread the ideals of FIRST. You are correct that some teams have a great amount of resources and have an "easier" time accomplishing certain goals. That being said, it's impossible ensure equal circumstances for all teams competing. Your argument doesn't apply to just the Chairman's award, it could be applied to the competition itself, and even to instances outside of FIRST as well (think high school sports teams, students applying to colleges, etc). Judges definitely do take things like economic circumstances into account when judging for all awards. An inner city school can certainly have many more challenges to overcome than an engineering academy might, which makes it that much more exciting and inspiring when they achieve their goals. What matters is how much your team does with what it is given. I promise that if you make the most out of what your team has, you will be rewarded for it.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Biggest problem this year? Low number of matches. DC we got 8 matches for 60 teams. There was simply no hustle. The ranking algorithm this year was quite decent but needs time to work. 8 matches meant we saw ~2/3 of the field. Champs was the same issue but instead of 2/3 of the field it was 40%. It also means your season is more or less at the mercy of the scheduling gods. This was compounded by the, as Jared put it, teams that weren't Championship caliber issue. I had matches at CMP where my partners put up a combined 6 discs. Is this a championship or is it an exhibition? If it's the former then we need to be a lot more selective.

Agreed. With the conferences being free this year, this was a BIG problem. Shutting out almost as many people as were in the room?! Time for a bigger room. I don't think this was something they were ready for with the change in attendance policy. I have heard that they're looking at using the Ferrara Theater for the more widely-attended conferences next year.

Just tell me who to contact about it and we'll have them broadcast online (at least audio) and recorded to be posted online next year.

[Anupam Goli]

I just want to say, as a member of a team who has been around for over 10 years now, the concept of a hall of fame is just plane rediculous. We are here to work and play and spread the message of FIRST. To me, the hall of fame recignizes the teams who have the most money and are able to do great extravagent things with it. Dont get me wrong, they worked hard to earn it, and I am most definitely not knocking philanthropy or the value of becoming a chairmans winning team, but the hall of fame shouldnt exist. It is not fair to have a team like mine who can barely keep afloat, is using old equipment for design, programming, and building our robot, to have to compete against a team like Ms. Daisy (no offence) who has multiple heavy hitter sponsors, is able to travel internationally to show off their robot in the United Kingdom, as well as other wonderfull things like that. I believe that yes these teams types of teams should be an example to others, But I do not believe that other teams should get less of a chance to compete due to financial reasons.

I don't get how you can say that Hall of Fame status indicates ANYTHING about money, but it may be just me. Hall of Fame teams are such because of their efforts in raising awareness, transforming culture, and having such a HUGE impact on their local and global communities. Go to these hall of fame teams and talk to them about their programs, they don't let down!

[CalTran]

This really needs to be repeated until FIRST acknowledges it - the pyramid was a prohibitively difficult field piece to simulate accurately, and it added another hurdle for teams of limited means. Every field piece should be easy to simulate accurately for testing purposes.

And if you'll notice, not a single 30 point climber was in the Finals on Einstein. Expanding it to division champions, only one team, 1640 Sa-BOT-age, was a 30 point climber. FIRST may dictate what point values are assigned in a game, but teams dictate what is the most effective method for scoring. a team's analysis of risk/reward for scoring dictates what's most effective for them to accomplish. Building a full scale pyramid is hard and it takes up a lot of space and have ideas on how we would re-do it if another challenge like it arises.

Point is, you don't necessarily have to build every single feature to build an effective robot. Listen to Karthik's conferences and monetary barriers cease to exist.

[Andrew Schreiber]

I just want to say, as a member of a team who has been around for over 10 years now, the concept of a hall of fame is just plane rediculous. We are here to work and play and spread the message of FIRST. To me, the hall of fame recignizes the teams who have the most money and are able to do great extravagent things with it. Dont get me wrong, they worked hard to earn it, and I am most definitely not knocking philanthropy or the value of becoming a chairmans winning team, but the hall of fame shouldnt exist. It is not fair to have a team like mine who can barely keep afloat, is using old equipment for design, programming, and building our robot, to have to compete against a team like Ms. Daisy (no offence) who has multiple heavy hitter sponsors, is able to travel internationally to show off their robot in the United Kingdom, as well as other wonderfull things like that. I believe that yes these teams types of teams should be an example to others, But I do not believe that other teams should get less of a chance to compete due to financial reasons.

Ugh, no.

Walking through the HoF area has always been the highlight of my championships for the last 10 years. I regret I didn't make it there this year.

[apples000]

I just want to say, as a member of a team who has been around for over 10 years now, the concept of a hall of fame is just plane rediculous. We are here to work and play and spread the message of FIRST. To me, the hall of fame recignizes the teams who have the most money and are able to do great extravagent things with it. Dont get me wrong, they worked hard to earn it, and I am most definitely not knocking philanthropy or the value of becoming a chairmans winning team, but the hall of fame shouldnt exist. It is not fair to have a team like mine who can barely keep afloat, is using old equipment for design, programming, and building our robot, to have to compete against a team like Ms. Daisy (no offence) who has multiple heavy hitter sponsors, is able to travel internationally to show off their robot in the United Kingdom, as well as other wonderfull things like that. I believe that yes these teams types of teams should be an example to others, But I do not believe that other teams should get less of a chance to compete due to financial reasons.
This is completely wrong. I took time to visit each and every one of the Hall of Fame teams and each of them have their own problems. Some even struggle to come to the championship each year. For example, the team that won in 2009 (I forget who they are) had an awesome robot with a 30 pt climber this year, but they worked in a small portable classroom where the ceiling was too low to set up a full sized tower. So, the team build a shorter version of a corner and were able to be successful without building a full tower at all. While it is true that many of the teams are well funded and have good resources, not all of the teams there are rich.

[Oblarg]

Point is, you don't necessarily have to build every single feature to build an effective robot.

Obviously not, but there still should not exist field elements which cannot be simulated by a team with limited funds. "Funds are easy to get" is not a valid excuse; like it or not, believe it or not, there are teams who do not have a large amount of resources, and placing the blame on them for having limited means rather than on FRC for designing field elements which can't be constructed without access to a metal shop with a skilled welder is nonsense. Having limited resources is a burden enough - you don't need to compound it by denying those teams the ability to accurately test their mechanisms, to boot.

Moreover, even with a fair amount of resources, the pyramid was a pain. We went to a full-sized practice field in Virginia about a week before build season ended, and even their professionally-made pyramid was having problems.

[dodar]

Obviously not, but there still should not exist field elements which cannot be simulated by a team with limited funds. "Funds are easy to get" is not a valid excuse; like it or not, believe it or not, there are teams who do not have a large amount of resources, and placing the blame on them for having limited means rather than on FRC for designing field elements which can't be constructed without access to a metal shop with a skilled welder is nonsense. Having limited resources is a burden enough - you don't need to compound it by denying those teams the ability to accurately test their mechanisms, to boot.

Moreover, even with a fair amount of resources, the pyramid was a pain. We went to a full-sized practice field in Virginia about a week before build season ended, and even their professionally-made pyramid was having problems.

You do realize that having limitations and learning and finding ways around those limitations is one thing the FIRST build/competition seasons are about, right?

[Karibou]

To me, the hall of fame recignizes the teams who have the most money and are able to do great extravagent things with it. Dont get me wrong, they worked hard to earn it, and I am most definitely not knocking philanthropy or the value of becoming a chairmans winning team, but the hall of fame shouldnt exist.
I'm getting conflicting messages here. Do you not want to recognize the teams who have made significant impacts in their communities (and regions, and continents, and the world...etc)? That's what the HoF does - it showcases the role model teams that have done more than just build a robot. I mean, I'm sure that these teams would continue to be inspirations without the recognition (it's not about the recognition, it's about the inspiration), but showcasing what they have done to promote STEM (and other values) in their communities adds another element of inspiration to aspiring teams. For instance, it's hard for someone on the east coast to know what the Holy Cows are doing without the recognition.

It is not fair
This has been beaten to death a million and a half times in many different ways (some teams can afford to travel/some cannot, some teams can afford multiple regionals/some cannot). I understand that not every team has the same opportunities for sponsors, but...simply playing the "it's not fair" card isn't going to help. Lower budget teams can have the same powerful machines as high budget teams, and money doesn't even guarantee that you'll have a perfect, game-winning robot - it's useless unless you know how to use it properly.
:deadhorse:

Also, you seemed to imply that HoF teams are just those with lots of money. I hope that I was reading that wrong, because that's simply not the case.

[Joe G.]

I just want to say, as a member of a team who has been around for over 10 years now, the concept of a hall of fame is just plane rediculous. We are here to work and play and spread the message of FIRST. To me, the hall of fame recignizes the teams who have the most money and are able to do great extravagent things with it. Dont get me wrong, they worked hard to earn it, and I am most definitely not knocking philanthropy or the value of becoming a chairmans winning team, but the hall of fame shouldnt exist. It is not fair to have a team like mine who can barely keep afloat, is using old equipment for design, programming, and building our robot, to have to compete against a team like Ms. Daisy (no offence) who has multiple heavy hitter sponsors, is able to travel internationally to show off their robot in the United Kingdom, as well as other wonderfull things like that. I believe that yes these teams types of teams should be an example to others, But I do not believe that other teams should get less of a chance to compete due to financial reasons.

The presense of teams like 341 and 359 that have the funds to do absolutely mind-boggling things doesn't strike me as "unfair" in the slightest, it pushes me to keep going harder than ever. But what I find truly impressive about many hall of fame teams is not just what they are doing now, but what they grew from, and often some of the limitations that they face even today. No matter how hard you work at obtaining resources, it's always possible to sit on your hands and complain that you don't have enough to make a difference, or to win against those that are a little better off. But so many teams find a way to do incredible things despite this. Team 1100 has been an inspiration to myself and many other teams over the years, precisely because of the incredible things you do on and off the field despite sometimes limiting resources, and I hope you and your teammates will continue to inspire us rather than demand those above you be brought down a notch.

Besides, there's an R in FIRST. Recognition. Should we be recognizing teams that go above and beyond, making the most of resources that they've gained through a combination of hard work and being at the right place at the right time, and doing incredible things that we should all be striving to emulate and exceed? I would sure hope so.

[Oblarg]

You do realize that having limitations and learning and finding ways around those limitations is one thing the FIRST build/competition seasons are about, right?

A design challenge in which you don't know the parameters or can't test in them is a poor design challenge. I guess you could construe it as indicative of actual work environments, but it still doesn't make for particularly good game design. It doesn't help that it's far more of a burden for small teams than for large ones with lots of resources.

The thing is, FRC is usually very good about making their games accessible for teams with limited resources, be it rookie teams or veteran teams with difficult situations. That's what makes the pyramid this year so unusual, and it certainly ought to be brought to attention.

Edit: I apologize for the profanity.

[CENTURION]

I know others have touched on it here and there, but the finale was an absolute disaster.

It worked fine in 2012 because there were multiple places for teams to go, so the load of people was distributed to a comfortable level. But packing all the teams into the Science Center like that? Just terrible.

Not only is it uncomfortable, and not fun for anybody, it's unsafe. People were getting bumped around and elbowed all over the place. Not to mention that the food (which was fantastic, and plentiful last year), was far less than what was needed for the volume of people at the event. We had to stop at a McDonalds down the highway just so our team members could get some dinner. We met up with team 303 there, and many of them expressed the same issues.

I heard there was talk of asking for our money back, and frankly, I'm for it.

[dodar]

A design challenge in which you don't know the parameters is a shitty design challenge. I guess you could construe it as indicative of actual work environments, but it's still doesn't make for particularly good game design. It doesn't help that it's far more of a burden for small teams than for large ones with lots of resources.

In what ways were design parameters of any part of this year's game not known? And I would love to show you teams that are small in many ways and yet still achieve just as much as larger teams do, but the list is far too large to put in a CD post.

Also, seeing as your rookie year was 2008, you havent been introduced to very large game components; even though you should remember the overpass from 2008. But even the year before you joined, 2007, had to be one of the worst game elements to make, the Spider. Our team had little resources back then to actually make one and yet if you didnt make one that year you pretty much could not make a working robot. Knowing what we had at our disposal, we constructed 1/4 of it and used it to the best of our abilities. You dont have to have a NASA facility to work at or the brightest GM mentors, all you have to do is use what resources you have to their peak efficiency.

[Siri]

And if you'll notice, not a single 30 point climber was in the Finals on Einstein. Expanding it to division champions, only one team, 1640 Sa-BOT-age, was a 30 point climber. FIRST may dictate what point values are assigned in a game, but teams dictate what is the most effective method for scoring. Building a full scale pyramid is hard and it takes up a lot of space and have ideas on how we would re-do it if another challenge like it arises.Exactly. We were fortunate enough to weld our own pyramid and had several teams take up our offer to use it, and yet we still found that virtually all of our consistency issues were due to its complexity (knuckle geometries) and cost (particularly the powder coat).

We should have planned for both better, and I certainly don't fault FIRST for that. What I dislike is that it moves the objective out of many creative and passionate teams' reach. Many such teams made the entirely correct Karthik-esque call: drop it and do what you can do well (that whole 10 units of robot awesomeness thing). Good on them, bad on FIRST for setting up a game that makes a potentially inspiring challenge so strategically unappealing to so many teams.

FIRST, please don't do that again.

[Oblarg]

What I dislike is that it moves the objective out of many creative and passionate teams' reach. Many such teams made the entirely correct Karthik-esque call: drop it and do what you can do well (that whole 10 units of robot awesomeness thing). Good on them, bad on FIRST for setting up a game that makes a potentially inspiring challenge so strategically unappealing to so many teams.

FIRST, please don't do that again.

This. So much this. You said it better than I ever could have.

[Arthur Downer]

While I am sure this has been addressed, I want to make sure it is mentioned. Camera angles. Right now, for those who don't know, the official streams involve zooming in on "exciting" parts of the match and displaying fully on the screen. While I understand FIRST is trying to make it viewer friendly, there are several flaws to this methodology. We can see them best by seeing why it is used in most sports and why.

Baseball: used to follow the ball and to observe player stances (think pitcher) during stagnant periods of play. Note that camera often goes to a wide shot.
Football: used heavily during replays and play analysis. Camera also follows ball at wide angle during play.
Soccer: same as football
Tennis: used between play to show players, neglected during play
Swimming: used in replays, other than that FOV is kept in a position to keep all swimmers in view

Based on a very small sample size, it would appear that in order to avoid missing action, these sports give coverage of large portions of the field during action-packed moments, saving zoom-shots for after the play. Note that there are some differences between those sports and FRC, most notably the fans caring about 1/6th of the players much more than the other 5/6ths, and there being many game pieces.
THE SOLUTION:
Make the stream Michigan-style; fixed, full-field, top-down view of the game. If you HAVE to zoom in, save it for a separate stream and/or instant replays. And yes, instant replays would be AWESOME!!!

If I have one final note, it would be that getting matches up on an official youtube page would be very much appreciated! I am sure teams would love to help out, but the team-led coverage in Michigan is exceptional, and FIRST could use to learn from it.

[Negative 9]

Serious Question: Would any of you really give up the awesomeness that was Ultimate Ascent for easier to build field elements?

I definitely think the GDC should do their best to make sure teams have the easiest time possible testing their solutions, but I think the overall quality of the game should come first.

[Oblarg]

Serious Question: Would any of you really give up the awesomeness that was Ultimate Ascent for easier to build field elements?

I definitely think the GDC should do their best to make sure teams have the easiest time possible testing their solutions, but I think the overall quality of the game should come first.

I think we can all agree that the pyramid was not one of the (many) things that made Ultimate Ascent awesome.

[Anupam Goli]

I think we can all agree that the pyramid was not one of the (many) things that made Ultimate Ascent awesome.

I dunno, I thought it was pretty awesome. Seeing teams actually faced with the decision to go for certain game elements over others was a nice change from 2008-2012's era of do-it-all bots.

[Akash Rastogi]

I think we can all agree that the pyramid was not one of the (many) things that made Ultimate Ascent awesome.

No, we cannot.

[Libby K]

I just want to say, as a member of a team who has been around for over 10 years now, the concept of a hall of fame is just plane rediculous. We are here to work and play and spread the message of FIRST. To me, the hall of fame recignizes the teams who have the most money and are able to do great extravagent things with it. Dont get me wrong, they worked hard to earn it, and I am most definitely not knocking philanthropy or the value of becoming a chairmans winning team, but the hall of fame shouldnt exist. It is not fair to have a team like mine who can barely keep afloat, is using old equipment for design, programming, and building our robot, to have to compete against a team like Ms. Daisy (no offence) who has multiple heavy hitter sponsors, is able to travel internationally to show off their robot in the United Kingdom, as well as other wonderfull things like that. I believe that yes these teams types of teams should be an example to others, But I do not believe that other teams should get less of a chance to compete due to financial reasons.

As a lifetime member of the FIRST community and the child of two CCA judges...

...that attitude about the Hall of Fame could point to why your team's not in it.

Your team won an RCA this year. Therefore you were in contention for the Hall of Fame 2013 spot. If you don't want the HoF to exist, why did you even bother presenting? You don't have 'less of a chance to compete' - you just have different resources to work with. Do the best you can with what you have and you're doing perfectly fine.

The Hall of Fame exists as a way to recognize the Championship Chairman's winners. They are our role models. If you think they're only in the HoF for their sponsors, you're straight up wrong. They are there because they've made an impact in spreading the mission and values of FIRST as well as improving the FIRST community from the inside.

I stand by my position - the Hall of Fame deserves bigger and better recognition. Especially to help remind people with attitudes like yours why we HAVE a Hall of Fame.

[CalTran]

I think we can all agree that the pyramid was not one of the (many) things that made Ultimate Ascent awesome.

Guess I'm not in the same boat then. Yes, the pyramid was a pain. Yes, the thirty point club (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114491&highlight=30+point+club) (And dump club (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115456&highlight=30+point+club)) is smaller than it could have been, but that doesn't make the pyramid as a challenge any less awesome. It was amazing to see how many different ways to scale the pyramid were, and how effective some of the methods were. Seeing the likes of 1114 or 67 rocket their way up the pyramid for a quick dump (Or I suppose spit...), a slow and steady 1810 ascent with a surefire dump (Shout-out to a local team), or even the wild acrobatics of 148 swinging about up and down proved to be one of the most inspiring sights of the season yet.

And the strategic decision of driving under the pyramid vs having a tall FCS was incredible. It lead to a lot of variation in design, a bit of head banging for not thinking of going under the pyramid, and made driving quite the challenge. I loved it.

[AlecMataloni]

I think we can all agree that the pyramid was not one of the (many) things that made Ultimate Ascent awesome.

Wait, it wasn't?

[PVCpirate]

This is the problem with the webcasts. Most of them ARE NOT WEBCASTS. Most "webcasts" we see consist of what is on the projector screen at the event. These do what they are supposed to, which is to provide close-ups and alternate angles so spectators can get a good look at the robots during each match. They are not ideal and are hard to watch. A few events have real webcasts, designed specifically for those watching online. These are usually just a stationary camera showing the whole field, which is much better. I find that most of these are run by teams or by third parties like a local TV station. If FIRST or an event isn't willing to do this kind of broadcast, maybe teams can pull something together themselves. We can build robots, who thinks we can do this? :cool:

[dcarr]

I think we can all agree that the pyramid was not one of the (many) things that made Ultimate Ascent awesome.

Beg to differ. Conquering the pyramid climb & dump was incredibly crowd-pleasing and a rewarding challenge to undertake because of the high risk/reward. Ultimate Ascent wouldn't have been the same without it (the name alone couldn't be the same).

[CalTran]

This is the problem with the webcasts. Most of them ARE NOT WEBCASTS. Most "webcasts" we see consist of what is on the projector screen at the event. These do what they are supposed to, which is to provide close-ups and alternate angles so spectators can get a good look at the robots during each match. They are not ideal and are hard to watch. A few events have real webcasts, designed specifically for those watching online. These are usually just a stationary camera showing the whole field, which is much better. I find that most of these are run by teams or by third parties like a local TV station. If FIRST or an event isn't willing to do this kind of broadcast, maybe teams can pull something together themselves. We can build robots, who thinks we can do this? :cool:

Like sending a trained 2337 representative to every regional? :rolleyes: But seriously, FIRST needs to take a hint or a dozen from how 2337 runs their Michigan archives (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1243364&postcount=9). 1 GoPro + 1 painters pole + 1 fish eye = AWESOME way for me to be a Michigan fanboy in Kansas.

[Oblarg]

Ok, I guess I have a minority opinion, but the pyramid (excluding 10-point climbs) was largely ignored in pretty much every competition I was at, including nationals. Sure, it was cool to see the occasional robot climb to the top. Did it make the game? Nah, not even close. A combination of low point value and the fact that it was near impossible to build meant that most of its potential went completely unrealized. I'd certainly trade it in the state it was for a more reasonable field element; note that "more reasonable field element" does not mean "easier design challenge."

To be fair, though, I admit a few changes (easier construction, more point value) probably could have made the pyramid much better than it was.

[Siri]

I think we can all agree that the pyramid was not one of the (many) things that made Ultimate Ascent awesome.I wouldn't go that far. It wasn't perfect, but it was a solid attempt. I just hope FIRST learns from it and finds a way to make a similarly interesting game object more accessible next year. No small task!

I will point that another major mark against the pyramid geometry is how difficult it was to ref. As a coach, I spent a good chunk of my time determining and implementing how to make it obvious that we were touching the pyramid in different situations. As a ref, I felt terrible that I knew I couldn't catch all the fouls that were happening (there was just no physical way to see them), and had to deal with very upset coaches who saw things--both right and wrong--that I did not. I don't think the GDC meant to create such a contentious situation, so it'd be good if reffing was examined more closely in game design.

[CalTran]

Ok, I guess I have a minority opinion, but the pyramid (excluding 10-point climbs) was largely ignored in pretty much every competition I was at, including nationals. Sure, it was cool to see the occasional robot climb to the top. Did it make the game? Nah, not even close. A combination of low point value and the fact that it was near impossible to build meant that most of its potential went completely unrealized. I'd certainly trade it in the state it was for a more reasonable field element; note that "more reasonable field element" does not mean "easier design challenge."

To be fair, though, I admit a few changes (easier construction, more point value) probably could have made the pyramid much better than it was.

1. There's this (kinda strange :rolleyes:) kid named Gregor (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/member.php?u=62303) running around ChiefDelphi. I suggest you read the first line of his signature.
2. 1918 would like a word with you about "low point value" out of the Pyramid.
3. What would your definition of a "more reasonable field element" be?

[Oblarg]

3. What would your definition of a "more reasonable field element" be?

Something with a similarly difficult design challenge that one could reasonably expect the average FRC team to be able to simulate with reasonable closeness to the actual field object for testing purposes, and whose reward in game scoring accurately reflects the engineering difficulty.

This is not asking overly much. In fact, as I mentioned, the pyramid itself probably could have been this with a few changes to construction and game scoring.

[dodar]

Something with a similarly difficult design challenge that one could reasonably expect the average FRC team to be able to simulate with reasonable closeness to the actual field object for testing purposes, and whose reward in game scoring accurately reflects the engineering difficulty.

You literally just described the pyramid...

[Alex Cormier]

Going to close this down for a little bit of time. The arguments are getting bad and has lasted about 90 posts now...

Cool down and come back to it later.

[Alex Cormier]

Be nice or it's going away for much longer.

[Koko Ed]

Be nice or it's going away for much longer.

Admit it you. You just wanted to close a thread and impose your will upon others. The mod powers are already going to your head.

[Alex Cormier]

Admit it you. You just wanted to close a thread and impose your will upon others. The mod powers are already going to your head.

Nope. Not the first one I've closed, not the last.

We received numerous complaints from people about this thread and comments going on.

[Koko Ed]

Nope. Not the first one I've closed, not the last.

We received numerous complaints from people about this thread and comments going on.

Oh borther. :rolleyes:
How is this any different from the other bloated Negative threads we had other years?

[dag0620]

I'm going to simply list off the big things, with some constructive criticism.


Chairman's Award Process: As a student who's been involved I know it can be a daunting process preparing and submitting for it, and this is on a team that's had experiences in preparing this. Talking to numerous teams submitting for the first time, you can tell it's a confusing process for them. While the submission guidelines are clear (and I'll give props for that) we need some way to help make the process, especially for first timers, a little less scary. Also a little clarification or transparency on the judging process would be awesome.

Non-STEM Students: I've always held the position that FIRST has become more about just getting kids into jobs with Science and Technology. While I love Science and Technology, I am pursuing a career in marketing. The thing is FIRST is what helped me find this career and I owe all of my future plans and discovering my passion for marketing to FIRST. Much of the community knows, and celebrates stories like mine. However once and a while, I still feel like a failure of the program due to the fact I'm not pursuing a career in STEM. Maybe we could just work on our attitudes of this program getting students in careers other than Science and Technology.

8 Matches at Champs: Been beat to death, just wanted to add I didn't like it.

The Rooms at Championship Conferences: Karthik's Presentation was amazing, hopefully more people will get to learn from his knowledge.

Einstein: Long, overdrawn. I'm glad the awards and matches are integrated. I think the issues is that there was a lot of awards and speeches spread out before matches. Fixing this really just comes down to distributing the awards and speeches a little more between matches. I do understand issues can arise from this (such as Chairman's may be awarded after some matches, and I understand this may flow bad) but it's somewhere to start looking.

FIRST Finale: Crowded, Expensive, Food was alright. I'm sure HQ will look at this and fix it though.

Dean's List Ceremony: My only issue is if the ceremony is over the lunch hour, it would be nice if the recipients were announced within the hour and it ended on time. Not really an issue for me, however I know my friends who were volunteers were not able to see the winners due to having to get back to work at 1.

[Grim Tuesday]

Good call Alex on shutting this thread down for a while, it was getting downright vitriolic.

I could list off a bunch of petty problems I have had with the season but I think by far the biggest one was the lack of reverence given to the Championship Chairman's Award.

EI got a funny speech by Dave Lavery, the teams on Einstein got the big stage but it seemed like CCA was just the Chairman coming onto the stage, saying "well holy cow this team is great" and handing them the award. No long speech about how much Chairman's means (this is one place where I wanted a meaningful speech!), just up and down. And they didn't even play the video! Furthermore, it seemed misplaced in the award ceremony with lots of lower tier awards being given both before and after it. It neither felt like it kicked off the ceremony nor was the finale. Teams in our hall of fame deserve more than that. I hope Frank will post the video on his blog when 1538 releases it.

[CENTURION]

Good call Alex on shutting this thread down for a while, it was getting downright vitriolic.

I could list off a bunch of petty problems I have had with the season but I think by far the biggest one was the lack of reverence given to the Championship Chairman's Award.

EI got a funny speech by Dave Lavery, the teams on Einstein got the big stage but it seemed like CCA was just the Chairman coming onto the stage, saying "well holy cow this team is great" and handing them the award. No long speech about how much Chairman's means (this is one place where I wanted a meaningful speech!), just up and down. And they didn't even play the video! Furthermore, it seemed misplaced in the award ceremony with lots of lower tier awards being given both before and after it. It neither felt like it kicked off the ceremony nor was the finale. Teams in our hall of fame deserve more than that. I hope Frank will post the video on his blog when 1538 releases it.

I was very surprised by this too. If it's the most prestigious award, shouldn't it command more recognition and build-up? Man, the speech we got for winning the regional chairman's award was at least twice as long as that one.

[cadandcookies]

I can agree about Dean's List needing to be on time-- our team's Dean's List finalist and myself were presenting Chairman's for my team at 1, and, frankly it was incredibly disappointing to have to leave the ceremony without finding out whether she had won or not. And then we had to wait ten minutes while judging got sorted out (I think one of our judges was at the ceremony, and we didn't have even close to a full judging panel).

Admittedly that particular affected a maximum of three teams, but I can't help but think it probably affected several drive teams as well. Hopefully FIRST can find a nice medium with the Dean's List ceremony.

[Akash Rastogi]

Good call Alex on shutting this thread down for a while, it was getting downright vitriolic.

I could list off a bunch of petty problems I have had with the season but I think by far the biggest one was the lack of reverence given to the Championship Chairman's Award.

EI got a funny speech by Dave Lavery, the teams on Einstein got the big stage but it seemed like CCA was just the Chairman coming onto the stage, saying "well holy cow this team is great" and handing them the award. No long speech about how much Chairman's means (this is one place where I wanted a meaningful speech!), just up and down. And they didn't even play the video! Furthermore, it seemed misplaced in the award ceremony with lots of lower tier awards being given both before and after it. It neither felt like it kicked off the ceremony nor was the finale. Teams in our hall of fame deserve more than that. I hope Frank will post the video on his blog when 1538 releases it.

Agreed it was really strange. There was no build up to the presentation and it honestly didn't highlight much about what the cows do.

[IndySam]

I think everyone agrees that the number of matches at Champs is a joke.
One of the ways to solve that is to reduce the number of teams attending but all I see folks focusing on is waitlist teams.

From what I have read hear most of you seem to think waitlist teams are the problem with quantity and the quality of teams, this is simply not true. Eliminating all the waitlist teams would have gotten you maybe 9 matches which would have made zero difference in the luck factor. Also the waitlist teams were not the reason for the quality problems, there were so few of them this year they were not the problem. In fact I would submit that many of them were quality robots.

The simple fact is the rookie awards and the golden ticket robots (second picks who ride on the coat tails of the winners) are the reason for the quality problem, not the waitlist teams. But can we deny these teams that did win a rightful spot at the Championships? Do we want to not let these rookie award winners come and experience what its about and get inspired? It's a difficult problem at best.

But I think the only real solution is the district system for some of the country and qualifying through super regionals for non-district teams. Then significantly reduce the quantity of teams at champs, maybe even give the rookie award winners their own division to play in. That or find a place (and volunteer base) to increase the number of divisions at champs.

[Grim Tuesday]

Oh, one other thing I noticed completely absent this year was divisional spirit. When the MC's introduced the teams from their respective divisions it was highly anticlimactic because they did it in reverse...They brought them out onto the field then led them out. Very weird, we thought it was a rehearsal or something. I also heard about one Gali-Leo or Archi-Medes cheer the entire Einstein. I think the division spirit is a really cool dynamic on Einstein and the MC's from each division need to lead it off.

[cadandcookies]

Oh, one other thing I noticed completely absent this year was divisional spirit.

I find this funny because Blair was doing such a good job of building it up in Galileo. I was a bit stunned to see it fall off on Einstein.

[OZ_341]

I am the lead mentor and founder of Miss Daisy. I usually don't do this, but I felt the need to reply to several comments made about our team, but I wanted to do it elsewhere and in a positive way.

I do not want to start anything here because I want this thread to remain open. Don't make Alex close this thread, its an important discussion.

Here is the link to my reply.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=116527

I promise that my response is positive, but I really would like the people that made negative comments or think negative comments about successful teams to read it with an open-mind.

Thank you.

Alan Ostrow
Team 341

[Libby K]

...it seemed like CCA was just the Chairman coming onto the stage, saying "well holy cow this team is great" and handing them the award. No long speech about how much Chairman's means (this is one place where I wanted a meaningful speech!), just up and down. And they didn't even play the video! Furthermore, it seemed misplaced in the award ceremony with lots of lower tier awards being given both before and after it. It neither felt like it kicked off the ceremony nor was the finale. Teams in our hall of fame deserve more than that. I hope Frank will post the video on his blog when 1538 releases it.

Agreed it was really strange. There was no build up to the presentation and it honestly didn't highlight much about what the cows do.


My mother was a CCA judge.

There was a much bigger script and it was, for some unknown reason, not read.

Anyone sitting near us on the floor can vouch for the fact that she was NONE too happy about it. The judges worked very hard on a script to emphasize the work they do, and it was not given.

She wants me to apologize for that, even though it's not her fault. Believe me, there was a much bigger plan for acknowledging them.

[Jay O'Donnell]

My mother was a CCA judge.

There was a much bigger script and it was, for some unknown reason, not read.

Anyone sitting near us on the floor can vouch for the fact that she was NONE too happy about it. The judges worked very hard on a script to emphasize the work they do, and it was not given.

She wants me to apologize for that, even though it's not her fault. Believe me, there was a much bigger plan for acknowledging them.

It's satisfying to hear that there was at least a speech planned for team 1538. I'm sure there must've been some reason for not reading it. Hopefully FIRST will display the holy cows more in the future.

[Marc P.]

I traveled to St. Louis this season as a volunteer (working on Newton, great times there!). I have attended the Championship since 2000, including 2003, (the infamous Houston year), and every year it was held in Atlanta. However, this was my first visit to St. Louis. Here are my thoughts, as a "seasoned" FIRST veteran.

The team I mentor was fortunate enough to have a Dean's List finalist this season, but by no means had a "championship caliber" robot, and so didn't qualify by merit. We do have a team policy of trying to attend the Championship every 5 years (via pay your way/wait list), such that the majority of our members have the chance to experience it at least once in their high school career. We decided for the years between, we would only attend if we met the merit based qualification criteria. Our last trip to the Championship was in 2009, when we qualified via the Rookie All Star award at our local regional. The students who attended the Championship in 2009 were still excited and shared what a great experience they had with younger students right up to their graduation this past year. As per our policy, we decided to sign up for the Championship early this season, being the 5th year since our last Championship berth. With the wait list system working as it did this season, we didn't find out we had a Championship invitation until Wednesday, April 17th. Literally a week before the event. We had made preliminary plans to attend, researched hotels and flight options back in January, but most of that information/early reservations had been cancelled or expired due to lack of commitment. We scrambled, made some late night phone calls, had to split the team between hotel rooms for a night, but managed to pull it off and make it. (Which is why I signed up to volunteer and booked travel plans much earlier).

It also means your season is more or less at the mercy of the scheduling gods. This was compounded by the, as Jared put it, teams that weren't Championship caliber issue. I had matches at CMP where my partners put up a combined 6 discs. Is this a championship or is it an exhibition? If it's the former then we need to be a lot more selective.


Our robot? Seeded in the mid 90s in our division. It's probably a safe bet we were one of your partners that "put up a combined 6 discs". Heck, we missed a match because our whole team was at the Dean's List ceremony that went over time. Do we care that our robot didn't perform? Absolutely. Did we try our best to fix it and improve it? Absolutely. Was it Championship caliber? Absolutely not. Were our students super inspired by the atmosphere, walking on the dome floor, seeing and playing with "elite" teams, hearing the roar of the tens of thousands of spectators, learning the iterative design and build processes and stories of other teams? You'd better believe it. These students will be talking about this experience, and using it to improve our team and robots for the next 4 years, until we either qualify with a Championship caliber robot, Chairman's or EI awards, or another 5 years elapses.

Sometimes it takes a trip to the Championships to give your students that extra inspiring kick in the pants to get them motivated enough to really work on designing, building, and iterating "Championship caliber" robots. Would you seriously want to keep teams like mine from attending the Championships so the "elite" can play one or two more matches or be less "at the mercy of the scheduling gods?"

"Is this a championship or is it an exhibition?" It's a celebration. It's inspiring. It's the end of a crazy season. It's both, championship and exhibition. If you want purely performance based competition, that's what IRI is for. The quality robots and teams will still succeed regardless of pairings or match numbers (if scouters actually provide useful information). The rest of us are there for the experience above all else. Or at least, that's what brings me back year after year.

I'd also like to add that I didn't see the Chairman's Award video for The Holy Cows, nor did I see an 1114 follow-up video from last year.

[Steven Donow]

I'd also like to add that I didn't see the Chairman's Award video for The Holy Cows, nor did I see an 1114 video from last year.

Here's 1114's video, it's one of the best of all time (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFwz3FZqiuc)

[Marc P.]

Here's 1114's video, it's one of the best of all time (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFwz3FZqiuc)

I meant the follow up video, I don't know if that has been done for the years CMP has been in St. Louis. I remember in Atlanta, the previous year's Chairman's award winning team produced a video highlighting their impact in the community as a lead up to the announcement of the current year's winner. I have seen 1114's Chairman's Submission video, and it really is one of the most inspiring things. I was hoping for the follow up.

[treffk]

Non-STEM Students: I've always held the position that FIRST has become more about just getting kids into jobs with Science and Technology. While I love Science and Technology, I am pursuing a career in marketing. The thing is FIRST is what helped me find this career and I owe all of my future plans and discovering my passion for marketing to FIRST. Much of the community knows, and celebrates stories like mine. However once and a while, I still feel like a failure of the program due to the fact I'm not pursuing a career in STEM. Maybe we could just work on our attitudes of this program getting students in careers other than Science and Technology.

I understand what you mean. In 18 days I will be a college graduate with a degree in Business Administration and in the Fall I will begin a Master's of Youth Development.

FIRST promotes and celebrates Science and Technology and yes a majority of the scholarships are for those fields BUT it takes all types of people to make up a FIRST team. That is why I really like Non-Engineering Mentors Organization(NEMO). There are students and mentors who just are not science and technologically inclined. They help keep the team running. These people so much for the team and gain so many skills you normally would not acquire in high school. Without the fundraising team or those people who can creating marketing materials to gain sponsorships there would be no team.

FIRST may not be outwardly celebrating non-STEM careers but I just checked the scholarship list and was amazed to find 58 scholarships that can be used for any course of study. In my mind this shows that they know and understand that not everyone will go into STEM. This number is sure a lot more than when I was a junior or senior in the program.

[Oblarg]

The team I mentor was fortunate enough to have a Dean's List finalist this season, but by no means had a "championship caliber" robot, and so didn't qualify by merit. We do have a team policy of trying to attend the Championship every 5 years (via pay your way/wait list), such that the majority of our members have the chance to experience it at least once in their high school career. We decided for the years between, we would only attend if we met the merit based qualification criteria. Our last trip to the Championship was in 2009, when we qualified via the Rookie All Star award at our local regional. The students who attended the Championship in 2009 were still excited and shared what a great experience they had with younger students right up to their graduation this past year. As per our policy, we decided to sign up for the Championship early this season, being the 5th year since our last Championship berth. With the wait list system working as it did this season, we didn't find out we had a Championship invitation until Wednesday, April 17th. Literally a week before the event. We had made preliminary plans to attend, researched hotels and flight options back in January, but most of that information/early reservations had been cancelled or expired due to lack of commitment. We scrambled, made some late night phone calls, had to split the team between hotel rooms for a night, but managed to pull it off and make it. (Which is why I signed up to volunteer and booked travel plans much earlier).



Our robot? Seeded in the mid 90s in our division. It's probably a safe bet we were one of your partners that "put up a combined 6 discs". Heck, we missed a match because our whole team was at the Dean's List ceremony that went over time. Do we care that our robot didn't perform? Absolutely. Did we try our best to fix it and improve it? Absolutely. Was it Championship caliber? Absolutely not. Were our students super inspired by the atmosphere, walking on the dome floor, seeing and playing with "elite" teams, hearing the roar of the tens of thousands of spectators, learning the iterative design and build processes and stories of other teams? You'd better believe it. These students will be talking about this experience, and using it to improve our team and robots for the next 4 years, until we either qualify with a Championship caliber robot, Chairman's or EI awards, or another 5 years elapses.

Sometimes it takes a trip to the Championships to give your students that extra inspiring kick in the pants to get them motivated enough to really work on designing, building, and iterating "Championship caliber" robots. Would you seriously want to keep teams like mine from attending the Championships so the "elite" can play one or two more matches or be less "at the mercy of the scheduling gods?"

"Is this a championship or is it an exhibition?" It's a celebration. It's inspiring. It's the end of a crazy season. It's both, championship and exhibition. If you want purely performance based competition, that's what IRI is for. The quality robots and teams will still succeed regardless of pairings or match numbers (if scouters actually provide useful information). The rest of us are there for the experience above all else. Or at least, that's what bring me back year after year.

This is far more eloquent than anything I have written, and pretty much hits the nail on the head. We were a rookie team this year, and while our robot ultimately did what we wanted it to (scoring ~30-40 points per match), it certainly wasn't able to compete in a strict sense on a championship level. That said, I don't think it would be possible to overstate how much our team got out of this trip, and the opportunity to compete in championships. It was one of the most inspiring, rewarding things I have ever participated in, and the amount of enthusiasm it has given our members for the coming years is nigh-indescribable.

So, yes, I do think that there is a lot of utility in making some sacrifices as to the tightness of the competition to allow teams to attend championships without qualifying based strictly on robot quality. I imagine most people who have attended championships would agree with this. The question is thus how many of these teams can feasibly be admitted before the effect on tournament quality outweighs the benefit. This is, admittedly, a very tough question.

[TEAM1100soft506]

I just wanted to say I realize I was extremly insensitive earlier and should watch my self a bit better. My most sincere appologies to those who I have offended. I realize that the message I wanted to convey did not come accross right. Libby, thank you for the meaningfull insight into what the award is truely about. I hope that my lone and shamefull actions only reflect on me and not my team. I just want to say sorry everyone.

[Nuttyman54]

There was a much bigger script and it was, for some unknown reason, not read.

Anyone sitting near us on the floor can vouch for the fact that she was NONE too happy about it. The judges worked very hard on a script to emphasize the work they do, and it was not given.

I'm glad to hear that it wasn't just some gross oversight, although it did not turn out as planned. I was very disappointed in the speech and lack of video. The speech that was given gave no information about the phenomenal team that is 1538, and I said out loud to my friend afterwards "That could have applied to literally any Chairman's team". The CCA speech should not be among the shorter speeches given. I've seen an unfortunate trend in recent years that give the appearance of de-emphasizing the CCA (such as announcing it at the concert in 2011 with no prior information given to anyone that it would be presented there, and also with a criminally short speech). This needs to change, there is no excuse to cut the most important award presentation of the season short.

Other improvements that can be made based on my experiences this year:

-8 matches at champs is unacceptable, period. I remember a time when we were guaranteed 10 matches. What happened to that? It worked in favor of the team I was with this weekend (1983), but the effects on the results were obvious.

-Reffing this game was a nightmare, too many judgement calls of 3 or 20pt penalties caused many inconsistencies between events. Vantage point mattered a lot, and a lot of calls were missed because refs just couldn't or didn't see it.

-Field consistency. The tolerances on the pyramids were atrocious. If the dimension tolerances are 1/4", they need to remain 1/4". The pyramid itself was also prone to coming apart, and I saw many instances of teams tipping it up or causing it to skew. The carpet also was prone to coming up around the pyramid base and caused several issues, and several replays

-RTS/Scoring. It did improve over the season, but it still wasn't good enough to eliminate the need to hand count, which not only greatly increased the field reset time, but also was the cause of several scoring errors (including Einstein).

[Libby K]

I meant the follow up video, I don't know if that has been done for the years CMP has been in St. Louis. I remember in Atlanta, the previous year's Chairman's award winning team produced a video highlighting their impact in the community as a lead up to the announcement of the current year's winner. I have seen 1114's Chairman's Submission video, and it really is one of the most inspiring things. I was hoping for the follow up.

Sadly, Paul Lazarus is no longer doing those videos. It's too bad - I miss them.

[KelliV]

Please do not take anything in this post or the previous one to be the
viewpoint of my team, but as the viewpoint of a lone observer who is entitled to his own opinion

Thank you for owning up to your mistake, and claiming it was yours and not your teams. I've met your team, been to your build space, and am very close to an alumni from 1100 I know they are fantastic and hope one day you too will have a space in the Hall of Fame.

That being said, yes, HoF teams sometimes have large sponsors that "foot the bill" per-say. What you do know is the team I was lucky to be a part of was fortunate enough to, at the time, have full sponsorship from one large corporation. What you might not know is students on that team don't come from money. Many of us have parents with second jobs, and worked through high school ourselves. I fund-raised thousands of dollars over four years on the team. We are blessed to be in such a close proximity to Motorola that they decided to sponsor us.

Motorola was not the group that decided to send computers to Africa, volunteer their hours at events, and organize hurricane benefits. The people on the team were. Nowhere did Moto force it's engineers to help the students and stay late at night, they did it themselves. Motorola didn't make the students want to help out in the community, we did that ourselves (albeit with some pushing from our parents some-days). I've said it before and I will say it again, teams are not who sponsors them, they are the people that make them up.

I guess what I am trying to get at is that yes, it does stink to lose to a team who seemingly is sponsored by a huge company you are correct in saying that it hurts, hurts bad. But sometimes it takes something like that to get kicked into high gear and change something about yourself and your team. DO BETTER. GET BETTER. Volunteer man-hours don't cost anything but your time so put it in and make change.

/end commentary

What I would change is have the fields broadcast to the pits. I really wished I could have seen more dome action.

The Chairman's speech was VERY short, thanks Libs for letting us know it was going to be longer.

Also, Einstein went long. But this is year 11 for me and it has yet to be short...

[KelliV]

Sadly, Paul Lazarus is no longer doing those videos. It's too bad - I miss them.

The 2008 winner was the last to get a video produced by Paul. I miss them as well.

I am totally ok with the team making their own videos (1114 did an AMAZING job) as long as they are shown.

Marc brings up a good point, it would be cool if teams could do a 1 minute or so follow up video with what they have done since winning the CCA.

[Yipyapper]

Agreed. With the conferences being free this year, this was a BIG problem. Shutting out almost as many people as were in the room?! Time for a bigger room. I don't think this was something they were ready for with the change in attendance policy. I have heard that they're looking at using the Ferrara Theater for the more widely-attended conferences next year.

My other thoughts:
-Fewer teams, more divisions, or both. 8 matches was completely unacceptable.
-The Hall of Fame setup. Embarassing. These guys should have a way bigger display space - after all, they're the FRC role models. It wouldn't be that hard to find a better, bigger, more advantageous space for them a la Atlanta's HoF display.

I've got more, but those are the big two.

This x1000.

[3747Mentor]

As others have said, the number of matches was too low. The complaint of 8 matches at CMP is certainly valid. The low number of matches at regionals needs to be addressed as well. At North Star, the schedule gave us 8 qualifying matches. Like many teams, it was our only regional. My students wanted more of an opportunity to use their robot and to work out the bugs. I feel that, for the cost, they should have had more playing time.

I can get on board with the district argument (or any system that increases playing time). I think there is tremendous inspiration opportunity with increased playing time. The compressed learning/testing/failing/rebuilding/succeeding that occurs during competition is a huge part of what makes my students come back (with their friends!) for the next season. It is also very gratifying to show off all of your hard work to the parents and sponsors.

[cadandcookies]

Our robot? Seeded in the mid 90s in our division. It's probably a safe bet we were one of your partners that "put up a combined 6 discs". Heck, we missed a match because our whole team was at the Dean's List ceremony that went over time. Do we care that our robot didn't perform? Absolutely. Did we try our best to fix it and improve it? Absolutely. Was it Championship caliber? Absolutely not. Were our students super inspired by the atmosphere, walking on the dome floor, seeing and playing with "elite" teams, hearing the roar of the tens of thousands of spectators, learning the iterative design and build processes and stories of other teams? You'd better believe it. These students will be talking about this experience, and using it to improve our team and robots for the next 4 years, until we either qualify with a Championship caliber robot, Chairman's or EI awards, or another 5 years elapses.

Sometimes it takes a trip to the Championships to give your students that extra inspiring kick in the pants to get them motivated enough to really work on designing, building, and iterating "Championship caliber" robots. Would you seriously want to keep teams like mine from attending the Championships so the "elite" can play one or two more matches or be less "at the mercy of the scheduling gods?"

"Is this a championship or is it an exhibition?" It's a celebration. It's inspiring. It's the end of a crazy season. It's both, championship and exhibition. If you want purely performance based competition, that's what IRI is for. The quality robots and teams will still succeed regardless of pairings or match numbers (if scouters actually provide useful information). The rest of us are there for the experience above all else. Or at least, that's what brings me back year after year.



Thank you for giving this perspective. I can't agree with you any more, because this almost exactly describes my team's situations, aside from that we qualified with RCA. The competition is named "For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology" for a reason. I think FIRST has pretty much nailed the balance, even though I know there are plenty of people that disagree.

[sanddrag]

I've been doing this a long time and my only real negatives are as follows:

- I've build a lot of stuff in my day, and I found the pyramid difficult and frustrating to build
- The small frame perimeter was an absolute nightmare to fit everything into, but I'm not entirely opposed to it. After 13 years of robots, we're running out of space.

[Marc S.]

Here's my quick list:

- More wildcard teams, it would be awesome if slots spilled back to previous regionals, at SVR 4 of the six teams in the finals were already going to champs.

- Show opening ceremonies on field screens; there were thousands of people who didn't get to see it because they were trying to save seats for their scouts, let alone be there to scout the first match of the day.

- More matches at champs; someone mentioned adding another day, 5th division, or less teams at champs (my least favorite).

- Music is TOO LOUD! I'm waiting for the day when a safety inspector walks up to the dj and tells them the volume level is unsafe. When it's hard to hear the person next to you, who is yelling, it's too loud. Every competition I have been to has had this problem, apparently FIRST wants us to be deaf engineers.

- Webcasts are pretty bad, if the camera just focused on the field, not individual robots (or people in the stands....), during matches, then it would be easier to tell what's actually going on.

- Einstien had a lot of dead time; maybe FIRST could play FTC matches inbetween FRC matches or give out more awards, with a much faster turn around. I think drag racing is a good example of a sport to emulate in this regards. Also, can we please not have dance breaks, once a song starts it just slows down everything.

[Grim Tuesday]

Speaking of safety, the level of safety theater in FIRST is ridiculous. FIRST needs to tell the judges and safety advisors judging the UL safety award that it isn't about being visibly safe, it's about being actually safe. An escort yelling 'robot', escorting me to my pit does not make anything safer. Posters above the urinals does not make anything safer. What teams do these days to try and win the safety award is just silly and I think FIRST needs to make a statement about it and be clear that they are looking for teams that are truly safe.

[Oblarg]

- More matches at champs; someone mentioned adding another day, 5th division, or less teams at champs (my least favorite).

Now those two first ideas I can certainly get behind - anyone have any input on their feasibility re: FIRST's resources?

[Michael Hill]

Now those two first ideas I can certainly get behind - anyone have any input on their feasibility re: FIRST's resources?

Well...Einstein isn't being used most of the time. It's just a field that sits there and does nothing. Keep the same amount of teams and make a 5th division that plays on the Einstein field. Just change the name to something different until all divisions are done, then change the name to Einstein.

Sure, the tournament structure might be messed up with 5 teams instead of 4, but there are smart people at FIRST, so I think they could come up with something.

[Koko Ed]

Well...Einstein isn't being used most of the time. It's just a field that sits there and does nothing. Keep the same amount of teams and make a 5th division that plays on the Einstein field. Just change the name to something different until all divisions are done, then change the name to Einstein.

Sure, the tournament structure might be messed up with 5 teams instead of 4, but there are smart people at FIRST, so I think they could come up with something.

Just do a round robin like Vex Worlds does.

[Gregor]

Well...Einstein isn't being used most of the time. It's just a field that sits there and does nothing. Keep the same amount of teams and make a 5th division that plays on the Einstein field. Just change the name to something different until all divisions are done, then change the name to Einstein.

Sure, the tournament structure might be messed up with 5 teams instead of 4, but there are smart people at FIRST, so I think they could come up with something.

The FLL teams play on Einstein earlier in the week.

[SarahBeth]

Chairman's Award Process: As a student who's been involved I know it can be a daunting process preparing and submitting for it, and this is on a team that's had experiences in preparing this. Talking to numerous teams submitting for the first time, you can tell it's a confusing process for them. While the submission guidelines are clear (and I'll give props for that) we need some way to help make the process, especially for first timers, a little less scary. Also a little clarification or transparency on the judging process would be awesome

I agree with this, completely. We submitted for the first time this year and it was very very overwhelming and it took reading the manual many times to figure out exactly what we were going to be judged on, and trying to figure out what the presentation judges were looking for - and even THEN I missed the fact that there's another release that needs to be signed for your DVD to be shown if you win, which is IN the manual but kinda buried.

Some clarification would have been so helpful throughout the process. Thankfully, we were able to talk to some teams who had done it before and they were happy to help us out - and it was an excellent experience all around for our kids. Now having done it once, doing it again hopefully won't be that daunting and we won't be rehearsing our presentation at 11pm the night before in the hotel lobby. ;) (I swear, my students wanted to kill me for the fact I made them do it in front of people)

[Carolyn_Grace]

I agree with this, completely. We submitted for the first time this year and it was very very overwhelming and it took reading the manual many times to figure out exactly what we were going to be judged on, and trying to figure out what the presentation judges were looking for - and even THEN I missed the fact that there's another release that needs to be signed for your DVD to be shown if you win, which is IN the manual but kinda buried.

Some clarification would have been so helpful throughout the process. Thankfully, we were able to talk to some teams who had done it before and they were happy to help us out - and it was an excellent experience all around for our kids. Now having done it once, doing it again hopefully won't be that daunting and we won't be rehearsing our presentation at 11pm the night before in the hotel lobby. ;) (I swear, my students wanted to kill me for the fact I made them do it in front of people)

I love the Chairman's Award, but I definitely think that it needs to be revamped. When FIRST announced some changes with Awards this year, I was uber excited to see what they had improved for CA, and sadly it was not enough.

The award needs to be more accessible for teams, and teams who submit need more consistent feedback and recognition in some way.

I think that the video should either be judged or taken out completely.

I believe you should be able to submit CA at every district/regional that you compete with your robot at, but only be allowed to win at one event.

Overall: the fact that the Chairman's Award exists at all is outstanding, and I commend FIRST for recognizing teams in this way.

[Andy A.]

Speaking of safety, the level of safety theater in FIRST is ridiculous. FIRST needs to tell the judges and safety advisors judging the UL safety award that it isn't about being visibly safe, it's about being actually safe. An escort yelling 'robot', escorting me to my pit does not make anything safer. Posters above the urinals does not make anything safer. What teams do these days to try and win the safety award is just silly and I think FIRST needs to make a statement about it and be clear that they are looking for teams that are truly safe.

I lost count of the number of 'safety' reminders that piled up in our pit. Some were literally a index card size bit of paper with 4 or 5 bulleted of the most vague and unhelpful safety 'reminders' and 'tips' you could imagine. 'Wear safety glasses in the pit'. 'Lift with your legs'. 'Be safe'.

I get that it's all coming from a good place, but a sheet of paper reminding me to wear my safety glasses in the pits doesn't really mean or do anything at all. It's just more clutter and theater. It all just ends up in the trash.

I guess I'd also like to see teams putting less effort into winning a safety award, and more effort in just being safe. My own experience looking at the teams who do win the award is that the judges tend to understand this, and are awarding it to teams that simply have a safe program and an ingrained culture of safety.

[Koko Ed]

I love the Chairman's Award, but I definitely think that it needs to be revamped. When FIRST announced some changes with Awards this year, I was uber excited to see what they had improved for CA, and sadly it was not enough.

The award needs to be more accessible for teams, and teams who submit need more consistent feedback and recognition in some way.

I think that the video should either be judged or taken out completely.

I believe you should be able to submit CA at every district/regional that you compete with your robot at, but only be allowed to win at one event.

Overall: the fact that the Chairman's Award exists at all is outstanding, and I commend FIRST for recognizing teams in this way.
It needs to be more visible at the events.
MSC was the only event that gave teams booths to show what they are about. At other event the only time the general public even know the award exist at ll is on Saturday afternoon at the end of the awards ceremony.
It's treated more like a golden ticket than a creed to live by.

[Siri]

It needs to be more visible at the events.
MSC and MAR was were the only events that gave teams booths to show what they are about. At other event the only time the general public even know the award exist at ll is on Saturday afternoon at the end of the awards ceremony.
It's treated more like a golden ticket than a creed to live by.Fixed that.

This is a very cool concept. My only worry would be implementation--if it were mandatory for all submitters (not winners already, like those at MSC and MAR) to make a booth, would we see fewer teams try? We're already talking about the difficulty and complexity of submitting. If there was a way to keep or raise participation rates though, booths would be really great.

[Carolyn_Grace]

It needs to be more visible at the events.
MSC was the only event that gave teams booths to show what they are about. At other event the only time the general public even know the award exist at ll is on Saturday afternoon at the end of the awards ceremony.
It's treated more like a golden ticket than a creed to live by.

For the record, it is a little easier to do this at MSC because we already have 11 winners from the District system. We're planning on doing something similar at the Indiana State Championship on May 18th.

Possible solution: other official FIRST competitions could offer a booth to the previous three year's winners to showcase what they've accomplished.
The downfall of this is that it would give them a more visible showcase to judges, which could be inferred as an unfair advantage for winning this award.

[jee7s]

This might be a bit of a sidetrack, but...


I get that it's all coming from a good place, but a sheet of paper reminding me to wear my safety glasses in the pits doesn't really mean or do anything at all. It's just more clutter and theater. It all just ends up in the trash.


Worse than that are the teams that create unsafe conditions in the interest of "safety" (a la the safety theater mentioned earlier). There's one team (that I have a great deal of respect for and shall remain nameless) that I see regularly at events I attend that love to tape their laminated safety reminders to the floor. Sometimes this is at the entry to the pits with a big laminated print saying "Safety Glasses Required" and occasionally other reminders on the floor throughout the pit.

The problem is that laminated paper is REALLY slippery, especially if it gets wet. I've seen kids slip on these and take a faceplant or twisted ankle in the name of "Safety."

To their credit, this team has gotten a bit more thoughtful about their deployment of these reminders (either on their own or through some Safety Advisors), and now the situation is at least less dangerous.

Also, at the FRC level: Has anyone ever pondered the wisdom of wearing gloves while "working" on the robot? That's in the official safety manual the last time I checked (which is admittedly a while ago). Personally, I NEVER wear gloves while working on the robot. I've seen too many gloves get dragged into mechanisms or caught up in the robot that I'm sufficiently worried about losing a finger. Wear gloves while lifting, sure. But, while working on it? That just seems like too much of a risk should something turn on. I would much rather get a blood blister than have my hand pulled into a drivetrain by accident.

[RoboMom]

Possible solution: other official FIRST competitions could offer a booth to the previous three year's winners to showcase what they've accomplished.
The downfall of this is that it would give them a more visible showcase to judges, which could be inferred as an unfair advantage for winning this award.

[I wish this response wasn't in the Negative thread...]

Not if you have the "booth" on Thursday only.
For the past few years, off and on, we've tried a low key concept at the Chesapeake.
Team Showcase. Team gets a table (usually in the pits) for one hour. Sign up ahead of the event. Agenda is passed out and announced every hour. They can feature anything about their team/outreach/technical.

It needs some tweaking, but I generally think it is a good concept. I originally developed the concept to deal with all the special requests coming in (some from teams competing for RCA) to showcase their team - giveaways, time on field to present a special award, requests for a special space or booth to promote something. All worthwhile ventures - I was just trying to level the field.

[Siri]

Also, at the FRC level: Has anyone ever pondered the wisdom of wearing gloves while "working" on the robot? That's in the official safety manual the last time I checked (which is admittedly a while ago). Personally, I NEVER wear gloves while working on the robot. I've seen too many gloves get dragged into mechanisms or caught up in the robot that I'm sufficiently worried about losing a finger. Wear gloves while lifting, sure. But, while working on it? That just seems like too much of a risk should something turn on. I would much rather get a blood blister than have my hand pulled into a drivetrain by accident.I've probably had a safety advisor tell me to wear gloves against OSHA regs at least one every other event. I need to start carrying around that manual. It's ridiculous. Thankfully we've been clear with our team and they know better, but I'm really worried about teams that don't. Condoning theater is one (bad) thing, but mandating gloves in unsafe situations, snagging people's carts so their robots drop, making people run to the front of their cart*...Something has to change with the green shirts. Now. Most of them are quite good, but the bad ones are creating a dangerous culture.


*I literally had an SA tell one of my drivers to run (yes, "run") around our cart in the crowded pit so they could get to the front and yell "ROBOT!" We already had a driver in front of us kindly asking people to move, and it had worked well for several hundred feet.

[CalTran]

Also, at the FRC level: Has anyone ever pondered the wisdom of wearing gloves while "working" on the robot? That's in the official safety manual the last time I checked (which is admittedly a while ago). Personally, I NEVER wear gloves while working on the robot. I've seen too many gloves get dragged into mechanisms or caught up in the robot that I'm sufficiently worried about losing a finger. Wear gloves while lifting, sure. But, while working on it? That just seems like too much of a risk should something turn on. I would much rather get a blood blister than have my hand pulled into a drivetrain by accident.

Quick scanning of the 2013 Safety Manual yields these:

Hand Protection
Hand protection is designed to protect against heat, electrical, chemical and mechanical hazards. Use proper gloves and mechanical tool guards.



Gloves
FRC participants should work with the team Mentor to ensure the selected glove is the correct one to use for each project. For example, chemical-resistant gloves afford some measure of chemical protection. Wear them when handling chemicals. Check your gloves for proper size, absence of cracks and holes, and good flexibility and grip before you wear them.


General Safety
• Wear gloves where needed and use hearing protection if necessary.


If at some point the recommendation was to use gloves while working on the robot, FIRST has removed it now.

[SarahBeth]

[I wish this response wasn't in the Negative thread...]

Not if you have the "booth" on Thursday only.
For the past few years, off and on, we've tried a low key concept at the Chesapeake.
Team Showcase. Team gets a table (usually in the pits) for one hour. Sign up ahead of the event. Agenda is passed out and announced every hour. They can feature anything about their team/outreach/technical.

It needs some tweaking, but I generally think it is a good concept. I originally developed the concept to deal with all the special requests coming in (some from teams competing for RCA) to showcase their team - giveaways, time on field to present a special award, requests for a special space or booth to promote something. All worthwhile ventures - I was just trying to level the field.

This is a really cool idea, and I think if more districts/regionals/events offered it, many teams would take advantage, even if it was just an hour at a time. I also do like the idea of an area for teams who are competing for RCA to show off what their team does - or those who *have* won before. Maybe have it on Saturday, after all the RCA judging is over so no one is at an unfair advantage.

My only worry would be implementation--if it were mandatory for all submitters (not winners already, like those at MSC and MAR) to make a booth, would we see fewer teams try? We're already talking about the difficulty and complexity of submitting. If there was a way to keep or raise participation rates though, booths would be really great.

Maybe its not mandatory though. As I mentioned above, maybe make the 'booth' thing on Saturday after all the RCA judging and give teams the option to do it. Saturday is also a benefit because thats when most of the general public attends with families, etc and it'd be a nice showcase.

[MARS_James]

For the record, it is a little easier to do this at MSC because we already have 11 winners from the District system. We're planning on doing something similar at the Indiana State Championship on May 18th.

Possible solution: other official FIRST competitions could offer a booth to the previous three year's winners to showcase what they've accomplished.
The downfall of this is that it would give them a more visible showcase to judges, which could be inferred as an unfair advantage for winning this award.

Or since all events know who is submitting Chairmans at their event before, put all their pits together and have it said these are the Chairman's contenders

[Mr V]

In regards to all the complaints about only having 8 seeding matches. Yes it was less than ideal but the fact of the matter is that FIRST and Frank Merrick carefully considered the average cycle times across all of the regional events before making this hard choice. Fact is that you can speculate how things are going to go before the season starts but until the season actually starts you just don't know how things will play out. Reset times are one of those things and they did what they had to do to fit the available schedule. I know from working at regional events that it is a hard choice to make and everyone I know tries their hardest to maximize the number of matches that teams play.


Thanks to Frank Merrick, and his regular reading of this forum, headquarters is aware of the disappointment and I trust that, as mentioned in this thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116551#post1270049) ,they will do their best to improve the number of matches at CMP next year.

[jee7s]

...Something has to change with the green shirts. Now. Most of them are quite good, but the bad ones are creating a dangerous culture.


*I literally had an SA tell one of my drivers to run (yes, "run") around our cart in the crowded pit so they could get to the front and yell "ROBOT!" We already had a driver in front of us kindly asking people to move, and it had worked well for several hundred feet.

Oh yes, this needs to be highlighted to FRC in general. And it reminds me of a couple things to mention.

Firstly, remember that not every Green Shirt is actually from UL. I wore that green shirt at an event last year, and I've never worked for UL. I think the sponsorship and logos lead people to that false impression. I know Siri didn't say that, but I've seen it mentioned elsewhere.

Secondly, I've found that Volunteer Coordinators sometimes make the Safety Advisor role a place to put a professional that is more technically inclined but not necessarily familiar with FIRST. At that event last year, I was the ONLY SA with any FIRST experience at all. We had a "Lead SA" who was a UL employee, but hadn't even been to an FRC event before. We also had a couple of safety folks from the venue (it took place at a University). But other than the four of us, the other SAs had little safety experience over all, much less safety in FIRST. I found myself having to bring all of those SA colleagues up to speed on FIRST and the safety culture. They were receptive to it, and I'm flexible to fill needs when they need to be filled, but that wasn't exactly part of my role description.

And the yelling "Robot" thing just has to stop. It's rude, unprofessional, and distracting. Thanks to one of the Mentors on my team, we consistently counter the yelling of "Robot!" with a loud but not quite yelling retort of "Human!". Remember everyone, humans always have the right of way. If you're moving a robot, it's your job to manage the traffic to clear a path. Yelling "Robot!" doesn't cut it in my book, and if you yell at me louder when I don't/can't move out of your way, I'm just going to be less inclined to get out of your way.

[Oblarg]

Thanks to one of the Mentors on my team, we consistently counter the yelling of "Robot!" with a loud but not quite yelling retort of "Human!"

Honestly, this strikes me as far more obnoxious and unhelpful than the yelling of "Robot!" is in the first place; "Robot!", even if you believe it is suboptimal (for the record, I think it works fine), has a clear use. "Human!" does nothing but add to the noise and confusion. Almost no one is going to have a clear inclination of what is meant when someone shouts "Human!" Pretty much everyone knows what is meant when someone shouts "Robot!"

If you think the shouting of "Robot!" does more harm than good, that's fine. But be reasonable about how you try to convey that point. The action you've described is going to do absolutely nothing to fix the problem; on the contrary, it does nothing but exacerbate the very problems that the critics of "Robot!" point to.

[EricLeifermann]

What happened in 2013 that FIRST could stand to improve upon?

Frank still being only the "interim" Director. Its time he becomes the permanent/full time director.

[Koko Ed]

Frank still being only the "interim" Director. Its time he becomes the permanent/full time director.

Where did CD put the Like button?

[RoboMom]

This is a really cool idea, and I think if more districts/regionals/events offered it, many teams would take advantage, even if it was just an hour at a time.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2159 White paper from 2008.

Procedures have been updated a bit, but this is Team Showcase in a nutshell. Email me if you want more info.

[jee7s]

Honestly, this strikes me as far more obnoxious and unhelpful than the yelling of "Robot!" is in the first place; "Robot!", even if you believe it is suboptimal (for the record, I think it works fine), has a clear use. "Human!" does nothing but add to the noise and confusion. Almost no one is going to have a clear inclination of what is meant when someone shouts "Human!" Pretty much everyone knows what is meant when someone shouts "Robot!"

If you think the shouting of "Robot!" does more harm than good, that's fine. But be reasonable about how you try to convey that point. The action you've described is going to do absolutely nothing to fix the problem; on the contrary, it does nothing but exacerbate the very problems that the critics of "Robot!" point to.

Just to be clear about this, it's not like we go around shouting "Human" every time someone shouts "Robot". It's not even shouted. When we do it, it's a comment directed at the team that's yelling "Robot", not a general comment to everyone within earshot. Yeah, it's a little sarcastic, maybe. But, 9 times out of 10, or maybe even 95 out of 100, we get a chuckle from the team because they know what they are doing is what we have discussed: Safety Theater.

Often, that becomes an icebreaker between our two teams, we get to know each other, and we start reminding other teams to not shout "Robot" all over the place. So, no, we aren't jerks about it. We use the "Human!" content to provoke thought and conversation, and it's been quite successful on those two fronts without the drawbacks you assumed above.

And, BTW, there's PLENTY of ambiguity in "Robot!". It's not clear what people should do when they hear that, particularly to those not familiar with FIRST. Even if it's coupled with a clear indication to get out of the way, that doesn't help much either as people don't usually know where they need to move to get out of the way. This is particularly true if their backs are turned to you, which is when this "Robot" shouting technique is usually employed.

But hey, everything I just said has already been said in other threads. No need to beat this to death.

[Clinton Bolinger]

Like sending a trained 2337 representative to every regional? :rolleyes: But seriously, FIRST needs to take a hint or a dozen from how 2337 runs their Michigan archives (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1243364&postcount=9). 1 GoPro + 1 painters pole + 1 fish eye = AWESOME way for me to be a Michigan fanboy in Kansas.

Thank you for the kind words. I was able to talk with Frank at the Championship about what we have been doing with Web Casting and Archiving matches to YouTube. Frank was really open with the idea and asked for me to e-mail him information or a white paper on our setup.

We started this project almost 3 years ago in the hopes that FIRST would eventually see it and do it for all events. I feel that each year we are getting closer.

I will be sure to post the white paper on CD as well.

If anyone has any questions about it or wants more information, please feel free to contact me.

-Clinton-

[Taylor]

I think it would be awesome if RCA/DCA videos were shown on the big screens various times throughout the event. Perhaps interspersed with the sponsors' advertisements.

[josmee443]

The real time scoring system was definitely a problem during regionals. There were a few kinks in the system that left people in the stands confused about what the actual score was. Hopefully, next year the real time scoring system is improved!

[David8696]

Something simply MUST be done about the alliance selection and ranking systems in the Championship qualifying rounds. This year, my team (2485) wound up ranking 69th overall in Galileo, regardless of the fact that we ranked SIXTH in total teleop points, had the highest score of the qualifiers, and won our average game 133-106. We played with four of the bottom ten ranked teams in the tournament; in our average match, the ranking of our partners was 55.31 and that of our opponents was 46.33. Every single game that we played with alliance partners who, collectively, finished above .500 we won, and handily–our average win was by 94 points. Every game we played with alliance partners who were below .500, we lost, but not by much–our average LOSS was by 25 points, with two games decided by a disk and one decided by a climb. And in the game we lost by 8 points, one of our partners slipped off the pyramid a second after the buzzer rang.

I probably sound like a whiny little kid throughout all of this, but let me just say that we enjoyed every second of our first trip to nationals, and hope to return for many years to come. We just couldn't help but feel almost cheated by pure bad luck as we watched a robot that we felt was heavily underranked go without being picked for elimination.

[Gregor]

I probably sound like a whiny little kid throughout all of this, but let me just say that we enjoyed every second of our first trip to nationals, and hope to return for many years to come. We just couldn't help but feel almost cheated by pure bad luck as we watched a robot that we felt was heavily underranked go without being picked for elimination.

Please read the first line of my signature.

[Akash Rastogi]

We just couldn't help but feel almost cheated by pure bad luck as we watched a robot that we felt was heavily underranked go without being picked for elimination.

There are always many good robots at champs that go unpicked. This year especially I saw many amazing shooters go unpicked.

With that said, I'm surprised you guys didn't make it into elims. You simply must not have fit into an alliance's strategy.

[indubitably]

We just couldn't help but feel almost cheated by pure bad luck as we watched a robot that we felt was heavily underranked go without being picked for elimination.
I definitely understand how annoying it can be when when the luck of qualifications really holds you back but the alliance captains did do their scouting and most likely didn't even take seeding into consideration. If anything, it was more unlucky that your team ended up in the division with the most FCS's, your team also wasn't given a chance to demonstrate how they might handle tall defensive bots, while others were. And don't forget that a lot of good teams don't make it into eliminations, generally because of strategic compatibility.

[robochick1319]

Just to be clear about this, it's not like we go around shouting "Human" every time someone shouts "Robot". It's not even shouted. When we do it, it's a comment directed at the team that's yelling "Robot", not a general comment to everyone within earshot. Yeah, it's a little sarcastic, maybe. But, 9 times out of 10, or maybe even 95 out of 100, we get a chuckle from the team because they know what they are doing is what we have discussed: Safety Theater.

Often, that becomes an icebreaker between our two teams, we get to know each other, and we start reminding other teams to not shout "Robot" all over the place. So, no, we aren't jerks about it. We use the "Human!" content to provoke thought and conversation, and it's been quite successful on those two fronts without the drawbacks you assumed above.

And, BTW, there's PLENTY of ambiguity in "Robot!". It's not clear what people should do when they hear that, particularly to those not familiar with FIRST. Even if it's coupled with a clear indication to get out of the way, that doesn't help much either as people don't usually know where they need to move to get out of the way. This is particularly true if their backs are turned to you, which is when this "Robot" shouting technique is usually employed.

But hey, everything I just said has already been said in other threads. No need to beat this to death.

We generally stick to saying, "Excuse us, robot coming through!" and most people realize that means a robot is coming through the aisle that they should NOT even be standing in. On the one hand, just yelling "ROBOT" is rude and ineffective; on the other hand, trying to "navigate" through a sea of people who are crowding the aisles is just dangerous (especially with little children around).

In a perfect world, the aisles would be closed when robots were moving through (they are pretty big machines after all--think of the Home Depot aisle curtains). But that is not at all conducive to the FIRST atmosphere which includes visitors strolling through the pits.

I propose that teams keep their members in their pit area (or at least no further than a foot outside) and robot transporters use phrases or sentences to politely excuse themselves through the pits with one or two people leading the way.

[Moon2020]

I want to see more solutions to the problems listed in this thread!

We should have enough LRIs and IMs to handle inspection for 8 fields of 50 robots to increase the number of matches per team. Still 400 teams total. It's whether we can fit two more practice fields and four more division fields within the space and if all the equipment is working (I know that we have at least one broken scale).

There needs to be a Pit Admin sign for FRC at normal person viewing level (not just the Division names hanging from the ceiling). A good portion of my time is spent being Pit Admin with the following questions being the most common: Where is Pit Admin, where do I put this (safety paper), where is lost and found, how do I get my crate moved, where do we check in, where is spare parts, where is the machine shop, where is the hall of fame, where is FTC, where is FLL, where is the other Division, have you seen my lost child, what do I do with a lost child?

FIRST needs to have a computer with a searchable database for team information versus a print out. I helped a bus driver from Michigan find his team after the event staff and police officer could not help him. He only knew the city of the team. Luckily, I had the master list of teams in an Excel file that included the team numbers, city, and sponsors. Additionally, it needs to include the teams' names to help make it complete. I cannot even begin to tell you how many teams I looked up for people.

The Pit Admin announcer needs to tell the crowd that the pit is closing not because the Volunteers and event staff want to go back to our hotels/homes, but because it is really about being fair to everyone about robot build/modification time.

I want teams to sit together and nobody left out. Nobody should be sitting/standing on stairs or standing in an aisle for safety reasons. Thus, I would like to see the number of team members plus four seats reserved for teams in the arena on their field (guests/spectators I'm sure would love to sit with a team and have the team explain). If you want to go to another Division's field to watch, you take what ever seats are left over. Einstein needs more seating. Must use the long side of the arena next time. It was way too loud. The buzzer went off and my ears nearly bled from the sound pressure.

Volunteer food times coincide with peak Robot Inspection times. I really need this fixed to ensure everyone who wants to eat gets to eat. For example: Breakfast starts at 6:30 am but the Pit opens at 7:00 am. Dinner on Wednesday evening is also a really tough one due to load in and bag-n-tag starting at 4:00 pm with inspections to follow. The food is far away from where we are located and it is a bit like swimming upstream in the flow of people to get to the Volunteer food room and back in a reasonable amount of time.

[Nawaid Ladak]

Here is my list.

1. St. Louis in general. I’m sure a lot of teams were able to bus it in from other parts of the country, but for those of us who flew in, most of us probably had to connect through another hub city. I can only imagine how annoying this must be for those teams flying from international/rural destinations. I hope FIRST considers this aspect when they look at potential bids after next year’s Championship Event.

2. Increase qualification matches at CMP: I’m sure there is something that can be done to add matches to the schedule without reducing the number of teams. This would mean that you would likely have to add time. I personally came up with something like this

Thursday
8AM-11AM: Practice Matches
12PM-8PM: Qualification Matches
Friday
9:30AM-7:30PM: Qualification Matches
Saturday
8AM-11AM: Qualification Matches
2PM-7PM: Elimination Matches with the division finals played on Einstein so that those matches can double for testing communications for the field.
7PM-Cont. Closing Ceremonies/Finals on Einstein.

This makes space for about 180 qualification matches on a 7 minute cycle. You could have gotten ten matches for each team with only 166 qualification matches. Even running at a 7.5 minute cycle, you would get 168 matches. I’m sure teams could get the breaks that they wanted for lunch and other things on Friday (Look at 148’s schedule; they didn't have a single match Friday until around 1:15pm). Frank addressed this in his e-mail earlier today, so I’m sure this is something FIRST is looking into.

As for the part I have about Saturday. I think you can tie in things like the talent show/dance/top 5 exciting matches during the season and make the Finals the Finale as well.

3. Real time scoring needs improvement (already beaten to death)

4. Qualifying for Championship should be changed. Maybe something like this (http://blog.ladakn.com/post/5414029512/qualifying-for-championship-my-proposition)?

5. FIRST needs better infrastructure for media sources. What do I mean by this?

a. An actual PR effort instead of handing out 8GB flash drives with just 15 or so pictures form the New York City Regional on them along with a bunch of other text files. (that’s what those cool little FIRST bracelets that looked like powerbands were.)
b. Include the basics to create a webcast as part of the kit that travels with the fields around the country during the regional events. (Even if its’ at 480p for the first few years) and use this to your advantage. The faster FIRST can standardize things when it comes to media like this, the better the media opportunities for FIRST will get. Imagine utilizing this to have live look-ins for other regional events during timeouts or breaks, Imagine having the top 5 most exciting matches of the year replayed on the Einstein big screen instead of throwing paper airplanes waiting for match results… It would be easier for a media provider to pick up FIRST if all the infrastructure for the media was already created.
c. Pushing to try and get network executives/people in the sports broadcasting industry as part of the administration in FIRST. Having an insiders’ track to land a major media opportunity would be huge for this program.

6. Let's try to get a bigger space for Karthik next year instead of this (https://twitter.com/kkanagas/status/327194913177485313).

That’s all I could think of right now, otherwise this has been an excellent season.

[Bryan Herbst]

9:30AM-7:30PM: Qualification Matches

If you can find four fields worth of volunteers willing to go 10 hours without breaks, then we have a 40-way tie for volunteer of the year.

[Denise Bohnsack]

Reading through this thread I see some think that there are too many teams attending with not enough time for play, the robots are not as qualified, and the money is too much for 8 matches. I also see comments that FIRST is about inspiring students so none of the above matter.

Here is just a thought based on my experience from many years ago when my son was a student and not the active volunteer alumni he is now. His rookie team had no chance to go to championship. The robot did not perform well and even if it had the money would have not had been there for the team to go.So to attend the World championship in Atlanta, I took off work, I took him out of school and we went on our own.The ultimate road trip. It was a life changing experience and perhaps a more valuable experience than some of the times we attended with a team with a robot later. In Atlanta, my son attended NEMO workshops, visited pits, met mentors and students, and just took the whole championship experience in. (When attending as a contender, it is easy to be so focused on a robot, there is so much that is missed.) I suggest that certain deserving teams go as a smaller contingency, purely as a learning experience, with their most involved student leaders and do the same thing. Perhaps FIRST can deem them a special name, such as Inspire Teams, which does not qualify them for robot matches, but as a group to go for the learning experience and opportunity. Since it is a smaller group without a robot, charge a smaller amount, say $2000 that includes workshops, conferences, special meetings, a tour of the Hall of Fame, meet and greet with FIRST special guests and so on. Since FIRST is about INSPIRING students, this seems a perfect solution for both the arguments above. Less robots, but more learning opportunities on how to be a better team. If adding to the financial bottom line is important for the FIRST budget, smaller teams consisting of leaders attending but still paying for the experience at a lesser price, addresses that situation as well.

My son was also given the blessing of being asked to attend with other local teams who qualified and I continue to be grateful to those mentors/teachers with those teams who made it possible. I am also grateful to the NEMO folks, who provided workshops on how to be a successful team. Restricting less "elite" teams from attending would keep younger teams from learning how to become an "elite" experienced team. Having the opportunity to learn from those teams - PRICELESS. There is a great solution here for all parties here somewhere. Oh, as a side note, later teams my son was involved with did go to World championship after learning the ropes from experienced teams and workshops at the World championship. That's how it is suppose to work, right?
And the finale party in Atlanta was purely fun and inspiring with the wonderful location with lots of room for everybody and fireworks. It may not be doable in St. Louis, perhaps because of the logistics and weather, but it is what everyone misses. Is Forest Park too far away? Or can that park mall avenue with all the fountains and statues in front of the capitol be roped off? Could fireworks light up over the arch like they do on the 4th? Just some thoughts. Thanks for all the hard work. It is an enormous effort I know, and hard to find some solutions with so many folks to consider. Over all, great job! Again, an amazing experience!

[tcjinaz]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the most basic level, this is what FIRST can be about!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is it about Inspiration or Recognition?

Comments on submissions from the "Old Guard" coming soon...


Reading through this thread I see some think that there are too many teams attending with not enough time for play, the robots are not as qualified, and the money is too much for 8 matches. I also see comments that FIRST is about inspiring students so none of the above matter.

Here is just a thought based on my experience from many years ago when my son was a student and not the active volunteer alumni he is now. His rookie team had no chance to go to championship. The robot did not perform well and even if it had the money would have not had been there for the team to go.So to attend the World championship in Atlanta, I took off work, I took him out of school and we went on our own.The ultimate road trip. It was a life changing experience and perhaps a more valuable experience than some of the times we attended with a team with a robot later. In Atlanta, my son attended NEMO workshops, visited pits, met mentors and students, and just took the whole championship experience in. (When attending as a contender, it is easy to be so focused on a robot, there is so much that is missed.) I suggest that certain deserving teams go as a smaller contingency, purely as a learning experience, with their most involved student leaders and do the same thing. Perhaps FIRST can deem them a special name, such as Inspire Teams, which does not qualify them for robot matches, but as a group to go for the learning experience and opportunity. Since it is a smaller group without a robot, charge a smaller amount, say $2000 that includes workshops, conferences, special meetings, a tour of the Hall of Fame, meet and greet with FIRST special guests and so on. Since FIRST is about INSPIRING students, this seems a perfect solution for both the arguments above. Less robots, but more learning opportunities on how to be a better team. If adding to the financial bottom line is important for the FIRST budget, smaller teams consisting of leaders attending but still paying for the experience at a lesser price, addresses that situation as well.

My son was also given the blessing of being asked to attend with other local teams who qualified and I continue to be grateful to those mentors/teachers with those teams who made it possible. I am also grateful to the NEMO folks, who provided workshops on how to be a successful team. Restricting less "elite" teams from attending would keep younger teams from learning how to become an "elite" experienced team. Having the opportunity to learn from those teams - PRICELESS. There is a great solution here for all parties here somewhere. Oh, as a side note, later teams my son was involved with did go to World championship after learning the ropes from experienced teams and workshops at the World championship. That's how it is suppose to work, right?
And the finale party in Atlanta was purely fun and inspiring with the wonderful location with lots of room for everybody and fireworks. It may not be doable in St. Louis, perhaps because of the logistics and weather, but it is what everyone misses. Is Forest Park too far away? Or can that park mall avenue with all the fountains and statues in front of the capitol be roped off? Could fireworks light up over the arch like they do on the 4th? Just some thoughts. Thanks for all the hard work. It is an enormous effort I know, and hard to find some solutions with so many folks to consider. Over all, great job! Again, an amazing experience!

[faust1706]

9 foot falls. not fun to watch.

[Nemo]

I suggest that certain deserving teams go as a smaller contingency, purely as a learning experience, with their most involved student leaders and do the same thing. Perhaps FIRST can deem them a special name, such as Inspire Teams, which does not qualify them for robot matches, but as a group to go for the learning experience and opportunity. Since it is a smaller group without a robot, charge a smaller amount, say $2000 that includes workshops, conferences, special meetings, a tour of the Hall of Fame, meet and greet with FIRST special guests and so on.

Admission is free. It would be strange to charge $2000 for a team to do all of that stuff when all they have to do is show up and do that stuff as it is now.