2006 Season - The Negative [Archive]

lukevanoort

30-04-2006, 09:11

I'm with a rookie team, here as a chaperone (parent of a team member), although I am also an engineer.

I know that the Event is open to the public, but is the public invited? It looks like almost everyone here is with a team, or helping to put on the show. Where are the yellow busses full of local kids I expect to see? and their parents? and other folks who might get a kick out of watching machines play ball, and might get inspired to think "hey, that looks like fun, I wonder if I could do that!"?

Is this event presented to the media as a spectator sport?

Does the faculty of EVERY school within reasonable driving distance know about this event?

The same questions apply to the regionals

Actually, at VCU they were giving tours of the pits. But, you're right it's not enough. How is FIRST supposed to change culture when mostly the only people who know its going on are either directly related to it or work at a nearby resteraunt. (I'm sure they notice, if you've ever seen the Subway across the street from VCU you'd know what I mean)

Tetraman

30-04-2006, 10:40

jts

30-04-2006, 10:53

While the game is great this year and is fun to watch from a participant's point of view, it is still difficult for those with little familiarity to know what's going on. The flag on each robot was an interesting touch this year, but I don't think it quite met the mark of clearly identifying who was on what team. The periods also made it difficult for others to keep track of the action on the field.

I didn't have any problems with knowing what team was red or blue, nor did I have a problem with the periods. However, I was also on the field and had been completely consumed with the game for weeks on end.

I think it should also be noted that maybe it isn't important to have these issues addressed more than they have been already. The target audience of the game is not people pulled in off of the street.

StephLee

30-04-2006, 11:59

On the note of the public coming to watch, our team had a man in our pit who said he came to the competition every year to watch, since he lived in atlanta. He told us he took Thursday and Friday off and then came back on Saturday. I know this is just one man, and think how awesome it would be if more people started doing what he does every year.

Billfred

30-04-2006, 12:20

This might be nit-picky, but I seemed to see a lot of folks on the floor of the Dome with team media badges...that didn't have any photography or recording equipment with them. (One gentleman I saw was actually attempting to coach his team from a few feet off the carpet.) A little more work on access control would be useful. (At the same time, does an entire set of doors have to be exit-only, when the nearest entry doors are nearly impossible to find?)

The flag holders were alright, but they seemed to be the biggest pain in the butt to inspect. (Bear in mind, I inspected at UCF, which was before the whole offboard compressor thing hit the fan.) If FIRST were to either allow two mounting holes, all the way through, or perhaps some other more secure method (perhaps create some cheap mount the teams have to bolt onto the robot's top that the flag latches on to?), I could stand to see them return. Honestly, though, I'd really prefer to see a light of some sort.

The IFI breaker panel is lighter/sexier/more elegant/(any good word here but cheaper). I thoroughly intend to beg for its return in 2007 at the team forum.

The ball counters were great--but they need to work properly in order to really get the full awesomeness out of them. The theory was Chuck Norris, but the execution was only Vin Diesel. (That said, I do like that they attempted to improve the readings over the weeks.)

Bumpers were nice, but somewhat annoying in their requirements. (I heard from a secondhand source that some regionals erroneously required the Cordura fabric. It should be made painfully obvious when things are not rules, but encouragements.) If they're going to continue this required format, I'd at least like to see some flexibility in it. (A smaller bumper option, for example, and an allowance for angled cuts and what not.)

The wedge rule was good in theory, but the execution (in my experience) saw some obvious non-wedges become ruled as wedges. I'd much rather see either the no-wedge zone dropped lower, or establish some empirical requirement (create a Kitbot-On-Skyways dummy, for example, and require that robots be unable to wedge it.)

Oh, and for Pete's sake, dump the Hatch field controllers. It seems like it's not a regional until you have to break out the foghorn at least three times just to get one clean match. The solution is out there--the WildStangers-designed FVC field controllers were nearly flawless over the two days of the Championship. (And they're tiny, too--one alliance station's connection point was about the size of a deck of cards. Plug in two Cat5 cables and the eight handset cables for the radios' tether ports, and your field is just about wired.)

The problems within the first week of getting more balls from Poof-Slinky was a little annoying, but at least it was sorted out quickly.

I can't think of anything else--overall, the season was a pretty good one, with nothing too terrible in my experience. Some things just need some tweaking.

Donut

30-04-2006, 12:27

I think FIRST needs to get more active in the realm of the Mainstream Media! They need more news coverage! They need more people to tell more people. I think a lot of it is in the hands of the teams, but half of the teams and people on those teams (includeing myself) just don't. We rely on the teams that are known for spreading FIRST rather than ourselves.

I couldn't agree with this statement more. We need to get the word out about FIRST and technology more, but we need it to be done more by all teams. We know there are teams doing it, you often see them with a Chairman's Award, Engineering Inspiration Award, X Award, etc., but we need the teams (like mine) that worry every year about whether they'll be able to attend a regional competition, let alone win an award, to try to get the word out of FIRST. I'll admit myself and the rest of my team have been guilty of not going to lengths many teams do to get the word out, and that needs to change. The lesser known teams that attend only 1 competition a year make up the majority of FIRST (remember, only 1/4 or less of all teams attend the Championship), and these are the teams that would have the largest voice if they could all just try to do some of the things these role model teams do.

On the note of this year's game, the 2 main things I disliked were the bicycle flag team indicators and the automatic DQ of an entire alliance for entering the corner goal during eliminations. For some reason I like big annoying flashy lights on the robot, not little flags or strips of color. As for the DQ, I would have preferred they just DQ that robot rather than the whole alliance, or to give them some large penalty (30 points), but at least give the team a chance to still win.

Tetraman

30-04-2006, 12:36

As for the DQ, I would have preferred they just DQ that robot rather than the whole alliance, or to give them some large penalty (30 points), but at least give the team a chance to still win.

That is just part of the game. Last year, the Tetra-loading zone "touch a robot" penalty was hated and feared by all teams, and it was just a part of the game as anything else.

The idea was you had to invent a robot system that would push the balls in without going over a certain point. The reason is that the robot is going into the area where the Human player can reach, and they are always going to make strict pentalties when it comes to possible Human player to robot contact.

Matt Krass

30-04-2006, 12:45

First things first, FIRST needs to pick a new venue that doesn't have any fountains (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChnYLnMFl5U).

Honestly, the only thing that bugged me personally, was a lack of consistency between the practice field and the real field, as in things that worked on the practice field did not work on the real field. This was mostly due to, according to what I've heard, the balls becoming softer and easier to compress after constant abuse on the real fields. Did anyone else have this problem or was this just us?

Otherwise it was a great event, and when I'm not entirely too tired, I'm posting in the postive thread with a list why.

Donut

30-04-2006, 16:18

That is just part of the game. Last year, the Tetra-loading zone "touch a robot" penalty was hated and feared by all teams, and it was just a part of the game as anything else.

I agree with the rule, I just wish they had kept the same penalty from qualifiers (DQ the offending robot) for the elimination rounds, rather than killing the whole alliance. I didn't see it happen at our competition at all, but I know it happened at least once.

Tristan Lall

30-04-2006, 16:41

I agree with the rule, I just wish they had kept the same penalty from qualifiers (DQ the offending robot) for the elimination rounds, rather than killing the whole alliance. I didn't see it happen at our competition at all, but I know it happened at least once.DQing the offending robot in an elimination match would have no effect, because the game result (i.e. win/loss/tie) would still affect the entire alliance. Maybe you're conflating the DQ (determined after the fact by the head referee) with disabling the robot (several ways to do this, during the match)?

eugenebrooks

30-04-2006, 17:19

Although I want to make it clear that, in my opinion, this was one of the best years ever for FIRST, I found the rule for the single point goal penetration to be poorly thought out with regard to its consequences. I understand the need to protect the accuracy of the scoring, but this portion of the field could have been designed with more margin, avoiding accidental DQs, as well as making it harder for a team to generate a DQ by crashing your robot while it was scoring single point balls. The rule could have been written to discourage crashing a robot in attempt to cause a DQ. The rather frequent crash attempts I witnessed were totally against the ideals of FIRST as I understand them and should not have been encouraged by the rules.

Eugene

deficite

30-04-2006, 17:34

The two main beefs I had this year at nationals were that some teams didn't make their numbers very visible on their robot (very hard for scouters) and the competition feeling impersonal. The second one wasn't really anybody's fault, but the whole competition seemed so much more impersonal compared to last time I was at nationals (2004). I can remember in 2004 having various team visit us in the stands and teams handing out their own awards. I didn't see any of that this year. Everybody just seemed so reserved this year.

Ebolagirl

30-04-2006, 17:48

The two main beefs I had this year at nationals were that some teams didn't make their numbers very visible on their robot (very hard for scouters).

Yeah, I completely agree with that. If I remember correctly it was in the FRC manual that your team number had to be clearly visible from all four sides. And while they may have been clearly visible to people near them, for a lot of teams they weren't visible at all from the stands.
Some one else mentioned something earlier about alliances not being clearly marked. I think that's also an issue for not just outside spectators, but people like parents who come to watch their kids' robots, but don't really know robot numbers of other teams making it more difficult to understand the alliances.

Tetraman

30-04-2006, 18:22

Everybody just seemed so reserved this year.

We all used our going to other team energy at the Regionals.

Billfred

30-04-2006, 18:25

Yeah, I completely agree with that. If I remember correctly it was in the FRC manual that your team number had to be clearly visible from all four sides. And while they may have been clearly visible to people near them, for a lot of teams they weren't visible at all from the stands.
Some one else mentioned something earlier about alliances not being clearly marked. I think that's also an issue for not just outside spectators, but people like parents who come to watch their kids' robots, but don't really know robot numbers of other teams making it more difficult to understand the alliances.
Seconded. Having seen what I've seen, a good set of team numbers (IMHO) is:

-4" tall, 3/4" stroke, blah blah blah
-All in one line, horizontally or vertically
-In one color or pattern set against a different, non-transparent color.

A decent example is that of 968. Compare their robot with 254's in this picture (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/24654?). While the Poofs' numbers were legal and fine, that red border to RAWC's numbers really did a lot of good to help make them stand out against the clear hopper. Same thing goes for 348's (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/24650) robot.

It's not a big change, but it would be a welcome one.

Storcky

30-04-2006, 18:42

Where on the robot would also be a good specification for team numbers. As a scout I know that even if it is easy to see a robot's numbers in the pits or when close to it, with the wall and people in front of you, it is nearly impossible to tell who's who on the red alliance (process of elimination was what we ended up using most).

Also, it was very difficult and almost impossible to scout when teams stood up to cheer for an entire match. i can understand when a team is announced, but during the match could teams please sit down?

deficite

30-04-2006, 18:48

What was particularly annoying was teams who wrote their team numbers on their bumpers and nowhere else. Also, I saw a lot of teams have large numbers and everything, but the colors were so close to the color of the background that you could not read it.

It's pretty bad when one has to borrow his or her teacher's binoculars match after match.

Koko Ed

30-04-2006, 19:46

I know FIRST likes being at the cutting edge of technology and all but it's really starting to interrupt the flow of the events when it breaks down. Sometimes you can be too cute and now they want to try this complicated light stunt. I have a bad feeling about this....

I also have to say I was genuinely disappointed in the Woodie Flowers display in the Hall of Fame. I was hoping for more than that and truly hope more will be done with it next year.

And I know FIRST can't really do anything about it but the week 2 regional pileup hurt alot of regionals and something has to be done to keep them from being drained.

Also for those of you who keep misidentifying our lead mentor Ron as me a big slap on the hand!
This is Ron
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/X-Cats/2006%20Season/FLR/Day%20Two/DSC04093.jpg

This is me
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/X-Cats/2006%20Season/FLR/Day%20Three/100_0243.jpg

Big difference!
I'm like ten years younger and far more handsome!
GET IT RIGHT ALREADY! :p

Towel

30-04-2006, 20:41

I only have two negative things I can say about this year is about seating for our scouts. It's annoying when one goes to the seating area early with all of our scouts only to find out that (literally) six rows of seats are being saved by one person and no one else. If that was one of my major beefs, than FIRST is doing pretty well. My other major beef was that the area for booking practice matches was chaos, a mentor on our team (hes 6'2) had to reach our over a crowd of people scrambling to write their team number down in order to reserve a much needed practice spot.

Tetraman

30-04-2006, 21:44

Big difference!
I'm like ten years younger and far more handsome!
GET IT RIGHT ALREADY! :p

I'll keep that in mind when I go to watch/volunteer at FLR next year if you guys will be going.

DonRotolo

30-04-2006, 21:50

I'm like ten years younger and far more handsome! ...and you don't have a soccer ball painted on your head!

Anyway, back to the topic:

1. The camera code wasn't as bulletproof as some teams needed. While it worked perfectly for us during build and in the pits, it almost never worked on the field.

2. We spent a long time trying to figure out how to make the Gear Tooth Sensor work. Never did use it in competition, but carried the 6 ounce gear the whole time.

3. I agree with deficite, team numbers need to be better visible and more uniform.

Already posted the things they did well this year.

Don

Hiteak

30-04-2006, 22:04

Big difference!
I'm like ten years younger and far more handsome!
GET IT RIGHT ALREADY! :p

I did not make that mistake :)

We have to learn to do better with scouting and try to get the rest of the team more involved. We had little spirit on our team, but we are starting to improve on that.

theycallhimtom

30-04-2006, 22:12

What do you guys think about making a flyer with the basic rules of the game on it that spectators could get at the door. I'm not talking about a full manual with all the little picky rules but just the basics.

ebarker

30-04-2006, 22:14

I'm with a rookie team, here as a chaperone (parent of a team member), although I am also an engineer.

I know that the Event is open to the public, but is the public invited? It looks like almost everyone here is with a team, or helping to put on the show. Where are the yellow busses full of local kids I expect to see? and their parents? and other folks who might get a kick out of watching machines play ball, and might get inspired to think "hey, that looks like fun, I wonder if I could do that!"?

Is this event presented to the media as a spectator sport?

Does the faculty of EVERY school within reasonable driving distance know about this event?

The same questions apply to the regionals

I had my whole team here plus guest "recruit members" visiting the event. Over half of our group was new students and mentors. We were not competiting. We were the ones with the yellow hard hats. We were there only Friday. We had a great day for new student recruitment.

Ed

Bongle

30-04-2006, 22:39

During the finals, the balloons that were apparently part of the chairman's award celebrations made it impossible to actually watch the whole field from the second level. This REALLY pissed me off. From one position, I could not view the red centre target. From the other position I could access, I could not see robots aiming at the red centre target. So either I couldn't see the shooting robots, or I couldn't see if the balls go in. Everyone else on my team had this problem as well, but with different areas of the gamefield obscured.

-More matches would have been nice, although I understand this is not possible with only 4 fields running at once.
-Assigned seating during the einstein matches would have been nice. We were lucky enough to get a contiguous block of seats, but many other teams were not as lucky.
-Access to the upper levels (even if only for the team media folks) would have been REALLY nice. It's annoying to have to try and take pictures over top of people standing in front of you, and it's bothersome to stand in front of people in order to take good photos. If only media people were allowed on the second level to take photos, that would eliminate camera-wielding folks getting in the way of spectators, and would eliminate spectators getting in the way of camera people
-Plugs near the practice field would have been nice. Laptops that have serial ports are getting older and older on average, and their battery lives are decreasing as well.
-More vigorous enforcement of practice field times. It would be very nice if the practice field was wireless and it simply disabled robots once their 10 minutes were up. No more "but just one more reload and test please!".
-I don't know if it would be possible, but if einstein was located in the centre of the dome without the black backdrop, it would be possible to have approximately twice as many people watching it at once.

TimCraig

30-04-2006, 22:43

Pavan Dave

30-04-2006, 22:52

I think that there were many various problems that FIRST could have fixed and made easier. EX. They only needed a limit switch for the Center Goal Counters and they wouldnt have glitched as much as the one FIRST used did.. Scoring in general was glitched, like in the lower goals, but I wont go into detail because they did their best.

I think the copmetition was decent. I think a little more work and/or effert would have made the game awesome.

Hope they fix it for next year.

-Pavan

eugenebrooks

30-04-2006, 23:23

My biggest gripe this year is the fiasco with the new controller. I don't know why it wasn't found earlier. Inadequate testing? But to spend a year laying the software groundwork to really control a robot and then having all that go into the dumper because the controller didn't work properly is very annoying.

I'll second that, Tim!

The 8722 in the 2006 controller has a very long errata sheet, so long, in fact, that it is clear that all of the errata have not yet been found. There are a number of teams that have software that simply does not work reliably on the 2006 controller and I think that it would behoove IFI to either back up to the 8520 chip that was supplied for the 2005 competition year, or use these teams to test a new chip revision for the 2007 controller during the off season until it gets a clean bill of health. We have gremlins on the 8722 based controller that were not fixed by patches, although the 8.2 battery voltage "indicator of death" did evaporate.

This was a major headache for us. We really don't want to be using the 8722 next year, unless the errata, including those not found yet, evaporate. We would much rather be writing software that chases the green light, then the red light, then the blue light...

We would happily pay IFI $120 to "down grade" our 2006 controller to the same chip used in the 2005 controller as the cost of the solding equipment required to change out the nine dollar part exceeds $120. Past using the 2006 controller for comparison purposes for a "fixed" 2007 controller, we won't be using it in the future because of its gremlins.

So, if anyone from IFI is reading this thread, could you please give serious consideration to dropping back to the 8520 PIC chip in 2007? Team 1280 would be happy to beta test the 8722 until its gremlins are cleaned out, but actually attempting to use it on a competition robot in 2007 is not a very good option for us.

Eugene

Donut

01-05-2006, 01:39

I'll second that, Tim!

The 8722 in the 2006 controller has a very long errata sheet, so long, in fact, that it is clear that all of the errata have not yet been found. There are a number of teams that have software that simply does not work reliably on the 2006 controller and I think that it would behoove IFI to either back up to the 8520 chip that was supplied for the 2005 competition year, or use these teams to test a new chip revision for the 2007 controller during the off season until it gets a clean bill of health. We have gremlins on the 8722 based controller that were not fixed by patches, although the 8.2 battery voltage "indicator of death" did evaporate.

This was a major headache for us. We really don't want to be using the 8722 next year, unless the errata, including those not found yet, evaporate. We would much rather be writing software that chases the green light, then the red light, then the blue light...

We would happily pay IFI $120 to "down grade" our 2006 controller to the same chip used in the 2005 controller as the cost of the solding equipment required to change out the nine dollar part exceeds $120. Past using the 2006 controller for comparison purposes for a "fixed" 2007 controller, we won't be using it in the future because of its gremlins.

So, if anyone from IFI is reading this thread, could you please give serious consideration to dropping back to the 8520 PIC chip in 2007? Team 1280 would be happy to beta test the 8722 until its gremlins are cleaned out, but actually attempting to use on a competition robot in 2007 is not a very good option for us.

Eugene

I really think this was a hit or miss problem. I think we had the indicator-of-death happen once to us, but other than that had no problems with this year's RC at all, and would not have been able to use our program this year on last year's RC (we only used 2 sensors, a gyro and the camera, and we still used a little over 1/3 our code space. We completely obliterated the limit last year with the camera code).

I would like to see them fix the problems, but would be willing to risk having them to keep this processor around. Simply put, most teams will not get the camera working on a less-powerful unit.

Cory

01-05-2006, 01:49

What could FIRST stand to improve upon this year?

Fire Hatch.

TimCraig

01-05-2006, 02:38

Past using the 2006 controller for comparison purposes for a "fixed" 2007 controller, we won't be using it in the future because of its gremlins.

We have an old robot, that's been rebuilt several times, I think it's Wendy IV now, that we use as a newbie project. We'll be pulling the controller off it to put on Tommy for CalGames and giving it the 2006 controller as it's never likely to have sophisticated controls. Other than a paperweight, I can't think of another use for it.

deficite

01-05-2006, 17:27

Richard Wallace

01-05-2006, 17:46

Ah, I remember our first Q match during St. Louis regional. During the drivers' meeting they announced that an update needs to be made to people's code (if I remember right, one of the variables needed a keyword added to it). The drivers we had sent up there didn't have any coding experience so they just figured our programmer had fixed it already. Well, during that Q match, our robot's autonomous went crazy and we had no control of the robot after the autonomous period. That was the only loss we had at St. Louis. The announcement was made public after St. Louis was over.IFI rep Tom Watson (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/24006) made an announcement re: the 8.2v bug at the Friday drivers meeting in St. Louis. He then monitored every robot in every match looking for indications of the bug. On several occasions he radioed me (the lead robot inspector) to ask that one of the inspectors or someone from pit administration visit the pit of a team whose robot had exhibited a symptom of the bug on the field. Tom also personally visited several pits to provide the most current fix as of that time. To my knowledge every team that responded to Tom's advice or sought help with the bug got some resolution.

My own team suffered a recurrence of the bug two weeks later at Waterloo; it was our fault -- we left the primary laptop on the bus and reloaded code from our backup laptop, which didn't have the bug fixed yet. Cost us a match due to crazy autonomous, just as you described above.

KarenH

01-05-2006, 18:19

1.) Inviting the public?

There were some FIRST banners installed along International Blvd. However, I think most people assume when they see such banners that the event will cost money.

The small sign near the Georgia Dome was not enough, because sightseers visiting downtown Atlanta won't get any closer than the CNN Center, which is at least two city blocks away. Signs in Centennial Park could have been very effective; there were crowds of people there, even on Friday. The only signs in Centennial Park stated that there would be no Dome tours due to an event. It would have been better if those signs also stated that the event had free admission.

I have a question, though-- Do we really want to advertise to the public? It would be great if we got more spectators who are generally interested in seeing the robots compete. But I wouldn't want certain types of people to come--namely those who would be more interested in making off with unattended laptops, cameras, and other valuable equipment. The other problem is that, the more people you invite to the pits, the harder it is to enforce the safety glasses requirement. Plus, the pits can get crowded. This was such a problem in Phoenix on Saturday morning that an announcement was made that the pits were off-limits to anyone but team members.

2.) The length of the closing ceremonies-- Last year, many people noticed how long some of the speeches dragged on. As I recall, it didn't end until after 7:00. This year, I actually kept checking my watch--and noting the times. Only one speech was over 5 minutes long, and that was from a legislator who only spoke 9 minutes. However, the closing ceremonies still lasted until about 7:00--an hour past the scheduled ending time, and a half hour taken from the expensive team social.

What took up the extra time, since the speeches were shorter? How could this be improved for next year?
--I think the closing started late, but by less than a half hour. (Hard to avoid if the division championships end late.)
--That circus act with the lights was confusing and annoying to many. Maybe it is a bona fide warning about next year's game, but it could have been shorter. If it was only a joke, we could have done without it.
--Perhaps the award presentations could have been shortened slightly. (Segways loaned to the recipients so they can get to the stage faster? :D )

Pat Fairbank

01-05-2006, 19:03

IFI rep Tom Watson (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/24006)
My own team suffered a recurrence of the bug two weeks later at Waterloo; it was our fault -- we left the primary laptop on the bus and reloaded code from our backup laptop, which didn't have the bug fixed yet. Cost us a match due to crazy autonomous, just as you described above.
Oh man... the same thing happened to us on Saturday. Having never experienced the 8.3 bug before, we figured it wouldn't happen to us, and I had heard an IFI rep saying that teams who had never encountered the bug shouldn't need to use the fix. Mistake! Our robot was incapacitated during one of the Archimedes final rounds (or was it the semi-finals?) and we lost the match. Luckily, we were able to bounce back and win the rest of our matches.

GeorgeTheEng

01-05-2006, 22:48

There was some large confusion in the stands prior to the finals with regard to which sections were reserved. The result was that I saw at least one full section cleared and teams that thought they had nice seats ended up being send to the far end of pluto for a seat since by then lmost everyone was seated. Had they indicated they were reserved in some stronger way maybe that would not have happened...

Other then that, it was a great event...

Oh yeah, the VEX Challenge needed more judges! (Hey, I only got the judge advisor position Monday morning... I had no chance to get more...)

TimCraig

01-05-2006, 23:44

To my knowledge every team that responded to Tom's advice or sought help with the bug got some resolution.

Well, the 8.2v bug wasn't the only problem with the 8722 controller. There was a general unreliability in the interrupt system. I've not had a chance to check if those really went away with the fixes but I do know that there were still timer problems even with all the fixes applied. We used timers as part of our speedometer system. No, speed control, no control in general.

Peter Matteson

02-05-2006, 07:56

Fire Hatch.

National Instruments gave us Labview why not try to get them to do the field control. They have a vested interest in making sure it works right because many of us (sponsoring companies) are large customers of them. They could use the whole thing as a demo of how to use NI software and data acquisition hardware.

Also it's time to start adding scholarships for the students that have non-engineering functions on the team. We need to start getting scholarships for marketing, business, animation, etc. FIRST has grown beyond just engineering/science at this point.

Last but not least how about a non-engineering equivalent of the WFA on the national stage. There are many people in the program who deserve to be recognized for their work that don't get nominated for WFA because they have no engineering function. The closest thing there is is the regional volunteer of the year award which really at this point doesn't have the prestige and national recognition of a WFA.

ahirsch2589

02-05-2006, 11:24

first could have a little more security in atlanta... face it, that city is scary

AmyPrib

02-05-2006, 11:28

Also it's time to start adding scholarships for the students that have non-engineering functions on the team. We need to start getting scholarships for marketing, business, animation, etc. FIRST has grown beyond just engineering/science at this point.

Last but not least how about a non-engineering equivalent of the WFA on the national stage. There are many people in the program who deserve to be recognized for their work that don't get nominated for WFA because they have no engineering function. The closest thing there is is the regional volunteer of the year award which really at this point doesn't have the prestige and national recognition of a WFA.

There are scholarships given out to students who aren't specifically going into engineering, but I agree that I don't see many that are geared specifically towards the other competencies.

And, the WFA is not specifically for Engineers. As the award is described, it can really be any mentor on your team. You can nominate any mentor on your team. Teachers have received it before, and not all teachers have engineering background.

MrForbes

02-05-2006, 11:29

1.) Inviting the public?
<snip>
I have a question, though-- Do we really want to advertise to the public? It would be great if we got more spectators who are generally interested in seeing the robots compete. But I wouldn't want certain types of people to come--namely those who would be more interested in making off with unattended laptops, cameras, and other valuable equipment. The other problem is that, the more people you invite to the pits, the harder it is to enforce the safety glasses requirement. Plus, the pits can get crowded. This was such a problem in Phoenix on Saturday morning that an announcement was made that the pits were off-limits to anyone but team members.

These are valid concerns.

Perhaps it would be best to start by inviting schools to attend as a field trip, and giving them a lot of information about the event, and suggestions on what to do, where to go when, etc.

Our team has been discussing this idea for the Arizona regional.

Nimmy

02-05-2006, 13:53

here is my whining for this year (which unfourtently is my last year on FIRST)

to say our team had bad luck on the competition would be an understatement, it went horribly wrong

I think the major problem was the fact our robot was damaged in shipping, and that when my team came to uncrate the bot, the crate was SOAKED in water, all the fuses were brunt (but luckily none of the engines\victors\spiked), on our sister israeli team I think the victors or spikes also got fried...

if you were in the newton divsion, first off team #1577 would like to thank any and all who didn't mind us occupying the practice field for so long, as we needed to make some heavey repairs (and thanks manny for authorizing it!!!),

robots damaged in shipping is a big problem, but to get a crate soaked in water? that's just unprofessional work

the other issue I think that needs to be adressed is the rematches
our robot didn't work for an entire game, a game that was an easy win (to say the least)

IFI agreed with us that the problem was with THEM and not US, and yet we didn't get neither a rematch nor qualifying points, or any compinsation for that matter...

we worked terribly hard during the build season and to come all the way to the US from Israel is no easy feat, I know we are only a second year team, but there are some major issues that need to be adressed, especialy shipping and rematches

other then that, team #1577 would like to thank all of those who helped us out with tool back-up batteries and even a CART!, also thanks to Jon and Greg for all your help

if you don't know who I am, im the guy who ran from newton field to the pit and back in 3 minutes =) (don't forget your autonemous guys!)

Tristan Lall

02-05-2006, 14:05

the other issue I think that needs to be adressed is the rematches
our robot didn't work for an entire game, a game that was an easy win (to say the least)

IFI agreed with us that the problem was with THEM and not US, and yet we didn't get neither a rematch nor qualifying points, or any compinsation for that matter...What was the issue that caused your robot not to work? Was it an on-field problem (e.g. the IFI radios weren't talking to your OI via the competition port) or was it an internal glitch (e.g. bad fuse on the RC)? FIRST is specific about only awarding rematches for field failures—while IFI might have admitted fault with respect to some on-robot issue, it isn't grounds for a rematch.

But with respect to qualifying points, you should have received whatever your alliance received, unless you were disqualified for some other reason. If that was overlooked, you definitely should have contacted the head referee, and arranged to check the scoring database for the error.

Tetraman

02-05-2006, 14:20

first could have a little more security in atlanta... face it, that city is scary

When I went a year ago, I felt safer in Atlanta than I did in Syracuse, in fact our whole team did. It could be just us...

As for scholarships in other fields, I will have to agree fully. I want to get into the Arts, and I know that painting and drawing are half way around the world when it comes to what FIRST stands for, but for being a partisipant in the area of leadership and team spirit being so close to my chosen profrssion (Teaching Art). It's just harder for an Art student to be recognized for being in a technologly-filled activity and to recieve money that is usually designed to be given to Tech students.

Nimmy

02-05-2006, 14:25

it was a problem with the radio (don't know the specifics), and the IFI guy told me that the only was I couldve gotten a re-match was right after the game contacting the referee, which I did, but at that time IFI didn't know wether the problem was with us or them, only after the IFI rep came to our pit and we checked it out they said the problem was with them and not us, and then he told me that he is sorry but the only way I couldve gotten a re-match was talking to the head ref after the match

catch 21?

I'd say

Alan Anderson

02-05-2006, 14:26

I can think of only three issues that I'd count as real negatives:

The overlapping timing of the Woodie Flowers Award ceremony with other events needs to be addressed.
The placement of the confetti balloons during the closing ceremony blocked some people's view of parts of the field.
The reserved seating for the Einstein finals teams was badly handled.

I also didn't see any reason for the large entranceway at the most convenient corner of the pit to be blocked off with a guard posted.

I do have one other minor personal peeve. In my opinion, escalators shouldn't be used as rest stops. They become major bottlenecks when people stop walking and just stand on them. If everyone would just keep moving, about twice as many people could get through in a given time.

Ed Sparks

02-05-2006, 14:32

the other issue I think that needs to be adressed is the rematches. our robot didn't work for an entire game, a game that was an easy win (to say the least)

IFI agreed with us that the problem was with THEM and not US, and yet we didn't get neither a rematch nor qualifying points, or any compinsation for that matter...

Nimmy,

I understand the frustration your team experienced concerning the damage to your robot and I commend you guys for dealing with the extra work and competing on time. I was the guy in the jungle hat that was helping your team (at your request) with your perceived controller problems. I was volunteering (at IFI's request) as an IFI troubleshooter. I don't remember ever stating that the problem you were experiencing was definitely with the IFI hardware and not with your hardware. In fact, I believe we resolved the issue when I accompanied your team to one of your matches and discovered you guys were not using your back up battery. There were many things that happened to many teams that appeared to be communications related but were in fact other things (breakers tripping, bad code, bad wiring, low battery voltage, etc.).

The bottom line is: There will never be any "compensation" given to teams for matches that don't go well for them. There just isn't time to deal with an appeal process. Sometimes things go better than they should (like a missed penalty flag at your expense) and sometimes you get a bad break (like a mysterious no start). It all evens out in the end and all the teams have to deal with these issues equally.

Madison

02-05-2006, 15:45

Okay, everything that was once in this thread is again in this thread. Sorry for the mix up. Nothing to see here. Move along.

KarenH

03-05-2006, 22:36

I do have one other minor personal peeve. In my opinion, escalators shouldn't be used as rest stops. They become major bottlenecks when people stop walking and just stand on them. If everyone would just keep moving, about twice as many people could get through in a given time.
I'm glad that you're in good physical shape, and can climb stairs and escalators without trouble. May you remain healthy all your life, and never have joint, respiratory, or other problems that would keep you from using stairs! Not everyone has these advantages.

If you didn't like the wait, there was was at least one place in the GWCC where you could have used stairs instead. Then you wouldn't have had to wait for those of us who have less than perfect health, or who were almost too tired to stand up. :(

By the way, escalators were designed for standing on, not walking on. The height of the steps, and the change in step height at each end of the escalator, create safety challenges for many people. Please do not expect everyone to compromise their safety to satisfy your impatience.

Karthik

04-05-2006, 02:24

I do have one other minor personal peeve. In my opinion, escalators shouldn't be used as rest stops. They become major bottlenecks when people stop walking and just stand on them. If everyone would just keep moving, about twice as many people could get through in a given time.

By the way, escalators were designed for standing on, not walking on. The height of the steps, and the change in step height at each end of the escalator, create safety challenges for many people. Please do not expect everyone to compromise their safety to satisfy your impatience.

I agree with both of you. Alan, there's nothing more frustrating that being in a rush on an escalator and being caught behind standers. Karen, I agree sometimes you just need a rest. Compromise: most escalators are two people wide. "Walk left, Stand right". They actually pump this out over the PA system on the Toronto subways. We could have used some of those announcements in Atlanta.

MikeDubreuil

04-05-2006, 18:32

I think this year has marked a low point in FIRST history. The year where FIRST showed that they truly do not care about their primary customer: the teams. FIRST demonstrated incredible negligence with the field scoring system and ranking software.

First week regionals should not have major software issues. Every regional should consistently be good. It is not appropriate for teams to pay their money and get a worse experience simply because software was poorly tested. It is not acceptable to “shake out the bugs” at early regionals. Shame on FIRST for allowing this to happen. In the business world, the real world, this amount of negligence would not be acceptable.

It is quite ironic that this years game is called Aim High when FIRST obviously does not set the same standard for themselves. It should be no wonder to FIRST why the team retention rate is dropping with each passing year. They have isolated teams by not embracing us as customers.

Although this post may seem quite negative I do think there is one positive to the year. We still inspired high school students. FIRST may have alienated mentors the most this year out of any other but this mentor will be back next year. I just hope FIRST will “get it” next year.

Alan Anderson

04-05-2006, 20:10

...FIRST demonstrated incredible negligence with the field scoring system and ranking software...
I expect there are many people even within FIRST who share that opinion. Try not to worry about it too much, and just hope that the people with the power to correct the problem listen to the people who know that it's a problem.

JamesBrown

04-05-2006, 20:54

Alright, I thought about this a bit and am ready to post, as a disclaimer I loved ever thing about this year, both regionals we went to were fabulous and Championships were also alot of fun.

Scoring system- I refuse to bash FIRST on this topic, yes it was flawed, yes it could be confusing but overall it was far better than last years scoring system. I was at a week 1 regional and must say I had more good experiences with it than bad ones. Give them time, FIRST will have automatic scoring figured out by next year.

Foot traffic in Atlanta- I don't think it was FIRST making these calls but rather the GWCC, it was a little bit more difficult than necessary to get to the dome from the pits and Vice Versa.

IFI- Can't say anything negative about the people, the IFI reps in Boston and Manchester were fabulous. One thing they could improve would be in the event of another problem like the 8.2v bug have Regional Staff call a meeting for the programmers, the drivers many times don't know what they are talking about when it comes to programming. I heard about the fix when my driver told me "they said some thing about putting a word in the code to fix the battery problem", Luckily the IFI guys were a little more helpful.

Spare Parts- IF possible when regional organizers assign volunteer positions try to have the spare parts person be some one knowledgeable about the control systems, many times when you go to ask for or about something they don't know what you mean. This isn't necessary but would be a bonus.

Radio Control - at regionals, especially those in larger venues it would be great if they could set up an area to run the robot without the tether, at Manchester we had problems with our controls that the IFI rep had never seen, I couldn't isolate the problem because it only happened under radio control (ie in practice matches) Eventually the machine shop guys gave us space and power to try to run every thing under radio control this allowed us to isolate the problem and to fix it.

This is all I can think of now, as far as I am concerned FIRST has not even approached Failing us and I am a bit disgusted when people suggest they have, sure there is room for improvement and please try to keep the criticism constructive. FIRST in no way deserves to be bashed they give us way more than we pay for in materials alone, the experience is a bonus, don't bash them , offer advice and then take things as they come. FIRST improves every year and this year was no exception.

Cory

04-05-2006, 21:31

ebarker

05-05-2006, 11:15

Kevin Sevcik

05-05-2006, 11:36

We didn't have autonomous mode working for the first few matchs because we determined that when in that mode, pwm10 came out on the pwm09 pin, but then acted normally in the non-auto mode.

Yes, of course we should have determined that before the match, but ...

This years controller wasn't impressive.
I was rather impressed with the extra memory available this year. And the controller was/is flexible enough to do a lot of neat things. Our team used one of the digital ins to measure an encoder firing at 50kHz. Or we would have if the mechanical team hadn't broken the high resolution encoder. We didn't have any problems aside from the 8.2V bug.

At any rate, assuming your code is correct, that would be a very serious error in the master controller program. I'm having some difficulty believing an error like that could show up, but if it's there, you could do the entire FIRST community much good by posting it to IFI's forum so they can fix the problem

MikeDubreuil

05-05-2006, 12:27

I think you need to differentiate between FIRST and Hatch. Hatch was responsible for the scoring software.

Now you can definitely hold FIRST responsible for keeping Hatch onboard, after their piss-poor performance last year. If they aren't fired for their incompetence this year, something is seriously wrong.
You can hold FIRST accountable for all the problems I spoke of because of their lack of system integration testing. They should have held their own tests where they run 50 matches and make sure everything works from a ball sensor to the final ranking. FIRST should do the system testing themselves on their own time. Not on my time during the first week of regionals.

If FIRST had done system integration testing…

They would have realized the center goal could only hold too few balls before clogging. Specifically, balls bouncing out and other balls in the goal not moving down the chute and scoring. This was not “part of the challenge” it was a lack of testing.
They would have realized the numerous issues with the corner goal scoring software. Specifically the issue where the software would inaccurately count the number of balls if the corner goal was filled with balls.
They would have realized the ranking software wasn’t ranking teams properly. Specifically, the challenge of manually changing match results in order to affect rank.
The game and all of its related systems were never properly system tested. Teams attending early regionals were forced to endure the pain of that.

Starke

05-05-2006, 12:31

They would have realized the center goal could only hold too few balls before clogging. Specifically, balls bouncing out and other balls in the goal not moving down the chute and scoring. This was not “part of the challenge” it was a lack of testing.

we saw the balls bouncing back out of the center goal as part of the challenge. we realized that we needed to make the robot able to shoot off center of the goal. this allows the balls to hit the back of the goal at an angle and stay in the goal. that kind of the problem is just part of the challenge of the game, not poor planning/testing by FIRST.

Tristan Lall

05-05-2006, 12:43

They would have realized the center goal could only hold too few balls before clogging. Specifically, balls bouncing out and other balls in the goal not moving down the chute and scoring. This was not “part of the challenge” it was a lack of testing.
I wouldn't say that it wasn't part of the challenge, because teams were informed in the rules that balls bouncing out wouldn't be counted. Whether or not FIRST realized that so many balls would bounce out of the centre goal is another question, however.

MikeDubreuil

05-05-2006, 12:57

I wouldn't say that it wasn't part of the challenge, because teams were informed in the rules that balls bouncing out wouldn't be counted. Whether or not FIRST realized that so many balls would bounce out of the centre goal is another question, however.

My feeling is that you're "kind of right." Without question a ball entering the goal with a low enough velocity would bounce of the lose chains.

The problem is that the center goal was poorly designed. The goal clogs way to easily, 2 balls could clog it. If the center goal was 1 foot higher and the balls had a steeper ramp to move down the clogging problem would have been avoided. It was clogging that caused so many balls to bounce out of the goal. It was clogging that required a field attendant to poke at the center goal to move the balls along.

I would eat my socks if the game designers intended for the goal to clog so easilly. That's not "part of the challenge" it was poorly designed and then never tested.

Richard Wallace

05-05-2006, 12:59

You can hold FIRST accountable for all the problems I spoke of because of their lack of system integration testing. They should have held their own tests where they run 50 matches and make sure everything works from a ball sensor to the final ranking. FIRST should do the system testing themselves on their own time. Not on my time during the first week of regionals. ...The need for system integration testing is a direct consequence of novel game features; e.g., dynamic scoring in 2006 as opposed to static post-match scoring in all previous games. The only practical approach to system integration testing would be to build several (at least six) robots with a variety of capabilities and run trial matches. This would require significant resources both material and human, and would have to be conducted in secret to avoid spoiling the game for us participants. Of course the resources FIRST would spend on this would be unavailable for other things.

Or FIRST could reduce the need for such testing by repeating game elements, or whole games, that have worked in the past.

I'll take the technical difficulties, as the price of getting a new game to play every year.

Tristan Lall

05-05-2006, 13:34

Kevin Sevcik

05-05-2006, 17:10

The need for system integration testing is a direct consequence of novel game features; e.g., dynamic scoring in 2006 as opposed to static post-match scoring in all previous games. The only practical approach to system integration testing would be to build several (a least six) robots with a variety of capabilities and run trial matches. This would require significant resources both material and human, and would have to be conducted in secret to avoid spoiling the game for us participants. Of course the resources FIRST would spend on this would be unavailable for other things.

Or FIRST could reduce the need for such testing by repeating game elements, or whole games, that have worked in the past.

I'll take the technical difficulties, as the price of getting a new game to play every year.I think a lot of testing could be conducted with 6 volunteers and 6 borrowed robots from prior years. The robots don't have to do all the scoring. You can just have the people throw balls in, or put a rather simple dumper on a robot and run it into the corner goal and dump in a ton of balls. Or just plain run into the corner goal. That alone would've revealed the 1000+ points issue. And a crew of a few people throwing at the center goal would've revealed the ball jamming issue.

All physical testing aside... The absolute LEAST someone could have done is sat down in front of the Hatch scoring software and made up numbers for an hour or so to simulate a regional. That was just as true last year as it was this year. The display and ranking problems weren't quite as severe this year, but if we're not learning from our mistakes, I think we're in trouble.

Richard Wallace

05-05-2006, 17:24

All physical testing aside... The absolute LEAST someone could have done is sat down in front of the Hatch scoring software and made up numbers for an hour or so to simulate a regional. That was just as true last year as it was this year. The display and ranking problems weren't quite as severe this year, but if we're not learning from our mistakes, I think we're in trouble.I certainly agree that relatively simple testing of the scoring software could have revealed many of the problems that caused delays at several regionals.

dlavery

05-05-2006, 19:50

My feeling is that you're "kind of right." Without question a ball entering the goal with a low enough velocity would bounce of the lose chains.

The problem is that the center goal was poorly designed. The goal clogs way to easily, 2 balls could clog it. If the center goal was 1 foot higher and the balls had a steeper ramp to move down the clogging problem would have been avoided. It was clogging that caused so many balls to bounce out of the goal. It was clogging that required a field attendant to poke at the center goal to move the balls along.

I would eat my socks if the game designers intended for the goal to clog so easilly. That's not "part of the challenge" it was poorly designed and then never tested.
Take off your shoes and start chewing.

Like almost everything, the design of the center goal is a compromise between multiple, oft-conflicting, constraints. There is an excellent reason why the goal could not be one foot higher. There is also an excellent reason that the diameter of the opening at the bottom of the ramp had to be what it was. The opening in the face of the goal and the impact-absorption chains performed as intended, consistent with the ball-retention performance experienced during testing. Were they all perfect? No. But were they the best-possible compromise for an over-constrained problem. There is certainly an argument that says this is the case.

While you are gnawing on your tube socks, I would challenge you to identify as many of the potential constraints as you can. I am not going to give you the answers on this one - I want you to think about the problem yourself and ponder all the things that have to be considered when designing a game field. Remember, you need try to address every possible concern that may be raised by 1135 teams. Some will be building their field in their school shop, some in a corporate facility, some in a parent's garage, some in a spare warehouse, and some in a classroom. Some will have enough room to build an entire field; some will need to pack up every available component away in a closet every night. Some will have access to a full machine shop for constructing the field, some will be hard pressed to have more than a hammer and hand drill. But be assured that every one of them will feel that they have a unique issue or situation that will require special consideration when designing the field.

And when you are finished creating what will be a very long list of constraints, you can share it with all of us. THEN we can have a discussion about how you have developed an improvement to the "poorly designed" center goal that satisfies all those constraints.

If this post comes through with a little bit of an irritated tone, then I have communicated correctly. I have no problem in the world if someone wants to stand up and say "I am a customer, and I believe that I have not been properly supported due to item #1, #2, #3..." In fact, I will be right at the front of the line to give you a soapbox to stand upon, and will hold the microphone for you. But when the tone changes to "I am the customer - and you are all a bunch of idiots that don't have a flippin' clue and can't tell the difference between a drill bit and a post-hole digger, and you should be ashamed that you are still breathing" then I begin to take exception. If you want to offer CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, you will always receive my full support. But when it devolves to a thread full of denigration and condescension, as this one has, then you have crossed the line of acceptability as far as I am concerned.

-dave

BobC

05-05-2006, 21:21

Billfred

05-05-2006, 21:52

I think with the design of the center goal the design team did not think that there would 10 to 20 balls at a time shot into the center goal. As far as the bottom goal goes I did see robots that could herd 20 or more balls and drop them in the bottom goal real fast. It may be that the robot designers out smarted the field design team. I am sure the field design and scoring design teams thought about almost all possible scenarios.
I'd re-read Dave's post above before saying such things. I'll bet dollars to donuts that the GDC thought that there would be teams that would shoot 20 balls into the center goal. (It goes back to the age-old question: "What would Beatty do?")

But just as we'd all like to have a robot with the ability to hold 80 balls and deliver them into the center goal in 1.293 seconds, the GDC has limits on what it can do. The goals have to be durable, safe, portable, able to be wedged into a FIRST field box (look carefully, and you'll see that they reuse those boxes--many of them in 2005 still wore the older FIRST logo), assembled and disassembled quickly with hand tools (and perhaps a drill with a driver bit), and easily replicated with things you can find at Lowe's so that teams can build their own. Add all that (and probably about 116 different more that I've missed) together, and I wish you the best of luck in building a goal that can do all of that together.

MikeDubreuil

06-05-2006, 11:14

Take off your shoes and start chewing.
Dave I do believe I offered constructive criticism. My constructive criticism was that system tests would have avoided many of the problems that occurred and were fixed during the regionals. Simple tests, such as “what happens if I fill the goal with balls?”

I'm certainly not telling the guy who's responsible for the Mars Exploration Program that he's an idiot. I believe it's one of the best NASA programs since the Shuttle program. I also do like this year's game. It's my favorite game since 2000.

I simply refuse to believe that there was a design requirement for the center goal to clog. Nor do I believe that the center goal could not have been designed any other way to avoid clogging. My idea to move the goal 1 foot higher is one of many ideas to fix the goal clogging problem.

The goal clogging problem is serious because it adds a 4th alliance partner- the field volunteers . If a volunteer on one end of the field is better at poking balls down the chute than the other side than that side of the field has an advantage. Their center goals could be cleared faster allowing them to clog the goal with balls sooner. The game should not have that type of unfairness built into it.

BBnum3

06-05-2006, 12:44

Here are my thoughts regarding the design of the upper goal:
Make the upper goal twice as deep as it is right now. If the chains were set back a little more balls would not collect right in front of the opening and would not cause other balls to bounce out. There are a couple of ways I can think of to make the scoring system work better. One would be to have two channels for balls to roll down and through the scoring sensor, although if balls got stuck it might be kind of difficult to dislodge them. Another way would be instead of having an automatic counter, have a person with a button that they could push for every ball scored in the upper goal. Error would be quite low, and the system certainly wouldn't fail.

Billfred

06-05-2006, 12:57

Another way would be instead of having an automatic counter, have a person with a button that they could push for every ball scored in the upper goal. Error would be quite low, and the system certainly wouldn't fail.
Oddly enough, this is what FIRST was doing at least since week two (as seen at the Florida Regional). Also not flawless, but the combination of the two systems proved a decent way of handling things. (Actually, the humans were trusted more than the computers in Atlanta in some regards--that's why the timing was changed around following autonomous.)

Madison

06-05-2006, 13:16

Another way would be instead of having an automatic counter, have a person with a button that they could push for every ball scored in the upper goal. Error would be quite low, and the system certainly wouldn't fail.

With many robots dumping a ridiculous amount of balls into the corner goals at a time, it must have been very difficult for the volunteers to get an accurate count of how many balls were coming in. Add to that the potential for as many as six people to be reaching in to remove balls as soon as they come in and it becomes almost impossible for a single person to maintain an accurate count.

Cory

06-05-2006, 15:12

I simply refuse to believe that there was a design requirement for the center goal to clog. Nor do I believe that the center goal could not have been designed any other way to avoid clogging. My idea to move the goal 1 foot higher is one of many ideas to fix the goal clogging problem.

Dave just told us that making the goal higher wasn't an option.

If you have many other suggestions though--let's hear em'

Melissa Nute

06-05-2006, 18:06

The goal clogging problem is serious because it adds a 4th alliance partner- the field volunteers . If a volunteer on one end of the field is better at poking balls down the chute than the other side than that side of the field has an advantage. Their center goals could be cleared faster allowing them to clog the goal with balls sooner. The game should not have that type of unfairness built into it.

I doubt that the clugging of balls in a chute prevented anyone from winning a match. From the matches I've watched, the robots were emptied of balls when they were shooting at the center goal. In the event the center goal was clogged, the volunteer was able to clear the balls by the time the robot had been able to collect more balls to shoot.

Cory

06-05-2006, 18:21

I doubt that the clugging of balls in a chute prevented anyone from winning a match. From the matches I've watched, the robots were emptied of balls when they were shooting at the center goal. In the event the center goal was clogged, the volunteer was able to clear the balls by the time the robot had been able to collect more balls to shoot.

Team 968 had to wait almost 40 seconds to finish shooting their hopper full of balls in an elimination match on Newton, because of how slow the pokey stick guy was.

Not to mention the fact that they knocked numerous balls out of the goal entirely, while trying to get them to fall through the tube.

Not much that could be done about that, though.

Corey Balint

06-05-2006, 19:13

Team 968 had to wait almost 40 seconds to finish shooting their hopper full of balls in an elimination match on Newton, because of how slow the pokey stick guy was.

Not to mention the fact that they knocked numerous balls out of the goal entirely, while trying to get them to fall through the tube.

Not much that could be done about that, though.
I must second Cory on that. I saw it happen many times this season, many times.

BBnum3

06-05-2006, 19:51

With many robots dumping a ridiculous amount of balls into the corner goals at a time, it must have been very difficult for the volunteers to get an accurate count of how many balls were coming in. Add to that the potential for as many as six people to be reaching in to remove balls as soon as they come in and it becomes almost impossible for a single person to maintain an accurate count.

I forgot to clarify that I meant the upper goals, not the lower ones. The lower goal automatic counters seemed a lot more reliable than the upper goal counters. I do agree though, that one person trying to count all of the lower goals scored would have a lot of trouble doing so.

lukevanoort

06-05-2006, 20:01

How about a polycord conveyor or or paddle wheel on the bottom of the goal? It doesn't even have to be motorized, (although that'd be ideal) the dude with a stick could just power it. Sure, it'd be more complex, but I think it could really help the goal out. Our, there could have been two high goals, it'd help the problem and add some more complexity. (Maybe different colored lights?)

Madison

06-05-2006, 20:47

I forgot to clarify that I meant the upper goals, not the lower ones. The lower goal automatic counters seemed a lot more reliable than the upper goal counters. I do agree though, that one person trying to count all of the lower goals scored would have a lot of trouble doing so.

Our experience has been that they are no more accurate than the upper goals.

BiTurboS4

07-05-2006, 19:14

The one definite reason I can tell you why its probably not the best idea, was due to the fact that they designed how the field counted both upper and lower goals in the first place. After helping at one regional and working with the FTA, he explained how it worked and such. I'm not sure how many people realize that. Just my .02$.

National Instruments gave us Labview why not try to get them to do the field control. They have a vested interest in making sure it works right because many of us (sponsoring companies) are large customers of them. They could use the whole thing as a demo of how to use NI software and data acquisition hardware.

Also it's time to start adding scholarships for the students that have non-engineering functions on the team. We need to start getting scholarships for marketing, business, animation, etc. FIRST has grown beyond just engineering/science at this point.

Last but not least how about a non-engineering equivalent of the WFA on the national stage. There are many people in the program who deserve to be recognized for their work that don't get nominated for WFA because they have no engineering function. The closest thing there is is the regional volunteer of the year award which really at this point doesn't have the prestige and national recognition of a WFA.

MikeDubreuil

07-05-2006, 19:54

My point in saying that the goal was poorly designed is not to be elitist about myself being a superior engineer than anyone else. Therefore, I will not offer alternative designs. My point was to say that in engineering there is a process. One of the most important steps in the process of engineering a product for a customer is testing. It's why as mentors we strive to get a robot built by week 5 so the kids have week 6 to test it.

I find it inconceivable that the Game Design Committee hoped the center goal would require human interaction with an automatic computerized scoring system. I think Dave's comments point out a problem with the “big picture” of FIRST. Essentially, he said that there's nothing wrong with goal clogging because there's a set of constraints that cause it to be built in such a way. So I'll assume the GDC did test the center goal and knew the goal would clog during competition.

This year was a rough ride for IFI. There's been two major flaws identified with the Robot Controller. You'd think I would be ready to steam roll them in this thread. I'm not. In fact, I love IFI. When the problem was discovered they worked with teams and were open and honest. They immediately issued a fix for the problems. They were even as kind to monitor the problem as best they could at the regionals and provide on the spot help. I mention IFI here because they gracefully handled a situation where their stuff had problems. As I said above they were open and honest about the problem and immediately and continually offered help. IFI knows who there customers are and treats us right.

I don't think FIRST was nearly as open and honest about the problems with the rank and scoring software. Unlike IFI, FIRST was not prompt with a fix and even at times would refuse to admit there was a problem. (Yes, this did actually happen to my team)

I work tirelessly with my teams to make sure that the students have a robot that they can be proud of and abides to all the FIRST rules. FIRST loves rules. In fact, the rules have gotten more and more detailed. The rules are so stringent that it's possible to be disqualified at an event. What rules does FIRST follow? What happens when FIRST breaks the rules? Does FIRST have a set of standards to which they live by?

Currently the vehicle that gets kids involved in science and technology is in need of repair. As a mentor I invest thousands of hours of my time and my sponsors spend thousands for that vehicle to be in top top shape. Students can not become excited about science and technology when the system that inspires them has become so broken. FIRST does not even follow engineering processes. Field systems are not working as expected. Under my understanding of gracious professionalism it would not be acceptable to not be open and honest about your problems. A center goal clogging is really just the symptom of a major problem FIRST has right now. They do not understand how important a working game is and they do not understand that as customers we expect the vehicle to work.

Lil' Lavery

07-05-2006, 21:29

Our experience has been that they are no more accurate than the upper goals.
I'll second that. I personally enjoyed the time that we managed to score 11 points in the corner goal during autonomous though, that was fun ;)

As for "FIRST being broken", and not following the engineering process, I'd have to object to that. The fact is, it is MUCH harder to design a game, field, scoring system, kit bot, organize 33 regional events, work with corporate sponsors, work on obtaining collegiate scholarships, and the rest of the things that FIRST does, than it is to build a robot.
FIRST has kept the customer in mind alot more than you thought. For instance, the center couldn't have been much taller, or else it wouldn't fit in most indoor facilities, therefor limiting the amount of teams capable of constructing it properly, and able to utilize it for testing even further. In order to be able to conduct MORE testing, they would have to release the "product" (game) after kick-off, and that would generate a ton of more problems than a not-perfect center goal, or an annoying scoring system. Yeah, the scoring system sucked this year, no hiding that. Nobody enjoyed that 40 minute break we took during week 1 as FIRST attempted to fix it (except for the teams that needed to work on their robots). But it could have been much much worse. It still produced accurate scores for a majority of the matches (at least a majority of the matches I witnessed). Do you honestly think that the game would be even close to this good (however good you interpret that to be) without a significant amount of testing?
Personally, I would count my blessings. Yeah, FIRST, like anything, can always be better, but as it is now, it is nowhere near "broken". If you ask every single student who attended a FIRST competition this year to give you their comments, I doubt any more than 5% would say a word about the scoring system. Not just the students on CD, not just about their negatives this year, just ask them. In fact, in discussion with my teammates, they have said that they loved the real-time scoring so much, they would gladly tolerate the faulty scoring system to have it. It just makes the game more exciting.

MikeDubreuil

08-05-2006, 07:36

As for "FIRST being broken", and not following the engineering process, I'd have to object to that. The fact is, it is MUCH harder to design a game, field, scoring system, kit bot, organize 33 regional events, work with corporate sponsors, work on obtaining collegiate scholarships, and the rest of the things that FIRST does, than it is to build a robot.
No one doubts that managind FIRST is more difficult than being in FIRST. Are you suggesting that since I'm on the robot side my concerns are not valid?

Your list of things FIRST does is not accurate. The regionals are organized by volunteers. The kitbot is created by IFI. Very little work at the FIRST level is involved in obtaining college scholarships.

The most important thing FIRST does is create a game. I'll he honest and say that I don't know how the Game Design Comitte works. The scoring system and ranking software is subcontracted out.

FIRST needs to concentrate on the game and keeping subcontractors in check. A final system integration is in order to determine if everything will work.

FIRST has kept the customer in mind alot more than you thought. For instance, the center couldn't have been much taller, or else it wouldn't fit in most indoor facilities, therefor limiting the amount of teams capable of constructing it properly, and able to utilize it for testing even further.

At approximately 11 feet heigh the field already won't fit into many regular rooms. There's a big difference between what the teams need to create to simulate the field and what FIRST should create for a production field. This year a piece of plywood with a hole in it was enough to simulate the center goal. I would expect FIRST could create a much more advanced solution.

In order to be able to conduct MORE testing, they would have to release the "product" (game) after kick-off, and that would generate a ton of more problems than a not-perfect center goal, or an annoying scoring system.

That might hint at a problem with how FIRST handles game design. I work year round. FIRST should too. They have 7 months to design, build and test a game and field. What does FIRST do between now and January that is more imprtant than creating a new game?

If you ask every single student who attended a FIRST competition this year to give you their comments, I doubt any more than 5% would say a word about the scoring system.
This would completely cooberate my feeling that FIRST was not open and honest about the software problems.

Alan Anderson

08-05-2006, 07:54

...The most important thing FIRST does is create a game...
If that's what you believe, then I understand your frustration with the results. It's no wonder that you find fault with FIRST's execution of their job. But if you look around, you'll probably notice that many people understand FIRST's job quite differently -- including those who actually work for (and directly with) FIRST.

FIRST is not about robots. It's not even about robot games. It's about promoting engineering as an exciting field. It's about Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, through collaborations between education and industry, students and mentors, schools and communities, companies, teams, and individuals. The robots are just a convenient (and entertaining) point of focus for people's attention.

Kevin Sevcik

08-05-2006, 10:09

So I see I've stumbled across the 2006 Season - We hate the upper goal thread.....

Seriously though. Dave just pointed out the ridiculously complicated design problem that is the center goal. It has to cushion shots, funnel balls, count balls, be easily assembled, be no taller than 10.5', be no wider than 6', not get in the way of human players, support a vision target, not be over balanced so it might fall over, not be prone to breakdowns, etc. etc. It's a terribly overconstrained problem. When you start adding in things like "not jam when 20 balls are fired at it in 10 seconds" you just can't do it. Mike says he's not confident enough in his engineering to propose an alternative design. I suspect there aren't many that would meet the design criteria.

Conveyors would breakdown (in the middle of a match) and genereate complaints of over complication. Increasing the depth of the goal would require additional supports that would have gotten in the way of human players. Lowering the goal's bottom would've impeded the team in the middle. Just look at the lengths hopper teams needed to go to to prevent jamming and see how hard it would be to adapt them to the goal.

The GDC does a heck of a job designing a game and field every year. I challenge anyone here that has a problem with the field to spend some time trying to design a game just for a Vex bot. I've done a simple one and it wasn't nearly as easy as I thought. Then work up fully dimensioned drawings and rules. If you want, email it all to me and I'll point out the glaring flaws I've decided I can see in it. Then multiply that by 10 time the size and 1000 teams and you might have a better grasp of the difficulties here. Personally, I don't know how the GDC manages to convince themselves to do it every year.

*Steps down from soapbox*

Ahem. Sooo... On to my actual criticisms and suggestions. I'll note that since I didn't attend nationals, I haven't thought about the game in long enough that I've forgotten most of my complaints. Which just goes to show how trivial most of them must have been.

Scoring software - Yeah, it's already been covered to death. More testing would be the easiest fix. I'm sure you can grab some mentors or students to punch numbers in during the first week or two of build season.

Field robustness - Yes, I'm probably contradicting myself. But the GDC should probably plan on the robots running full tilt into most field pieces, as I understand that was one of the issues with the camera.

Camera target - I have no idea what was going on, but our camera worked flawlessly on a practice field, but hated the on-field vision targets. Could we go back to the super free-form practice matches? Or have a camera calibration party on the field Thursday night after practice matches but before the pits close? Yes, I am assuming the camera makes a triumphant return. It's nifty enough that I think it'd be a good idea.

Spare parts - Bring back the Small Parts desk! LSR has a Spare Parts desk with nuts, bolts, pins, etc. It's funded by the regional, doesn't cost that much to restock every year, and helps lots. I humbly suggest that every regional needs one.

Practice field - Is there enough room on the trucks to ship official-style practice field components? The wooden replicas everyone ends up with are useful, but not as useful as an actual field.

AV - Possibly the video directors need to be clued in more about things. Watching alliance picking webcasts from nationals, some of the directors didn't know the alliance picking screens were available for about 10 minutes.

Music - I don't know where the DJs come from, but LSR had to listen to 15 minutes of 70's and 80's TV show themes on Saturday morning. I didn't really believe it until the campy Batman theme faded in. Thumbs up on starting Friday with Thunderstruck, however.

Umm.. and that's it. Overall the season went really well. No "gotcha" rule changes in between ship and the 1st regional, and no people getting knocked in the head with tetras, so we're obviously learning here. The scoring problems were understandably annoying, but I think these sorts of problems are being worked on and we've commenced beating compost that used to be a horse there.

Kevin Sevcik

08-05-2006, 10:34

Sorry, just fully read Mike's post and I have to point a few things out.
Your list of things FIRST does is not accurate. The regionals are organized by volunteers. The kitbot is created by IFI. Very little work at the FIRST level is involved in obtaining college scholarships.Your list is wrong as well. Most regionals are, in fact, organized by FIRST staffers. Who did you think the Regional Directors were? Even the volunteer RDs work closely with FIRST in NH to pull off a regional. A LOT more goes into regional planning than any FIRST team sees, and it's the RD's job to keep it that way.
At approximately 11 feet heigh the field already won't fit into many regular rooms. There's a big difference between what the teams need to create to simulate the field and what FIRST should create for a production field. This year a piece of plywood with a hole in it was enough to simulate the center goal. I would expect FIRST could create a much more advanced solution.I don't even want to think about the complaints there would be if FIRST had a fancy goal clearing system and only 10 teams could afford to replicate it.
That might hint at a problem with how FIRST handles game design. I work year round. FIRST should too. They have 7 months to design, build and test a game and field. What does FIRST do between now and January that is more imprtant than creating a new game?I don't know what to tell you if you think the GDC isn't already working feverishly on the next game. You've already commented that you don't know how they work. If you don't think it takes every day of the 7 months they have to design a game, test it, balance it, design and draw a field, and build the field for kickoff.... Well I don't know what to tell you. Just think about how long it would take you to produce the drawings in the Arena section of the documents. As for what's more important.... Little things like fundraising, finding regional and national venues, running Team Forums, and generally making sure the FIRST is still around next year.

MikeDubreuil

08-05-2006, 12:50

So I see I've stumbled across the 2006 Season - We hate the upper goal thread.....
From my perspective, this thread is about the negative parts of FIRST in the 2006 season. The center goal just happens to be just one problem of a larger issue.
Mike says he's not confident enough in his engineering to propose an alternative design.
I certianly DID NOT say that. I said that I wouldn't design one because that's not what's important. In fact, it would be a waste of time re-designing the center goal. My main concern was that when grouped with the field collectively it looks like 1 more system that did not follow an engineering process.

The GDC does a heck of a job designing a game and field every year.
I would agree. I like this years game in theory and mostly in execution. It just needed more testing.

I haven't thought about the game in long enough that I've forgotten most of my complaints. Which just goes to show how trivial most of them must have been.

Believe me, if you were in New Hampshire on the first weekend and burned by the problems you would not forget.

Scoring software - Yeah, it's already been covered to death. More testing would be the easiest fix.
A lack of testing is a sign that FIRST does not follow a process for designing the field. This is critical factor in my major complaint with FIRST.

MikeDubreuil

08-05-2006, 13:00

Your list is wrong as well. Most regionals are, in fact, organized by FIRST staffers. Who did you think the Regional Directors were? Even the volunteer RDs work closely with FIRST in NH to pull off a regional. A LOT more goes into regional planning than any FIRST team sees, and it's the RD's job to keep it that way.
I was in fact in daily conversations with people on the Boston regional planning comitte. The vast majority of the people on that board were not paid by FIRST. As a rookie regional one would think that more FIRST staffers were involved but this is not the case. Maybe other regionals get more FIRST support, I would be suprised considering it was a rookie regional.

I don't even want to think about the complaints there would be if FIRST had a fancy goal clearing system and only 10 teams could afford to replicate it.
I was going to mention it before but the center goal clogging issue reminded me of 2004 and the ball dumping mechanism. Teams didn't make that. It wasn't necessary to a practice field. Neither is the ball collection of this year. That year the dumper had problems and wasn't fixed until several weeks into the competition season.

I don't know what to tell you if you think the GDC isn't already working feverishly on the next game. You've already commented that you don't know how they work. If you don't think it takes every day of the 7 months they have to design a game, test it, balance it, design and draw a field, and build the field for kickoff.... Well I don't know what to tell you.
I know what to tell them. They need more time. Perhaps 2 game design committes working on games. It's part of my main issue that FIRST does not understand how important the game is to the program.

I wish I could elaborate now but I'm out of time. I'll respond back tonight as to why the game is so important and why it needs all the attention.

evelyn1503

08-05-2006, 13:06

PIT TRAFICK!!!!!!!!!!!

Jessica Boucher

08-05-2006, 13:51

I think we've beaten to death concerns about the scoring system, as well as game design, and we've given FIRST a lot of great ideas to build upon. Don't forget about the upcoming team forums as well, as these are also great places to voice these concerns.

Is there anything else?

Matt Krass

08-05-2006, 17:50

The only thing that I can still think of was the fact that it seemed like the schedule changed on me everything I checked it, at least regarding workshops, I could have sworn I had one in the morning :)

I could also be senile.

Also, to the best of my knowledge, speed checks were not required at most events (I don't believe they did it for the Championship either, but I may be wrong, somebody know for certain?) during inspection. I definitely think this should have been a mandatory part of inspection.

Richard Wallace

08-05-2006, 18:10

Also, to the best of my knowledge, speed checks were not required at most events (I don't believe they did it for the Championship either, but I may be wrong, somebody know for certain?) during inspection. I definitely think this should have been a mandatory part of inspection.There was a lot of CD discussion on this topic early in the season, then more after teams and volunteers started getting some experience at regionals. My opinions on the subject were expressed in a couple of threads back then.

For now I'll just link to a post describing the procedure (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=479627#post479627) we used to check <S02> muzzle velocity limit compliance at St. Louis. Checking muzzle velocity for all shooters would not have been feasible (IMO) and would not have ensured 100% compliance even if feasible. The head referee's judgment was the right way to enforce <S02>.

Tristan Lall

08-05-2006, 18:29

Also, to the best of my knowledge, speed checks were not required at most events (I don't believe they did it for the Championship either, but I may be wrong, somebody know for certain?) during inspection. I definitely think this should have been a mandatory part of inspection.At Waterloo, GTR and the Championship, we only tested robots that drew the attention of the head referees. It would have been a logistical problem to test everyone, because there often wasn't enough space to conduct a proper test, and even then, it's a labour-intensive and time-consuming process.

The trouble with the whole speed test business is that it's ridiculously easy to cheat—the speed test only catches the ones who want to be caught.

Matt Krass

08-05-2006, 18:39

Alright it's been pointed out that it would not be very feasible to test everyone, so I rescind that statement, thanks for the clarity, I don't know what inspections are like from the other side.

That about clears up my beefs then, good job FIRST, I'm easily annoyed :)

Cuog

08-05-2006, 19:14

Melissa Nute

08-05-2006, 20:10

Thats why your Drive team should be your programmers,

I refuse to agree with this statement.

You could say that your mechanical people should be on the drive team because they know how to fix the robot or how to avoid more harm once a robot is already injured.

Certain people make excellent programmers but when allowed to drive the robot they crash under pressure. My old team experienced this in Raising the Bar.

Drivers need to be selected based on the ability to control the robot - not their job on the team.

Tristan Lall

08-05-2006, 20:12

Thats why your Drive team should be your programmers,I refuse to agree with this statement.If I had to guess, I'd look at his user statistics, note that he's a programmer, and suggest that maybe he just wants to drive the robot....

lukevanoort

08-05-2006, 20:35

Thats why your Drive team should be your programmers
I'm going to completely agree. (with the exception of the human player) For example, I can program (not really very well, but anyway, that's beside the point), I drive, I did a lot of drivetrain design work, headed drivetrain construction, and worked on electricals. Two of our other three drivers also multi-tasked, one was mechanical/electrical/driver/animation/semi-programming/strategy, the other was mechanical/electrical/driver. I know multi-tasking really helped me, and the others too I assume. Driver/programmer makes a lot of sense since its the driver who's going to be using the program, but even a basic grounding in all the robot related disciplines would help. Looking at a robot and being able to size up its capabilities is very valuable on the field. This is especially valuable during elims, so everyone can help fix your robot, since they worked on it, or know about it.

ChrisH

08-05-2006, 21:09

After Umpteen posts in a $@#$@#$@#$@#$@#y thread finally one constructive suggestion that makes some sense.

Camera target - I have no idea what was going on, but our camera worked flawlessly on a practice field, but hated the on-field vision targets. Could we go back to the super free-form practice matches? Or have a camera calibration party on the field Thursday night after practice matches but before the pits close? Yes, I am assuming the camera makes a triumphant return. It's nifty enough that I think it'd be a good idea.

You were not the only team that experienced this. We had similar issues but not at every event we attended. Could it have been the green "exit" lights?

Since practice rounds typically end around 5:30 on Thursday, but the pits don't close until 8pm. Would it be that hard to allow teams a few minutes to check their camera calibration on the actual field? The robots do not need the field control system, or even to actually be on the field for this sort of thing. They could be placed beside the field boundary to get acceptable results. All that's really needed is for the lights to be left on and robots to be allowed in a limited area for a few minutes each. It wouldn't even be all of the robots ....

Greg Marra

08-05-2006, 22:20

Since practice rounds typically end around 5:30 on Thursday, but the pits don't close until 8pm. Would it be that hard to allow teams a few minutes to check their camera calibration on the actual field? The robots do not need the field control system, or even to actually be on the field for this sort of thing. They could be placed beside the field boundary to get acceptable results. All that's really needed is for the lights to be left on and robots to be allowed in a limited area for a few minutes each. It wouldn't even be all of the robots ....

We did this at the Championship. We parked our robot next to the practice fields in the pits that no one was using and took the opportunity to figure out why our camera couldn't see the light. It wound up being that the camera was so out of focus that it got confused really easily. Without this "ambush testing", we never would have had the opportunity to diagnose this problem.

KarenH

08-05-2006, 22:59

I don't know what to tell you if you think the GDC isn't already working feverishly on the next game. You've already commented that you don't know how they work. If you don't think it takes every day of the 7 months they have to design a game, test it, balance it, design and draw a field, and build the field for kickoff.... Well I don't know what to tell you.

I know what to tell them. They need more time. Perhaps 2 game design committes working on games. It's part of my main issue that FIRST does not understand how important the game is to the program.
As I remember from the Kickoff video, every member of the Game Design Committee was introduced. I certainly don't remember all of the members, but I do recall the following:

--Dave Lavery--NASA official whose job title does not include working for FIRST. I conclude that at least some of his work with FIRST takes place in his spare time. He also mentors a FIRST team. He also has a family, and families need a lot of time.

--Dean Kamen--Founder of FIRST, but he also owns at least two or three companies which need his constant attention, plus he seems to be getting more speaking engagements each year. I don't know when he has time to invent stuff any more.

--Jason Morella--Paid employee of FIRST. Even so, he must spend huge amounts of time working with Regional planning and all sorts of administrative stuff. And wasn't there something about him starting a family, too?

My point is that no one on the GDC can, in fact, work on the game design every day for 7 months, because they all have other work that necessarily has higher priority. It's probably better that way, because working on the game every day for 7 months would probably make the designers insane, and then we'd really hate the game! ;)

Richard Wallace

08-05-2006, 23:03

As I remember from the Kickoff video, every member of the Game Design Committee was introduced. I certainly don't remember all of the members, but I do recall the following:

--Dave Lavery--NASA official whose job title does not include working for FIRST. I conclude that at least some of his work with FIRST takes place in his spare time. He also mentors a FIRST team. He also has a family, and families need a lot of time.

--Dean Kamen--Founder of FIRST, but he also owns at least two or three companies which need his constant attention, plus he seems to be getting more speaking engagements each year. I don't know when he has time to invent stuff any more.

--Jason Morella--Paid employee of FIRST. Even so, he must spend huge amounts of time working with Regional planning and all sorts of administrative stuff. And wasn't there something about him starting a family, too?

My point is that no one on the GDC can, in fact, work on the game design every day for 7 months, because they all have other work that necessarily has higher priority. It's probably better that way, because working on the game every day for 7 months would probably make the designers insane, and then we'd really hate the game! ;)Another GDC member is Benji Ambrogi, all-purpose genius at Deka R&D. I think Dean keeps him pretty busy with projects that produce (or may someday produce) income for his company. ;)

Kevin Sevcik

08-05-2006, 23:12

Curses! Logic has long been my nemesis. KarenH makes a good point. I should perhaps rephrase to say that it would take them every bit of 7 months to design a game.
I am convinced that two GDCs is not a feasible solution, however.
There's not enough FIRST leadership to go around, for one thing. And you run the risk of wildly differing philosophies if there's not enough communication between the GDCs. Look at BEST if you want an idea of how multiple GDCs could end up. Also, a GDC in the middle of a design is going to have troubles folding in all the lessons learned by the previous GDC. Also, also, kits technology will end up delayed by a year, atleast. Can't design a game without knowing what's in the kit. The cons tend to go on and on. The main pro is more time to design and test a game. This all presumes that the current GDC doesn't have time to build and test a field and that's why teams complain about the field. I'm still not convinced this is the case.

MikeDubreuil

08-05-2006, 23:25

FIRST is not about robots. It's not even about robot games. It's about promoting engineering as an exciting field. It's about Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, through collaborations between education and industry, students and mentors, schools and communities, companies, teams, and individuals. The robots are just a convenient (and entertaining) point of focus for people's attention.
I thought about this post all day today because I wanted to have a good answer... so here I go.

When I think of FIRST I think of the FIRST Robotics Competition. Sure, there is Lego League and Vex but I don't participate in those. I'm not involved in those for several reasons but most importantly I believe that FIRST has to be a part of high school to be successfull. I think of Vex and Lego League as a warm up for kids. Hit them early so when they think of FIRST they think of FUN! In FRC our goal is to channel kids into engineering and science. It's obvious to me that has to happen just before the kids go to college. So they can maybe choose a school that specializes in engineering or they can begin an engineering curriculum as a college freshman.

My high above interpretation of the organization is FIRST in itself is about changing culture. FIRST's mission is to show that science and technology can be fun and can be a rewarding career option. FRC accomplishes this goal through an annual robotics competition.

Now to answer the question...

When you remove the game and the robots from FRC what are you left with? A cool group of people no doubt. But we can't inspire unless we demonstrate.

As a mentor I need the game to demonstrate the engineering process by creating a robot; from requirements, to design, to manufacturing, to test. The inspiration comes from seeing a design from idea to playing field. To a high schooler being able to demonstrate a real life application for math and physics is a very powerful thing. Dean likes to call the robot and competition the vehicle for getting kids into science and technology.

I always like to say that the students realize science and technology can be fun during the build season. They should be inspired by their mentors. But the regionals- they're the deal closers. The regionals explode with excitement and fun all because the students were inspired to create a robot by following the engineering process. It's the finale of a strenuous 6 weeks and allows them to shine.

To tie this philosophy into my issues with FIRST... FIRST is making my job harder because of all the problems with the vehicle. If the vehicle is our way of getting students into science and engineering than why shouldn't it be FRC's top priority?

Cuog

09-05-2006, 13:41

Lil' Lavery

09-05-2006, 13:41

I was in fact in daily conversations with people on the Boston regional planning comitte. The vast majority of the people on that board were not paid by FIRST. As a rookie regional one would think that more FIRST staffers were involved but this is not the case. Maybe other regionals get more FIRST support, I would be suprised considering it was a rookie regional.

Last time I checked, the GDC doesn't get paid by FIRST either. They are just as much volunteers as any regional planning comittee. So using your previous argument, your either saying that the game is not designed by FIRST, as you said regionals are not run by FIRST, but rather volunteers.

I know what to tell them. They need more time. Perhaps 2 game design committes working on games. It's part of my main issue that FIRST does not understand how important the game is to the program.

FIRST has 3 GDC's actually. One for FLL, one for FVC, and one for FRC. Creating multiple GDC's for one game would probably only lead to more delays and controversy as you have to chose 1 game over another, rather than speeding anything up. Each GDC would have the same problems as the single FRC does now, but your also adding one more stage of chosign between multiple games to the design phase.

Lil' Lavery

09-05-2006, 13:53

the reasoning for me saying that programmers should drive(if they can, i can) is because if there is a new feature that may make driving easier they can go ahead and program the new function, also they will get more testing total they could test autonomous and move right into human controlled.

The same type of comments can be said about any part of the robot. Someone who worked on the drivetrain is going to understand any malfunctions in the drivetrain, and will know how to adapt to them on the field. Same can be said for the manipulator and its operator. Your role on the team should not effect your chances at making the drive team.
116's driveteam the last 3 years:
2006:
Base Driver-Shooter
Manipulator Operator-Shooter
Result-AC5, QF in Peachtree, missed eliminations at VCU

2005:
Base Driver-Arm
Manipulator Operator-Programming
Result-Did not make eliminations at either event

2004 (VCU):
Base Driver-Drivetrain
Manipulator Operator-Animation
Result-SF

2004(Chesepeake):
Base Driver-Animation
Manipulator Operator-Arm
Result-Did not make Eliminations

As shown, your role on the team has little effect on your ability to drive the robot effectively.

Kevin Sevcik

09-05-2006, 16:55

FIRST has 3 GDC's actually. One for FLL, one for FVC, and one for FRC. Creating multiple GDC's for one game would probably only lead to more delays and controversy as you have to chose 1 game over another, rather than speeding anything up. Each GDC would have the same problems as the single FRC does now, but your also adding one more stage of chosign between multiple games to the design phase.Lil' Lave,
The theory behind multiple GDCs is that you put them on a 2 year timeframe and stagger the releases. GDCa designs games for odd years, GDCb designs games for even years. Plusses are more time to fine-tune and test games, fields, less rush, and that's about it that I can see. Cons in my opinion are that you'll have a 2 year delay on upgrades to the kit, learning from mistakes, etc. You risk the GDCs getting out of touch and having wildly different games from year to year. Lots more work, and a lot of temptation to over-think everything involved.

My best argument for the status-quo follows the Open Source Software philosophy. Any GDC will be made up of a finite and limited set of individuals, say 20. They can do only so much, really. When they release the game to the teams, there are suddenly 1000 teams of atleast 4 members each looking at the rules. Which in 6 weeks adds up to the amount of work the entire GDC could do in 2 years. So there's a lot to be said for getting the rules and game as right as they can in 7-8 months and then letting teams nitpick and lawyer all the problems out of it.

I don't know that an extra 12 months of GDC work gains you all that much. If the current system can't allow for testing a full scale field with robots, I fail to see how 12 more months of poking at a game design will really help things. Mostly since I suspect physical testing is a limitation imposed by the design process, secrecy needs, and budgetary concerns more than any particular time crunch. I base this opinion mostly on a very rough comparison between FIRST and BEST, where game designs are often finished in the nick of time, and the design responsibility rotates between hubs.

MikeDubreuil

09-05-2006, 17:41

Last time I checked, the GDC doesn't get paid by FIRST either. They are just as much volunteers as any regional planning comittee. So using your previous argument, your either saying that the game is not designed by FIRST, as you said regionals are not run by FIRST, but rather volunteers.
I was simply trying to filter out what FIRST staff does from what volunteer do. You do have more insight into whether the GDC is paid than I. I assumed they were volunteers. The difference between a volunteer on the GDC and at a regional is that a volunteer on the GDC has profoundly more impact. If they make an error it gets duplicated.

For what it's worth I am in Six Sigma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma) training this week causing my process and customer awareness to go through the roof.

What also makes the GDC volunteers different then most volunteers is their customer. The GDC's customer is FIRST. FIRST's customer is the teams. The regional's customers are the teams.

Therefore, if teams are not happy with the game than it is FIRST's fault, not the GDC. Since the teams are FIRST's customer.

Koko Ed

09-05-2006, 18:15

Has anyone noticed that the negative thread is over THREE TIMES the size of the positive thread? It's not even on the first page of the general forum anymore!
Is FIRST really doing that bad of a job?

Adam Y.

09-05-2006, 18:17

As a mentor I need the game to demonstrate the engineering process by creating a robot; from requirements, to design, to manufacturing, to test. The inspiration comes from seeing a design from idea to playing field. To a high schooler being able to demonstrate a real life application for math and physics is a very powerful thing. Dean likes to call the robot and competition the vehicle for getting kids into science and technology.Yes but with robotics the whole process is completely different and usually you usually rely on adaptablitity rather than rigidity. You have to expect the unexpected. You have to figure into the fact that the field at one place may be slightly different from what you expected. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing randomized targets placed on the field next year. It would make the competition much more realistic. Muahahhahhah... Muahahhahah... Muahahhahhahahah... Muahhahahhah....

Bharat Nain

09-05-2006, 18:28

Has anyone noticed that the negative thread is over THREE TIMES the size of the positive thread? It's not even on the first page of the general forum anymore!
Is FIRST really doing that bad of a job?

No. But as my uncle said - opinions are like armpits. Unfortunately, most of them stink. It's not easy to appreciate all the positive but it is very easy to find the faults in everything. While some of the arguements in this thread are very valid, I do see a lot of unnecessary bickering. All I can say is if you pose a problem, propse a solution along with it.

MikeDubreuil

09-05-2006, 18:50

I do see a lot of unnecessary bickering.
I'd like to use the term discussion. This thread is not about negatives, it's about opportunities :D

TimCraig

09-05-2006, 19:48

Creating multiple GDC's for one game would probably only lead to more delays and controversy as you have to chose 1 game over another, rather than speeding anything up. Each GDC would have the same problems as the single FRC does now, but your also adding one more stage of chosign between multiple games to the design phase.

Not if you have two committees which alternate years thereby giving them much more time to work out the wrinkles and possibly to do more testing.

TimCraig

09-05-2006, 19:58

FIRST does not even follow engineering processes.

Other terms in the engineering process you frequently run across are design review, peer review, and post mortem review. Maybe the first two would be difficult with the need for secrecy about the game but certainly the post mortem is not. (Actually, this is sort of what we're having now except we're playing shake the box and trying to guess what's rattling inside.) Have the GDC publish their documents with rationale about why things were done the way they were so other can learn and reasonably critique the design so the GDC learns going forward, too.

Juju1031

09-05-2006, 20:49

I know that the commity of first puts alot of time into planing the game but i think they could come up with a game where the score is a little bit closer and not so many blow outs.

Kevin Sevcik

09-05-2006, 20:50

Other terms in the engineering process you frequently run across are design review, peer review, and post mortem review. Maybe the first two would be difficult with the need for secrecy about the game but certainly the post mortem is not. (Actually, this is sort of what we're having now except we're playing shake the box and trying to guess what's rattling inside.) Have the GDC publish their documents with rationale about why things were done the way they were so other can learn and reasonably critique the design so the GDC learns going forward, too.Are we of the opinion that the GDC is not reviewing how things went this year and that they're blindly forging ahead with no concern for any issues there have been? I think we can give them a little more credit than this. Also, a post mortem review is tradtionally conducted by the engineers themselves, as they best understand the design goals, process, etc. I don't think Intel is likely to let customers in on the design process of the Pentium 4 so the marketplace can tell them what they did wrong. Customer surveys and polls, certainly, but they take that data and figure for themselves what went wrong. I don't think many in the FIRST community are experienced enough in designing games to comment on the process. We're simply consumers commenting on the quality of the final product.

TimCraig

10-05-2006, 00:15

I don't think many in the FIRST community are experienced enough in designing games to comment on the process. We're simply consumers commenting on the quality of the final product.

Well, the portion of this thread I was replying to concerned the design of field elements, the center goal mechanism in particular. A comment was made how there were a huge number of constraints. All I'm saying is if you can't simply tell people they don't understand without supplying all the design parameters.

This isn't Intel. There are no competitors or trade secrets to protect. I'm sure there is more than enough engineering talent mentoring FIRST teams that they probably would have something positive to contribute to a post mortem analysis. Also, for various design reviews, it's useful to bring in outside talent as they have fresh eyes and don't have preconceived ideas.

BobC

10-05-2006, 07:15

Quote:
Originally Posted by deficite
Ah, I remember our first Q match during St. Louis regional. During the drivers' meeting they announced that an update needs to be made to people's code (if I remember right, one of the variables needed a keyword added to it). The drivers we had sent up there didn't have any coding experience so they just figured our programmer had fixed it already. Well, during that Q match, our robot's autonomous went crazy and we had no control of the robot after the autonomous period. That was the only loss we had at St. Louis. The announcement was made public after St. Louis was over.
Thats why your Drive team should be your programmers,

after this year i think that it would be much better to easier to access documents, i dont know about all of you but finding info thro build season was a case of i found it once now where is it(altho the game manual was easy to find.)

A few 2 cents

I disagree the drivers DO NOT have to be the programers. The driver team has to pay attention at the drivers meetings. It someone makes anouncement of a change to code or rules the drive team has to write it down and bring it back to the pits so programmers can put the change into the robot. If the drive team is not sure if they have correct info written down the drive team should ask for more info before they leave the drive team meeting.

GDC does a great job. Think about it in the real world when a new product is design, is the first design the last and final design? I think not. You hope that all possabilities of what might happen are thought of but it does not always work that way. With the few people that do work on the game design then build and test the new game each year I think they do a GREAT job. I have been in Manchester the weekend before the ship date for robots. It is crazy people building the electronics, the field componets (goals, ramps, ect) the cases and racks or what ever they use to to transport the fields to their events. It is not to long after the teams ship their robot that the fields have to be shipped to their first events.