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Re: 2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative
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Yes, there are speeches from Dean/Jon/Woodie, etc, and I'm not arguing that some of those can go a little long, at all. I'm just wondering where else the regular award presentations could go. |
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The GDC has the difficult position of creating a brand new game which has no precedent for most rules. In all other sports, questionable activity can often be justified and deemed illegal by past instances of it being attempted. The Q&A is pretty terrible at remedying this pre-competition, but it seems like they try to stay as vague as possible to encourage as much creativity as possible. The last thing they want to do is encourage a certain strategy (which would explain the ridiculousness of all the robots in the video). I'm not really sure what the best thing to do would be. Creating crystal clear definitions would be nice, but that's very difficult, and is still subjective. Maybe the GDC just shouldn't worry about encouraging or discouraging designs when they respond to the Q&A. |
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So its either speeches that are gonna be made one way or the other, or another 5 minutes of dancing to Cotton Eye Joe. |
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Breaking the video into individual matches would be a little more involved - but if it's something truly important to FIRST then it's probably worth hiring a person or two that manages these archived videos - even if they're only two to three month Temp employees for the competition season. |
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We're a robotics competition with robots that have boom arms? I once showed Team 11's boom arm robot to a video webcasting company and they were MIGHTY interested in getting close to it. I think someone might be able to put 2 and 2 together with that. We're also a competition with fields we provide. Fields that could be outfitted with video equipment that is stationary. Still have equipment cost and setup time, but it doesn't all have to be cinematic wizardry. |
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At championship my students were told by the head ref that since we designed our bumpers to be at the lowest position we designed it so other teams could drive onto us and that it is our fault that our robot was damaged by the other robot driving into our robot. He actually told the student that “it is pretty funny how they drove into you.” Unacceptable! Quote:
I would also agree with the posters that felt there should have been a glossary and better Q&A responses. Please just answer the questions like you are responding to a stakeholder in your organization, because you are. I have posted in the positive thread, how about you? |
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On the topic of balls...
There is no doubt in my mind that the balls introduced for Eliminations on Saturday were significantly different than any other balls we had played with all season. Our team had been to four District and Regional events prior to Championships, and the balls we encountered at all four (and the first two days on Curie) were relatively the same. Sure, there was a bit of variability from one ball to the next, and new balls always came out for Eliminations, but once we dialed in our shooter we never had to do it again (astute observers will notice that Miss Daisy's accuracy always degraded a bit towards the end of Qualifications at all of our events, but suddenly got a lot better in Eliminations. We tuned our shooter for Elimination balls and deliberately did not play the game of trying to react to old balls, since we knew the rounds that counted would have new ones). After lunch, however, the balls that were put out felt SIGNIFICANTLY different. Not only were they somewhat squishier, their surface texture was very different than what we had seen before. In fact, the balls felt a LOT like the balls our team had purchased directly from Gopher (without the FIRST logo) right after kickoff. We ended up ditching the manufacturer's balls simply because they handled so much differently from the FIRST-logo balls. We and many other teams had difficulty handling the new balls. They stuck to each other and just about any other surface they touched like no other balls did. I observed or have heard about AT LEAST the following teams having some sort of jamming or shooting accuracy problems during Eliminations: 341, 987, 1986, 254, 1477, 330. The most common culprit was that balls would "climb" each other in conveyor systems, or not want to funnel from N-to-1 between intakes and feeder systems. In other cases, the increased "stickiness" of the balls caused them to drag significantly in single-file conveyors. Were these balls from the same batch? I do not know, but I doubt it. If they were, perhaps they were stored in environmental conditions that changed the surface texture of the balls (FIRST really needs to invest in a game-piece humidor :] ). I just wish they would have introduced the balls earlier so that teams could have reacted. |
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Our team has been archiving match videos in Michigan for 2 years now. We have each match uploaded to YouTube with in 5 minutes after the match is over. We also add tags to each match that has the team numbers (frc2337) that are playing in the match, as well as, an exact match tag (2012gl_qf4m2) What we use to pull this off: - 1 Person - 1 Laptop - Internet - Video and Audio Feed I feel that if a medium size team can do this at events they attend, FIRST should be able to pull this off even easier. FIRST has access to the FMS, internet, and Video Feeds allowing for them to automate the system even more. Also I think one of the 20 volunteers that guard the entrance to the pits, watching for people with out safety glasses, could easily perform this task. If FIRST wants more people to see what we are doing, I think that archive all of the matches for all of the events on YouTube is a step in the right direction. If anyone at FIRST would like to talk to use about how we archive matches we would be more then happy to share what we have learned. -Clinton- |
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Please note that I'm not saying this to whine, I'm saying it as a suggested improvement if FIRST truly wants to become a popular culture, spectator phenomenon that actually transforms the culture. FIRST has clearly embraced the realization that the games themselves must be fun to watch even for people who are not on a team; they just need to apply the same reasoning to Einstein. IMO, of course. |
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The error appear larger than what we had seen before at any of the other events, so it did seem that these ball may have been 'more different'. There will always be variables outside of the control of the teams, and playing peice variablity is always one of these. I think that dealing with ball variablitity was our biggest challenge in developing the robot this year. |
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We have a couple of things that we want to try for the offseason to try to get more consistency between new and old balls. We'll probably get it figured out just as all the competitions are over and we need to start planning for next year. |
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On Archimedes towards the ends of the qualifications there were some VERY HARD balls put onto the field. With out hands they were uncompressable. During the match we grabbed it, and it got jammed in our shooter because it couldnt compress. and shut down our shooting that match
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Stick + dead horse = this post...Names of involved parties will not be revealed, they can speak for themselves if they wish to jump in...
Just prior to the beginning of our elimination matches a team approached us in the pits to show us a ball that had just jammed in their bot on the Newton field. It was a slightly different shade of orange (no problem), felt significantly firmer (problem?), significantly different in surface friction characteristics (problem?) and, according to the team with the ball, weighed 2+ oz more than the kop balls. Our physical comparisons were to a brand new ball purchased at the First store. Both balls were taken to First officiating personnel for explanation of the change in balls. We were then advised that a mixture of both type of balls would be used in elims in approximately a 50/50 mix. No bellyaching or crybabies here but we did experience our first ball jams of the champs in eliminations, one in hybrid and one in teleop. In quali's we had almost 100% 4 ball hybrid to this point. We were able to clear one jam the other rendered us unable to shoot for the remainder of the match. Purpose of the post is to confirm from personal observation that balls introduced in elims were significantly different in key characteristics and to urge First to address this matter in the future. Ball horse is well and truly dead to this observer...:) |
Re: 2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative
I wish they would bring back the opening parade at Championship. It last happened in 2010 in Atlanta (IIRC).
All of the mascots, and high school bands would march around the arena and really just pump the energy levels about a million times. It was a pretty cool way to open the event. |
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Something I haven't seen posted here is the issue of Bag and Tag robots. Well funded teams simply build two robots, one for competition and one for practice and software development. Teams with less cabbage have to make do with a single robot, and hope that they can make it work at the event. (That or bend the rules and keep working after ship. Given the sheer number of teams, it likely happens.) If we lose the bag and tag requirements, things are greatly simplified, and up-and-comers can be more competitive. Yes, there will be teams that will change their whole robot between events, but the overall quality of competition will skyrocket.
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That made for a nice close to the event as teams realized that when their robot got to the next event they'd not have the 'official' bag or tags. It resulted in not one, but two calls to FIRST HQ to make absolutely sure that they'd not get caught in paperwork on that when they got to the other end. |
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Making improvements (mechanical, software, driver) is very hard with only a few hours of development. Practice robots make this significantly easier. |
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Do you know how horribly difficult it is to get parents, teachers, sponsors, etc... to watch a webcast? Assuming they can even get it open/running, then they have to deal with often subpar quality, and finally then they are often clueless to who we are and where our robot is. You should be able to go to watchfirst.com, type in a team number, a video stream pops up and says "Team XYZ will play in 4 matches and approximately 19 minutes!" I can dream.... |
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With video streaming technology to the point that it is, it should be fairly easy to do this. UStream or justin.tv make it so you only need two things - an internet connection and a camera. Get the output video feed that's running to the projector to also feed to a PC, get the audio levels adjusted and you're golden. UStream will even automatically archive it for you, I think. This would take one volunteer with a little training on how to use it, nothing more. |
Re: 2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative
I am going to make two suggestions.
One of the main lessons I repeat to kids is you can't debug what you can't see. FIRST need to take this to heart with it's FMS, I would suggest ethernet data loggers and or back channel comunication box that is attached to each robot on the field, it will tell you if that robot is getting packets and allow problems with the field to be debugged. That data should be shared with the teams so that everyone knows what happened. Two some form of tiered competition. Different teams have different resources and the obvious soulution would be to allow some teams to skip bag and tag and compete against other teams that did the same. They probably shouldn't go to St Louis even if they do well cause they have money and people problem. Maybe they should be limited to one regional or such. But know you have a decent robot but lack the resources to pull it off is frustrating to (a/mine) team. I do think they should compete in the same time and place as the top tier teams because there is deal that can be learned simply with a few minute to talk with a top tier team. I think FIRST is a great asset for exposing kids to engineering and I think that FRC is a wonderful competition because of the compressed schedule but it threatens to overwhelm the smaller teams. |
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But one of the main problems we ran into issues with justintv blocking us (and a few other regionals) for broadcasting copyrighted music, even though FIRST has licenses for all the music. |
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I think FIRST regionals are "technological" and "gamey" enough to be appropriate on Twitch but that would be a question for their admins I guess. (I know the madstream chat was running on Twitch because I could do the twitch emoticons ) |
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It just seems like we are behind the curve when it comes to making our events watchable outside of being at the venue itself. Other than the abundance of webcasts increasing over the years, the delivery is still pretty much the same. |
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Perhaps I am being pessimistic about the Q&A, but I really don't think it will be easy to answer so many questions efficiently and self-consistently.
The more teams there are-> the more questions will be asked-> the more people they need to answer questions-> the more conference calls they need to have-> more Q&A admins miss meetings-> the longer it takes to answer a question-> more communication break-down-> inconsistency in the Q&A. If you want more consistent answers, then the Q&A needs to be a small focus group. Answering that many questions in a small focus group would be a full time job, or else the process takes many days. The logistics are tough unless you are on the phone 50% of your day. Solution: Hire a full time Q&A/Rules focus group, or eliminate the Q&A and go back to the way it was 3 years ago (when there were seemingly less "rule disgraces" at events). |
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Re: 2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative
The way the Coopertition award is sorted results in the team that WON the fewest matches (winning zero matches in the optimal case), while getting Coop points in the MOST matches.
Ex: Hypothetical teams 5555 6666 7777 and 8888 are playing at an event. Team 5555 is a powerhouse, and wins all 10 of their matches, and coopertates in every match. Team 6666 is similarly strong winning their 10 matches, but DOESNT coopertate. Team 7777 is a weak team that loses every match, but coopertates every match. Team 8888 is a weak team that loses every match and only manages to coopertate 5 of the 10 matches. The rankings look like this: Code:
Team QS CP First Order Second Order |
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(Besides, what you say is not entirely true... The coopertition bonus had nothing to do with how much you beat your opponent by, only how many points they scored... So a 10-9 victory was just as good as a 20-9 victory in that regard.) |
Re: 2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative
The Coopertition Award needs serious review. One of the major problems this year was that Coopertiton points were assessed as an alliance, not as individual teams. In many events, the team that won the award never actually participated in the act of balancing (or even attempting) to balance the Coopertiton Bridge. At one event, the award would have gone to a team that left at the end of the first day... Not really cooperating nor competing. It is difficult to inspire with an award that has such criteria.
If the award were given to teams that attempted the Co-op Balance the most, that would be more appropriate. Hopefully the GDC will make adjustments to next year's game. For those keeping score, I think the Coopertition Bridge itself is one of the best things about a fantastic game this year. - Mr. Van Coach, Robodox |
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Which reminds me having the Hybrid points being the second order of sort for the rankings was the best since I've been involved as it encouraged teams to have an autonomous routine or two. The bonus for "Hybrid" was also the best yet as it encouraged having an autonomous routine and allowed the 2 pt dumpers to score almost as much or even more than the 3pt shooters in Hybrid. |
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"All teams on the winning ALLIANCE will receive a number of seeding points equal to the penalized score (the score with any assessed penalties) of the winning ALLIANCE plus 5 additional points for winning the match. All teams on the losing ALLIANCE will receive a number of seeding points equal to un-penalized score (the score without any assessed penalties) of the winning ALLIANCE." I think where you're getting confused is that in general, you'd rather have won a game 10-9 than 10-1, but 15-9 was still better than 10-9. (For you and your opponents!) |
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I say we dance to the 5 mins of Cotton Eye Joe even though I love the speeches, it would get energy pumping again!! I know I danced the cotton eye joe when I was down near the stage! It got me extremely excited to watch the matches! :) |
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I cant wait to see pictures of the Championship!!! |
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I wouldn't mind if I played with a certain set of balls all comp or all division! -RC |
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Sorry about digressing, but I need to offer some clarification. Our big problem was that our shooter's performance wasn't very repeatable - we need more research in the off-season. The balls are cheap, foam basketballs. Early in the season, they were described as all from the same lot (Q&A, maybe?). From comments from Championships, sounds like there was a second lot. They vary in size, weight, and compressibility. From what we saw, as well as others (525 posted their ball data, 12.5% was the highest range of values for a single ball), each ball also varied in uniformity - orientation was significant. (And there was a hysteresis effect as well.) And what did we ultimately see? Some teams shot well, some didn't, and 16 was in a class by itself. I will echo earlier comments - whatever game peices the GDC selects, they need to be available quickly in reasonable quantities, and for a reasonable price. Companies deal with these issues all the time - sign the NDA, and get ready for a really strange purchasing cycle. I am so glad we went to Championships, and I can't wait to get back there again. |
Re: 2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative
I think the issue with the extreme variability in the balls at CMP (though I was not there) is this:
In the beginning of the season, the GDC ordered what they though at the time were enough balls, one "batch," if you will. As the season progressed, they ran out or were running low on balls from that batch due to the high number of balls that were getting ripped to shreds (the no damage to game pieces rule was very difficult to enforce and very easy to commit). So for the CMP, rather than use old balls, FIRST ordered more from the manufacturer, but these were different. Thus different balls. |
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This would also have given people a little warning of what was coming. |
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Still they could have announced it long before the competition itself and then the playing field is level. |
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The lesson learned here is not so much for FIRST, but for the teams...build with game piece variability in mind. It seems our team did not do so well this season; we did a pretty good job accounting for differences for most of the season, but the new balls for elims in St. Louis showed that we didn't do enough. We've got some ideas to try to improve for the offseason...keeping fingers crossed.
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Re: 2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative
Every single one of these complaints was overshadowed by us having a great time at the event. My experience was FAR more positive than negative. Let's just keep improving it.
1. The district trophies were embarassing. 2. This year, the primary Championship Handout did not have the MARS or MSC teams listed in them at Championship unless they had pre-registered. I can only assume this is because the events were so late that they couldn't get the documents printed. 3. Light the targets! In too many situtaions we have rear or front projected screens in direct view of the targets from all angles. Those screens - especially in the case of the Troy District in Michigan, we almost the same saturation and luminescant values as a lit vision target. There was almost no way to filter the darn things as they cycled through dozens of sponsor logos and colors. 4. There needs to be substantially more time between the division fields end of qualification and start of elimination. Many teams couldn't even each lunch, much less get their triple balance in. Our triple balance practice time was AFTER our first match had been played. 5. The Q&A stunk. I'll be blunt - the Q&A folks need to be given the authorization to tell people things are legal or illegal. Period. Even if it's not answer the GDC might have wanted, put it out there so people can design their bridge hanger etc without guesswork. Wading through the Q&A also stunk unless you wanted to read it cover to cover. 6. It's time to include actual GP in the GP award. Rather than just giving it to the team that had the money to bring a full machine shop, let's have GP judges looking for things like obnoxious noise, not saving seats, NOT yelling robot, and let's get that stuff in the rules. FIRST - yelling robot IS NOT A GOOD THING. Stop encouraging it! 7. The referees, and specifically the head referees need to start listening to the teams. Blowing off multiple teams when we have Q&A's up on our smart phones that answer the question at hand SPECIFICALLY is ridiculous. I'm speaking of the issues seen on Galileo, with ball placement. What happened there was a travesty. For a head ref to make a change to how balls have been placed all year at the champs is crazy. For that same ref to ignore multiple teams complaints and proof that it's wrong is worse. Then, to create a new rule on the fly - that teams have to be off the field before the balls were placed on the bridges..... If it seems I'm bitter, I am. We missed seeding first by one qual point, and we lost a match by 1 point where the volunteer specifically moved the balls after we set up our robot so we could not pick them up in hybrid by placing them to the extreme outer portions of the bridge. They later did the same thing to 33, and several other teams with hybrids that went after the balls on the bridge. I'm over it now.... but the head refs need to be more responsive to the students and more active in going up the ladder to resolve problems. 8. Swerve drive and judges. FIRST, can you please start teaching your judges about swerve drive? Every year, at nearly every event I've been to someone wins an award for swerve drive. I suppose it's overwhelmingly neat for people who haven't seen it before, but it's not new, it's rarely novel, and it's time for the judges to start looking at unique solutions to the game problem rather than a drive train that's been done a thousand times. 9. Steele Meetings may need to be reconsidered. In some cases rooms were marked up 50-100%. If you called the hotel directly and booked for a large number of people, you could get a 20-30% discount beyond the normal price. I know we certainly won't be using them with that type of price markup. |
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Each Bridge will be preset with two Basketballs. Basketballs allotted to Robots that are not used, will be preset on the Coopertition Bridge. FIRST really dropped the ball this year with communicating updates to head ref at events with regard to what to follow based on Q&A findings. Volunteers don't have the time to read through all of the Q&A but FIRST should either add to the weekly update recent answers from the Q&A that are important or establish that any answer to the Q&A stands as an official rule. Very frustrating to see but I'd stand behind the head refs decision (currently) because to my knowledge they have been told to follow the game manual not the Q&A. @Craig Roys Great point! People need to stop complaining about the variability in a foam basketball. These are a child's toy, not a NBA basketball required to have the same properties. Several teams caught on to how the balls acted and moved to catapults others like our team analyzed the problem and how to work around it. Granted our shooter isn't 100% accurate but it is pretty darn close between a new and used ball. Unless you feel like paying more for FIRST to physically check each and every game piece to make sure they all have the same physical properties, just move along. |
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What was impossible to predict (unless you're Car-Nack) was that FIRST would use physically different balls from a different manufacturer/batch and that even worse we wouldn't have even been told. All over these forums you can see how the new ones they used in St. Louis had entirely different compression, texture, etc. This wasn't just a worn state vs. a new state. This was Ball A vs. Ball B where Ball B was either from a different manufacturer (not what from what I've seen) or an entirely different batch with a different...everything. Catapaults were totally unaffected as far as not being jammed, but even if your shooter was fine, the new balls reacted totally differently to bouncing off of the backboard as well. Transparency at the MINIMUM from FIRST would have been appreciated if they were unable to secure enough balls from the initial batch to last the entire season. At least many of us teams would have had a fighting chance for adjusting our loaders for an entirely different ball. We were prepared for new vs. used. We were not prepared for an entirely new batch, and I don't think that's too much to ask for. Especially if they would have provided an announcement telling us as much. |
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FIRST mentioned several times that there would be new balls for elims. We asked around at our regional (CT) if new balls would be introduced and they were. Ask and you shall receive. FIRST HQ doesn't directly control the field reset crew and the introduction of new balls. It is your responsibility to know your field at competition. Once those fields leave Manchester they are in the hands of the event. Yes this was a frustration to teams but we can't complain to HQ saying they need to provide a more consistent game piece next season when all they did was order new balls for the championship elimination and that is what they received. They probably don't know these balls were different! :eek: |
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I know they definitely did not overturn the Q&A that reads: Q: Our team has discovered variances in ball diameter and compressibility. The balls in the KOP can be compressed approx. ½” more than the balls we got from AndyMark. We wish to know if the balls at competitions will be like the KOP balls, similar to the ones received from AM, or a mixture of both? A: All Balls with the FIRST/Foot Locker Foundation logos are all from the same batch - so, a mixture of both. I think we can all be fairly confident that the elim balls were not a "mixture of both" the AndyMark and KOP balls. I understand the Q&A is not heralded as "official" enough (I file this under negative lessons every year...) in all circumstances. |
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My main contention is still the lack of transparency. And unless we all went with a catapult design, it still would have been impossible to properly compensate because the balls we were provided in the KOP as well as the balls we could purchase were completely different than what they provided in the Elims.
If FIRST couldn't guarantee complete consistency (which for a toy part, I don't expect them to) we should have been told from the beginning that they would have had different batches. Saying they would have "new balls" doesn't mean much without context. We had "new" and used balls at the Regionals we attended as well but they were of the same batch provided in the KOP as well as what we could purchase. Some would (and I believe it's the position you're taking) argue that having to deal with inconsistent game pieces is part of the game. And I would agree...up to a reasonable point. What happened in St. Louis I believe goes beyond that reasonable point. |
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Okay, done ranting now...we had a great time at the competition, that part of it was just a bit frustrating. |
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The balls used at regionals were from the same shipment as the balls used at Championship (both qualification and elimination matches). I can't speak for the balls that AndyMark sold, but I'm fairly certain they came from the same shipment as well. Yes, balls were replaced before elimination matches with brand new balls. This should have been no surprise since it was supposed to happen at ever regional event. Yes, there was sometimes quite a difference between ball foam "density." Sometimes there were even noticeable differences between balls that came from the same case. Are we forgetting that FRC is an engineering challenge? :deadhorse: |
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I've always thought that:
Q&A>Team Updates>Manual>Chief Delphi Next year, there should be a clause in the manual on kickoff that codifies this. |
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Our team has never used Steele Meetings.
Its not rocket science to understand that its a ripoff and you can get better deals just by shopping around or booking yourself. Its a deal when compared to "regular" hotel room rates, but as a person who has coordinated and booked all of our team travels since 2003, there are always much better options if you do some research on your own. |
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In the end I suspect you are right and that there was no active bias against teams that could pick from the bridge. However, the arbitrary rule creation (can't line up your robot, balls have to be placed after teams leave the field, and balls will be randomly placed anywhere on the bridge) was extremely frustrating when the top 5+ robots on the field were seperated by 1 point. It's all old news anyway. It was a great competition. This is just something that needs to be highlighted so that hopefully FIRST and their head refs can learn from it in the future. |
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When we questioned the field reset (and later head ref) including the Q&A mentioned above (stating that the balls will be placed in the center of the bridge), they made up stuff about the ball placement requiring the balls to be symmetrical on the bridge but not necessarily in the center, and the Q&A not being the rules. When we talked to Aiden Brown (FRC Head Ref), including a picture of the ball placement and Q&A, the ball placement went back to normal (side by side, center of the bridge). |
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At the St. Louis Regional, I (as field reset) was originally told that while the balls on all three bridges had to be fair to both sides, there was no requirements for them to be in any particular position (although in general I tried to put them on the two "center" spots). I assume that was the original assumption your ref was operating on, as there was nothing in the rules about it... and if the GDC intended for there to be, they really needed to put it there. You can't have "unwritten rules" in games that no one has played before...
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I worked field reset at BMR.
I was told that there was "no guarantee" to teams on ball placement. That said, I remembered the Q/A post and made an effort to keep the ball placement consistant and to correct any incorrect placements. The pattern that on Fri/Sat of BMR (I wasn't there on Thurs) for a 2-2-2 scenario was : Alliance bridges: The balls were in a centered line perpendicular to the barrier. Co-op bridge: The balls were in a centered line parallel to the barrier. My understanding was that Q/A answers were like team updates; they held equal power as the original canon of the 2012 rules as they were in a way an extension of the rules. |
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FIRST used to be more explicit about the role of Q&A responses. In the mid-2000s (the last time they specified this), the general idea was that the rules were the rules, and that Q&As don't overrule them for any reason, and instead only interpret them. Only updates could do that (and updates were supposed to be incorporated ASAP to reduce confusion). E-mail blasts, blogs and other documentation were also subordinate to the rules.
Since then, I've operated under the assumption that if a rule flatly contradicts a Q&A response, the rule takes precedence. (In other words, for a Q&A response to be effective, the rule and the Q&A must be read together, and have a logically consistent interpretation.) When enforcing a rule against a team, the team should be entitled to rely upon FIRST's official statements to a very large degree—which leads to difficult decisions to bend rules according to principles of equity. That is never something undertaken lightly, but I strongly feel (and many other officials agree) that teams should not be placed in a Kafkaesque situation where even when they do what FIRST asks of them, they are still inconvenienced or harmed. Note that the VRC and FTC Q&As operate differently from the FRC one, in terms of the degree to which the answers are directly binding. As for the balls, I'm honestly not that concerned. Assuming that FIRST made only correct statements about the nature and source of the balls, they've satisfied their core responsibility, which was to use what they said they'd use. Of course, it would have been ideal (from the perspective of a shooter) for FIRST to have a more consistent ball supply...but they never actually said that the balls would be consistent to any particular degree (beyond the Q&A and manual information referenced above). The differences between balls might well be normal manufacturing variance, and as such could plausibly be the responsibility of the teams to identify and account for. |
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First off, I don't believe they were conspiring against just us, there were other teams affected by this as well. I don't make that accusation lightly, I am one of the first to give the refs and field reset the benefit of doubt - much to the chagrin of my team sometimes. The placement of the balls on Friday morning/afternoon before the situation was corrected was highly suspicious. I didn't want to believe it myself until I watched a bunch of matches and witnessed the scenario I mentioned. I hold no grudges and, as I said previously, we still had a great time; I was just disappointed that (random or not) that this could happen at the Championship event. |
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Look the 2012 Season is pretty much over. Why dont we start focusing on more positive things? We need to post the more positive things in the "2012 Lessons Learned: The Positive" I think we hit the dead horse with the stick too many times. I am ready to move onto TNT, IRI, Embry Riddle, the 2013 season, and volunteering.
The FIRST representatives must be like "Oh come on! Stop posting in the Negative, didnt you guys have fun?!? We did a lot of great things this year!" Even though a lot of things happened this year, positive or negative, FIRST was awesome! I dont know about you, but the Finale parties afterward were amazing and a huge step up from last year! Even though, we had the Black Eyed Peas concert last year I had more fun this year than I did then!! Thats saying A LOT. So please, lets put the stick down and go to another forum to post positive things! |
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Frankly, I think FIRST did a lot of amazing things this year and if I were grading them it would be in the 90-95% range. Still, we'd be remiss as a community if we didn't focus on that 5-10% that needs to be improved. It's all about striving for perfection. Of course there's multiple ways to look at the negatives. You can rudely complain and not offer solutions. Or you can produce constructive criticisms that take us towards improvements and solutions. From what I've seen in this thread, it's definitely more of the latter. |
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Plus, when you talk about Positives, there's not much more to comment on, other than, "Yep, I agree." But when you talk about Negatives, people are analyzing situations and trying to offer possible solutions. So, while the negative thread appears longer, I actually think that people have posted more positive items than negative. Of course, I'd have to take the time to list them out to be sure of this...anyone bored enough/have the time on their hands to do this? |
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One of the unexpected problems our team ran into was the weight difference between the competition bridge and the practice bridge. Usually the lower cost field alternative provides the same experience as the competition field, but the bridge this year is one of the few exceptions that I have seen.
We were able to successfully lower our practice bridge and the bridge on a practice field built by another local team. However, we found the competition bridge was heavier. We were able to create a stronger bridge manipulator, but it wasn't until Friday during lunch of our regional competition that we were able to get it onto our robot. I wasn't sure whether I should have put this under the negative lessons learned. It would be better put under 2012 Lessons Learned because it was both positive and negative. (A third neutral category would probably be an overkill on this topic) Cheers |
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I believe we re-calibrated our bridge in about Week 4, but I never got too deep into the details as to why. I just assumed they had calibrated it wrong to begin with, not that we realized we were off from the competition bridges. |
Re: 2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative
I was my team's representative for the alliance selections on Galileo. I'm not sure if it it was like this on the other fields as well, but none of us could hear or see a single thing that was going on during the selections due to our position on the floor. At regionals, the representatives are typically facing the field with their backs to the stands. On Galileo, it looked like drive coaches were along that wall? Not sure. Anyway, I understand that there's 100 students in this group, but it would be nice to know what's happening on the field, what round of selections is occurring, and what alliance you're on before you start walking out there.
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I had absolutely no idea the bridges were that different until the videos got posted here are on Chief Delphi. This is one of those things that should have gone out in an email blast (or something). Things should NOT be left to chance.... especially when it seems like a big portion of that is "did he happen to click the right link on the right page to end up in the right place to see a video that doesn't appear to be critical but ends up being critical..... It's notoriously hard to find things on the FIRST site. That's why so many people get so much information through Chief Delphi. I'm on both sites daily during the build season, and I still miss things. I'm not surprised many teams got bit on the butt by this one. Luckily, in most cases you could count on someone on your alliance to be able to put down the bridge. |
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http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...ated-documents
The links to the videos are right on the Competition Manual Page, right below the link to the Field Drawings. |
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While I believe that the GDC did a tremendous job this year in creating a game, they were a little too ambiguous in certain areas - one of them being ball placement. The officials and field reset personnel should not have to make any decisions about game piece placement - it should be very clear from the game manual (this year it was not). I think the game manual needs to be very specific about location of game pieces at the start of a match - especially those that may be in play during the autonomous period. Are the pieces randomly located or put in specific places? If in specific places, it should be made very clear - if 2 balls on the center bridge, they go in these places; if 3 balls, they go in these places; if 4 balls...etc. If randomly located, is this done before or after the robots are set on the field? Also, if randomly located, be specific about how they are randomly determined - computer program, roll of the dice, etc. This randomization should also be available for the teams on the field to see - this would avoid any arguments. The majority of the game manual for this year I would put as a positive - I thought it was very well done; however, ball placement at the start could have been made more clear. |
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Yeah, the field tour videos are part of the manual on the website. We didn't calibrate our bridge full time, we just added weights to test the manipulator -- and while we were at it, we added more than was necessary to make sure we were a bit over-engineered on the manipulator side of things. Balancing on the uncalibrated bridge was harder than on the actual bridge, so that was actually useful for training purposes!
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Gotta do my duty and point out the defieincies with suggestions.
1. Kinect: More trouble than it's worth. SUGGESTION: If FIRST is going to tack on some game element due to a big sponsor offering up a big endorsement make it worth teams while to use it (like givng extra points for scoring using it). If they have no incentive then they are going to do what they did this year and simply not use it. The only thing it really did was cause replays. 2. FMS issues. SUGGESTION: Obviously further testing is needed. Maybe additional week zero events would help. Animation Competition. 75 out of 2300 teams participated. The contest is irrelevant. What does a dopey little alien have to do with what FIRST teams are doing? No wonder so many teams don't bother with it. SUGGESTION: Why not combine the animation, CAD work and video work to create reveal videos and judge them for awards? At least it would cause more teams to use the program more often than they do now. FOR WEEK 1 ALAMO: The event is a bit too ambitious for it's own good. SUGGESTION: Perfect running the FRC aspect and then start to tackle FTC and FLL all at once. Crowd control issues. Too many kids kept wandering down onto the field area repeatedly. SUGGESTION: Partly my fault and Jess offered a suggestion the will keep that from happening again. There needs to be serious consequences for going down into the field area just like in other sports (wander onto a basketball court or football field in the middle of a game and see what happens to you). You are disrupting the event when you do that. Walk in volunteers would just disappear at the end of their work shift without so much as a word and leave us in quite a bind. SUGGESTION: Walk in volunteers need their own co-0rdinator to work with Jess (she has enough to do) so they can better handle their comings and going and let us know when it's time to go home so we can properly adjust to their absence. FOR WEEK 2 FLR: There was alot of space in the pit area but the pits still seemed all squished together. SUGGESTION: Perhap spreading them out a little bit more wouldn't hurt. FOR WEEK 3 MONTREAL: The seating was ill concived (960 seats are no where near enough for a FIRST event. even a small one. The queing entrance and the main entrance for the audience criss crossed causing a bottleneck and a safety hazard. SUGGESTION: The only solution would most likely be going to a new venue. Volunteering was a bit undermanned. More crowd control was needed badly (I must have turned away 500 people that weekend from coming into the field). SUGGESTION: Just be mindful of the needs of crowd control. FOR WEEK 4 BOSTON: I know VIPs are important and bring alot of money and even attention to the event but they need to be better controlled. Too often they get in the way and disobey event rules (if the participants have to wear proper shoes and safety glasses why can't they. Is it too much to contact them and instruct them what they should and should not wear to the event?). SUGGESTION: Have FIRST design a booklet to give to VIPs on what to do at the events including proper attire so there will be no problems. Killer stairs. It just seems like the climb to the top of the Agganis Arena is significantly higher than any other arena I've seen. You need mountain climbing equipment to get to the top. SUGGESTION: Honestly I have no idea how to make this one better. Parking. If Angry Eric didn't rate a parking pass then who did? SUGGESTION: Let volunteers know ahead of time if they have or have not gotten the free pass and how much they will have to pay to go to the event so paying out of pocket won't be such a shock to them. FOR WEEK 5 DC: Load in.Rather jumbled and kind of dangerous. SUGGESTION: Have more control down on the street. Too many teams seemed to be scrambling up to the docks and practically climbing over each other to drop the robot and stuff off. Allowing teams to go back to their pit during elims. The pits were spread out far and wide and a couple of teams nearly missed their match. SUGGESTION: Keep them by the field and just have a courier bring them batteries. FOR WEEK 6 QUEEN CITY: Outcast Pit. Many of the teams had no idea what was going on in the arena. SUGGESTION: Find a way to wire in video and standing back there so they don't feel so isolated. Volunteer Room was really far away. The room was nice but no way I was climbing four stories to get food. Thank God the elevator worked. SUGGESTION: Is there a closer room available? FOR WEEK 7 MSC: The food. Particularly breakfast. A bagel just isn't going to cut it. SUGGESTION: Could a better variety be offered? Just a couple more options would be nice. The crazy pit structure. I know FiM is loyal to the arena but man o man is it hard to get used to teams being so spread out like that. SUGGESTION: It would be so cool if MSC could go to an big stage where such an event as spectacular as it could really shine like Ford Field but I know that really isn't possible. I guess the pit issue is just something to deal with. FOR THE CHAMPS: The tunnel leading up to the arena has too much traffic causing teams to struggle to make their matches. SUGGESTION: A separate passage to FTC team may have helped ease the congestion a little bit. The Hall of Fame. It's a joke. Period. I feel badly for 359 who worked long and hard to get to the HOF and all they get is a little table to show for it. FIRST keeps saying the Chairman's Award is it's highest honor but they sure don't treat it that way. SUGGESTION: Let the Hall of Fame teams run it. Many of these teams run off season events and even regionals. I bet a committee from each of these teams could come up with something that would bring honor to the Hall of Fame. Scary weather. Two years in St. Louis. Two years severe weather has threatened the event. SUGGESTION: Uhmmm..is the Georgia Dome still available....? |
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I will say this though. No one from FIRST contacted me at any point during the season about the change in the HOF setup. Here we spent the last several months planning and creating a booth space, including lugging it all at VEX Worlds the week before, only to find out from Cory (Team 254) here on CD the day before CMP that we get a little table. Why even have a main contact in TIMS? And I will say this again...if FIRST values the CMP CA as its highest award, and given the opportunity to decide who gets to go to the White House to celebrate the meaning of FIRST, they shoot us down. The worst feeling was getting phone calls from some very respectable people in FIRST while they were in DC asking where we were staying? My response, "Uh? You guys are visiting who? When?" Our congressional representative did some investigating for us in DC and gave us some interesting info that I dont ever care to share here on CD. |
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I personally agree about the food, and while it is currently a budget issue, perhaps we can figure something else out for next year. |
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I seem to remember bad weather in Atlanta too... At least something caused all those broken windows and damage back a few years ago... let me see,,, Yes it was a tornado ....I remember several teams got displaced from their hotels... I don't think anywhere we go would be immune to weather conditions in April... or the possibility of earthquake or whatever... |
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You need something like the Georgia Dome or the Edwards Jones Dome in St. Louis to have the space. Or Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis If there is something like this in Vegas I am all for it...I don't think Seattle has anything big enough... or Portland... The Seahawk stadium is outside... no pro football in Portland... The size of the venue is really restricting... |
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I suggest Lucas Oil in Indy... there are rarely tornadoes there, the worst weather is usually small hail (pea size, once in a blue moon golf ball size). |
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We could have it in North Carolina. There are pretty big stadiums over there.
In Fayetteville where I grew up we had the Crown Center used for Graduations, Minor League Hockey games, and concerts. Maybe not big enough for a championship but its big enough to hold a competition. (Also there isnt a big area for pits in the Center but there is an Exposition Center that goes from 10,000 sq feet to 60,000 square feet. Pretty much NEXT door!!! :) ) I really like this area because there is a lot of room. http://www.atthecrown.com/facilities.aspx Please check this out! |
Re: 2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative
Less than 100 teams in a division would be great. Also, I agree with the idea of division awards. When there are 400 teams, that means that over 90% of teams attending the championship will come home with nothing as far as hardware is concerned. This is too big of a margin in my opinion.
FIRST really needs to do something on their online system. Not only is the FIRST website clunky and hard to navigate around, some of its most important information is very well hidden. For example, how do I find out what awards a team from my area (or something like that) has won? It is impossible to find, especially for "outsiders." Stuff like that should be easy to find and more up-front. And it's not just for awards. It is hard to find any information about teams and events, and when you do, a lot of times it is very outdated or misinformed. Going along with that, why has the Hall of Fame been swept into the corner and out of the way the past two years? They should be out front for everyone to see. I was disappointed with its location last year tucked into a corner. This year, I was even more disappointed with its size and location. Had I not known what I was looking for, I would have missed the Hall of Fame teams. These are your best teams and the model teams for FIRST. They deserve to be out front in plain sight for everyone to see. The finale was much better than last year, but it was a logistical nightmare. Granted, it was complicated even more with the weather issue. However, I know we almost had some issues keeping track of our students across four different venues, and I can't imagine how hard it would be for some other teams. Keep it in one place, or two places at minimum. Having four different parties going on at once is just too much. On a lighter note (and I guess this belongs in the positive), I am very glad that FIRST has stepped away from the path they were trying to go down last year. Rock stars, rock concerts, famous people, big names are all great, but when they overshadow what the event is truly about, it becomes disturbing. Don't change who we are to appeal more to the outside world. Change the outside world around us and inspire them to join. I am very glad that FIRST has put a better balance on what is important. |
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...The concert was a celebration of our 20th year, donated to us. Wouldn't you take that if it were given to you? will.i.am choosing to connect with Dean and with FIRST was a such a wonderful opportunity. Will supports FIRST, and continues to do so. Having such a big name being able to go around and tell others about our program? Talk about culture change... |
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