[EWCP] Championship Prediction Cast

[Andrew Schreiber]

Ok folks, we've been quiet this season because we've been cooking up something big. Instead of our usual talkshoe based blabfest where we talk about some teams we decided to make it a little contest.

Tuesday (4-22) at 9pm eastern we will be going live on the air (going to try to have video.ewcp.org point there) and doing a Championship Preview Cast unlike any before. We're going to be doing a draft on the air and explaining why the alliances are being picked that way. We currently have 7 teams made up of a combination of your traditional EWCP folks as well as a few others. Each team will make their pick and have 1 minute to justify it to the audience.

So, who is picking?

Team West Drost Drive
Eric Drost
Shan Rammah
Team Trinidad Jame$
James Temple
Brian Smist
Team FroCone
Dustin Benedict
Chris Picone
Team Scooby
Ethan "Scrappy" Miller
Steven "Scooby" Donow
Team Sliderule
Jeremy Bydlon
Andrew Spiece
Team Baker's Dozen (Name subject to change)
Nick Lawrence
Andy Baker

We've also partnered with GameSense and they will be comprising a picking team.

As you can see, we are still short one team. I'll let you know as soon as we figure out what is going on there, if any parties are interested feel free to PM me.


Since we have to also determine the alliance captains, the picking order will have a double pick for each first pick (teams pick their captain and first pick in a row). This makes the pick order:
1-1-2-2-3-3-4-4-5-5-6-6-7-7-8-8
8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8


Zachary Orr and I will be hosting this event and keeping everything on track.

How you can help? If there's not a picture of your bot on TBA get it up there, that's where I'll be going to display pictures of robots while the teams justify their pick.

[Ben Martin]

Pretty cool--I'll be tuning in (or at least listening to it a few hours later in the archive).

Are you guys going to be picking for each division?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Pretty cool--I'll be tuning in (or at least listening to it a few hours later in the archive).

Are you guys going to be picking for each division?

Yeah, each team will be doing a full alliance for each division.

And I guess I wasn't quite clear, this is full on video not just audio. We will be recording it all though so it'll show up on youtube.

[Andrew Lawrence]

Pretty sweet. Been waiting for ewcp cast all season.

[joelg236]

Awesome. Can't wait.

[Procolsaurus]

:yikes:
If I didn't have finals to study for I would try and form a team.
Hopefully those Pre-Champs Scouting Google docs fill up quick, those are invaluable sources of information.

[Robotmmm]

Been missing EWCP casts as well. This sounds awesome and I will be tuning in for sure!

[Gregor]

Too bad I'll be on a bus to a certain US city then, but this sounds awesome!

[nuggetsyl]

What a cool idea

[Robotmmm]

It would also be fun to revisit this after Champs to see which team wins bragging rights for being closest to what actually happened.

[kborer22]

my money is on team scooby!

[EricDrost]

It would also be fun to revisit this after Champs to see Team West Drost Drive win bragging rights for being closest to what actually happened.

FTFY

[nuggetsyl]

I am going with team Baker.

[Andrew Schreiber]

It would also be fun to revisit this after Champs to see which team wins bragging rights for being closest to what actually happened.

There's actually a scoring rubric, there will be a winner.

First selection is a captain 20
Team selected where they fall in actual draft 5
Alliance member is QFist 5
Alliance member is SFist 10
Alliance member is Finalist 15
Alliance member is Division Champion 20
Alliance member is Einstein Finalist 20
Alliance member is World Champion 30
2/4 teams on same alliance POINTS x 2
3/4 teams on same alliance POINTS x 3
4/4 teams on same alliance POINTS x 4



I debated adding in points for making Zach squirt diet coke out his nose live on air with your explanations. But I figured that would be its own reward.

[Navid Shafa]

We've also partnered with GameSense and they will be comprising a picking team.


Team GameSense RoboWeather is bringing you the forecast, Live with EWCP. Dave and I are bringing the storm, so watch out, because when it rains it pours!

http://i.imgur.com/Lry7r3C.jpg

[Robotmmm]

I am also betting on Team Scooby to win it all!

[Andrew Schreiber]

Well, the event is on Google +

Tomorrow at 9pm We will go live. And lemme just say, the picklists are looking good.

video.ewcp.org will direct to the event on Google+

[Robotmmm]

Looking forward to tonight's cast!

[David8696]

Man, I wish it was before 6 my time. I'm gonna be in bed. You probably think I'm kidding. I am not. Don't ya love staying up until 5:15 to finish calculus homework so you can go to St. Louis?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Man, I wish it was before 6 my time. I'm gonna be in bed. You probably think I'm kidding. I am not. Don't ya love staying up until 5:15 to finish calculus homework so you can go to St. Louis?

Well, good thing it'll be recorded for you:)

[David8696]

Well, good thing it'll be recorded for you:)

Indeed :D

[Peter Matteson]

Is this going into your old RSS feed as an audio podcast?
Will I have to do something different to make sure I have it to listen to for my flight on Thursday?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Is this going into your old RSS feed as an audio podcast?
Will I have to do something different to make sure I have it to listen to for my flight on Thursday?

I'll see if I can download and extract audio for you. There are benefits and drawbacks to the video thing, we'll see how it works out and may continue down this road.

[Adam Freeman]

I'll see if I can download and extract audio for you. There are benefits and drawbacks to the video thing, we'll see how it works out and may continue down this road.

+1 for an audio version. Gives us something to listen to in the car on the ride to St. Louis tomorrow morning.

[Ben Martin]

Another +1 for audio. It is awesome to have good robot content you can listen to during a commute, even after the event.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Another +1 for audio. It is awesome to have good robot content you can listen to during a commute, even after the event.

It's funny hearing all these folks wanting just audio after so many years of hearing that people wanted video...

[techtiger1]

podcasts are where it is at these days man

[Andrew Schreiber]

podcasts are where it is at these days man

Podcasts are where we've been at for 3 years, we thought this was moving FORWARD. This is what I get for listening to folks. Oh well, we'll see if we can make it work in both mediums.

[rsisk]

It's funny hearing all these folks wanting just audio after so many years of hearing that people wanted video...

Could we get the video without audio so we can do a whole MST3000 version of it?

[David8696]

Podcasts are where we've been at for 3 years, we thought this was moving FORWARD. This is what I get for listening to folks. Oh well, we'll see if we can make it work in both mediums.

The dual-medium thing is what interests me. I'd like the opportunity to listen to it in places where I don't have internet access/a decent video screen (e.g. the plane ride), and watch it in places where I do (e.g. the hotel).

[EricDrost]

Could we get the video without audio so we can do a whole MST3000 version of it?

Or EWCP Karaoke.

[Peter Matteson]

I'll take the video stream if it's downloadable in podcast form for listening to/watching in the car. I just want to be able to listen to it while I'm on a plane instead of chewing through my unlimited data plan.

[Alpha Beta]

Is video.ewcp.org the best link to view this broadcast? It currently points to a Google hangout event.

I thought I remembered hearing it was going to be broadcast through the Game Sense YouTube channel. Haven't seen any confirmation of that in this thread though.

[Dave McLaughlin]

We're not broadcasting through the GameSense youtube. We are working on trying to help set up a streaming platform for this cast and future EWCP casts right now but if that is not prepared in time I believe that it will be on the hangout that is linked.

[Chris is me]

I'll take the video stream if it's downloadable in podcast form for listening to/watching in the car. I just want to be able to listen to it while I'm on a plane instead of chewing through my unlimited data plan.

We're going to try some way to make some kind of audio version of this exist. I might just have another computer open to record the show and put the mp3 on Dropbox or something.

[Alpha Beta]

We're not broadcasting through the GameSense youtube. We are working on trying to help set up a streaming platform for this cast and future EWCP casts right now but if that is not prepared in time I believe that it will be on the hangout that is linked.

Google Hangout left this nugget:

The video will actually be at twitch.tv/ewcp thanks to the GameSense folks for all of their help setting this up.

http://www.twitch.tv/ewcp

Question: What order are you doing the divisions in?

[Dave McLaughlin]

Well that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

[Anupam Goli]

Well that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Well you DID help me setup and troubleshoot the broadcast setup... ;)

[EricDrost]

Question: What order are you doing the divisions in?

I believe alphabetical.

[smistthegreat]

I believe alphabetical.

Yes, Archimedes, Curie, Galileo, Newton in that order.

[Andrew Schreiber]

We're going to try some way to make some kind of audio version of this exist. I might just have another computer open to record the show and put the mp3 on Dropbox or something.

We can upload it to the usual rss feed through talkshoe. Chris, I can show you how.

Google Hangout left this nugget:



http://www.twitch.tv/ewcp

Question: What order are you doing the divisions in?

A C G N


roughly 30 minutes each. 9, 930, 10, 1030
Well that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

You have been a great help. Video is a new trick and I don't think we'd be pulling this off without you guys.

[Joe Ross]

What is the link for the google doc?

[Kristian Calhoun]

What is the link for the google doc?
Try this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmItyLt-a_PhdDFaeG1tUU5KZ25nZGk3MmFUZmJVdmc&usp=drive_web#gid=3

[SkittlesCharge]

https://docs.google.com/a/ewcp.org/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmItyLt-a_PhdDFaeG1tUU5KZ25nZGk3MmFUZmJVdmc&usp=drive_web#gid=3

[smistthegreat]

Double Edit: Audio is up!

EDIT: Completely forgot one of my more important points: Please give us any feedback you have! What worked, what didn't work, how the format was, audio quality, too long/too short, ideas for future casts, which team is your favorite and why is it Trinidad Jame$, what picks you liked, what picks you hated, teams that we should have picked and didn't, etc... This cast had a lot of firsts for us and we really want to know what we did well and what we did poorly.

Thank you so much to everybody that tuned in last night, I think we peaked at around 140 viewers and averaged about 80. I certainly had a blast and I hope everyone else did too.

This is posted right above me, but for the sake of having all the information in the same place, I'm going to post the link to the final draft right here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmItyLt-a_PhdDFaeG1tUU5KZ25nZGk3MmFUZmJVdmc&usp=drive_web#gid=3.

The video recording of the hangout itself is on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4ReuAkyZms&app=desktop. Note that this is the recording of just the hangout, not the Twitch broadcast, which means that it is just the video of us talking and does not include the spreadsheet (which is not a problem, because you can just click the first link to see the spreadsheet). Audio is up here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/91659960/EWCP%20CMP%20Draft.mp3.

The scoring rubric may end up being modified, so stay tuned for that. For those of you who didn't tune in, the final standings will be announced on Game Sense's CMP recap show, which will be next Friday.

One last note, thank you again for everyone who participated and tuned in, especially the Game Sense guys.

[notmattlythgoe]

Thanks for picking is to be part of The Peach Alliance!

[Cam877]

I have trust in you Drost.

[Anupam Goli]

Thanks for picking is to be part of The Peach Alliance!

I think 2363 will surprise a lot of people at championships and make a lot of noise. You guys have an amazing robot that not many people are talking about!


I was kind of surprised at how much research it took to make some of our picks, but I guess I just find researching teams to be a lot of fun. I had a blast during the cast and preparing for the cast, and I'd definitely do it again in the future if y'all want me back.

On the last note, are there any suggestions for the twitch stream and how that could have been improved?

[Woolly]

7th Seed Captain, eh? I'm pleasantly surprised to see us go that quick. We'll try to justify that pick on the field!

As far as the twitch stream goes, the only things I could think of would be to improve the sync between the hangout and the picking screen, and maybe using the official FRC alliance selection display if possible.

[notmattlythgoe]

I think 2363 will surprise a lot of people at championships and make a lot of noise. You guys have an amazing robot that not many people are talking about!


I was kind of surprised at how much research it took to make some of our picks, but I guess I just find researching teams to be a lot of fun. I had a blast during the cast and preparing for the cast, and I'd definitely do it again in the future if y'all want me back.

On the last note, are there any suggestions for the twitch stream and how that could have been improved?

Thanks. We've felt like we've had a very solid season to this point, seeding 3rd and 4th at both regionals and going as the #1 pick at Chesapeake. Had we not missed our last shot at VA we'd have had at least a finals and a regional win this season. We look forward to making some noise and showing what we can do.

[Anupam Goli]

7th Seed Captain, eh? I'm pleasantly surprised to see us go that quick. We'll try to justify that pick on the field!

As far as the twitch stream goes, the only things I could think of would be to improve the sync between the hangout and the picking screen, and maybe using the official FRC alliance selection display if possible.

I think 1806 has a great robot! You guys played some very close finals against powerful teams like 1986 and 118!

There was already like a 10 second lag on the twitch stream from what we were live, and to add to that, that audio and video on the overlay was actually taken from youtube (I was essentially rstreaming the youtube version of the hangout to my computer and streaming that to twitch), so the lag between what we did on the spreadsheet and the youtube hangout feed was different. We were always a good 10-15 seconds ahead of what the stream was saying, so we apologize for any timing inconsistencies. If we go with the same route next time, I think we'll plan how we broadcast earlier so we aren't scrambling and using such a simple middle-man setup.

[Andrew Schreiber]

As far as the twitch stream goes, the only things I could think of would be to improve the sync between the hangout and the picking screen, and maybe using the official FRC alliance selection display if possible.

Yeah, the picking screen was kinda a last minute "Oh crap we need this" thing. There was some custom code that was supposed to cross out teams as they were picked but I couldn't get it working in time. For the IRI show (that MAY be happening) we should have an improved display, improved overlays, and hopefully better sync. We're also revisiting the scoring system.

We had a blast doing this and enjoyed working with the GameSense folks. I'm looking forward to working with them on future endeavors.