Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

As a rookie mentor on a rookie team, I was over come with all the emotion at our Regional (week 6 was a long wait). I was very inspired by Thursday " no robot left behind" done by all teams working as one large functioning group to better everyone. This is not what I grew up with coaching sports teams. Rookie team 4061 is still on fire with the ideas of FIRST.

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

Vision targets were implemented well this year. Having multiple, large, basic shapes made vision a manageable task.

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

Amen to that!!

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

I will second this, but it should have scrolled from 100th seed to first seed with the 30 second freeze frame containing the top seeded teams, just a thought.
mike d

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

Hm, this might make looking at the screen much more exciting!

I will give first a lot of credit for the field test info videos. They are much better laid out than Dean and Woodie's field tour, give facts and figures that teams need (try searching here on CD for tube height from last year), and are easily available online. Do more of them next year! (Maybe we will see part one?)

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

I agree - the video info clips were great. Though our experience was that the practice field bridges at regionals (didn't have a chance to check at championships) didn't quite behave as the video described - they took slightly less force. And the competition bridges "appeared" to take more. If FIRST is going to go to the effort of documenting expected behavior, there should be some way to confirm that the actual field behavior is consistent.

I can't condone one team mentor check bridge loading early one morning at the DC regional, but a mechanism to confirm that game elements are behaving as documented would be useful.

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

I said this before but it's worth saying again, because it's bitten us more times than I'd care to admit:

In FIRST, assume all values are nominal.

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

[quote=IKE;1165694]

With 1114 winning the Chairman's Award, a lot of myths were "busted". Yes an international team can win. No you don't need a team of 100 students (I think 1114 is around 24). Yes field competitive teams are role models too.

QUOTE]

This is a myth still. Most HOF teams have teams in the 25-40 range. And many have had much success on the field as well.

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

1. The game was exciting.

2. The game was fun.

3. The game was easy to watch.

4. The robots will be great demo bots.

5. Championships was a blast, despite the problems encountered.

I could go on an on. The negative list will always overwhelm the positive, because negative events tend to stick in people's minds. Regardless, I had a great time at Champs! We're already talking about changes to make on the robot for the off season :yikes:

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

We didn't implement multiple target lock until just before MSC. It made a huge improvement in our vision ability.

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

I liked that the fields were in the Dome this year and it was easier to scout instead of moving back and forth from the Dome to the Convention Center.

I also liked that they had other concessions there other than the boxed lunches.

I also liked that they had the Baseball game, which was super cool. I never been to a Cardinals game so it was pretty awesome. (My team didnt go, but the option was AWESOME)

The finale party at the City Museum was cool because they Recycled stuff to make a playground which was awesome!

I liked the atmosphere better this year than last year. :)

I think this thread should definitely be longer than the Negative.

LETS DO THIS! LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRROYY JENKINSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

There were many things that I liked about this year's game:

I liked that real time score during matches didn't make us wait until after the end of a match to know the winner.

Penalties points added to the other alliance score helped eliminated many of the 0-0 matches.

Coopertition bridge really changed the game by making working with other teams extremely important during matches.

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

What I liked about this year is the quality of the events. Although I have never attended events prior to this year, the events seem to look better than previous years judging by videos of past years. It seem that everything from the scoring system, to the commentating, to the camerawork seems to be better this year.

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

I thought the GDC nailed the bridge dimensions.

The length of the bridge was such that a triple balance was difficult but not unreasonable

Re: 2012 Lessons Learned :The Positive
 

That's a really good point. They must have looked at quite a bit to calculate out that length to make it something you had to really design for.