Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

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

/end commentary

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This x1000.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Here's my quick list:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Just do a round robin like Vex Worlds does.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

The FLL teams play on Einstein earlier in the week.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Fixed that.

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I've probably had a safety advisor tell me to wear gloves against OSHA regs at least one every other event. I need to start carrying around that manual. It's ridiculous. Thankfully we've been clear with our team and they know better, but I'm really worried about teams that don't. Condoning theater is one (bad) thing, but mandating gloves in unsafe situations, snagging people's carts so their robots drop, making people run to the front of their cart*...Something has to change with the green shirts. Now. Most of them are quite good, but the bad ones are creating a dangerous culture.


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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Quick scanning of the 2013 Safety Manual yields these:
If at some point the recommendation was to use gloves while working on the robot, FIRST has removed it now.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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


Thanks to Frank Merrick, and his regular reading of this forum, headquarters is aware of the disappointment and I trust that, as mentioned in this thread ,they will do their best to improve the number of matches at CMP next year.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Where did CD put the Like button?

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

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

-Clinton-

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Please read the first line of my signature.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I definitely understand how annoying it can be when when the luck of qualifications really holds you back but the alliance captains did do their scouting and most likely didn't even take seeding into consideration. If anything, it was more unlucky that your team ended up in the division with the most FCS's, your team also wasn't given a chance to demonstrate how they might handle tall defensive bots, while others were. And don't forget that a lot of good teams don't make it into eliminations, generally because of strategic compatibility.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Here is my list.

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

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

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

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

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

4. Qualifying for Championship should be changed. Maybe something like this?

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

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

6. Let's try to get a bigger space for Karthik next year instead of this.

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

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

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

Is it about Inspiration or Recognition?

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

9 foot falls. not fun to watch.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

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

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

It may have already been said, but I feel like there needs to be a regional limit. Teams that already have more experience are the ones who go to 2, 3, or 4 regionals a year. If anything, rookies should have more chances to earn a trip to the Dome. Powerhouse teams ending their season with 2 or 3 Regional Winners trophies really hurts the competitiveness of FIRST. Also, a team who's robot can already smash half of a regional to pieces getting extra to work at the regional the week before just kills the entire build season.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Ideally you'd have every single regional during the same week. That just can't happen logistically though. I think that if a team is capable of going to multiple regionals, they should be able to. Priority should be (and is) given to teams who go to 1 or 2.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

There are hundreds of threads on this. The general consensus is that any team can attend 4 if they so choose. It is probably a good idea to start this in one of those threads instead of here, because this is a "problem" every year, not just 2013.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This year was MUCH better for teams that went to multiple regional and won, because of the Wildcard. So that is much less of an issue now.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

One of my hats was as the trainer and go-to person for the St. Louis Convention temporaries, ie, the "Event Information" booth in the lobby in front of the entrance to the pits. This is year 3 for me doing this job. They were asked non-stop questions over the 4 days by teams, and the public. We had various printouts of teams but it wasn't until Sat. that I saw your master list of all the teams in pit admin, sorted by geography and thought "there it is!" We spent way too much time flipping through divisions, through programs, through assorted lists. By Friday I would have traded my vest with 13 pockets to have a computer with a searchable database. We were slammed with these inquiries about teams just because of where this booth was-I have so many stories including crying moms. And depending on whether they wanted a pit visit vs. watching the team on the field in the Dome and which section to send them to there, guided the conversation. In addition, I would love to have a little more coordination between pit admin and the event information booth. This is doable!

I hate I am posting in the "negative" thread.
Can we make a "it's doable" thread?

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

RE: the conferences.

I have volunteered to do a conference presentation the past two years. I am very happy they were free this year. Whether hundreds attend (Karthik) or a few dozen (mine ;) ) each of these sessions have a lot to offer.

There was a mentor who attended my session last year. He did not have teams competing. His organization funded him to attend the conferences. All the rest of the event was gravy.

There are many schools and organizations who would allow and, gasp, even fund people to attend.

I would love to see the conferences expand and be a destination in themselves. Program books. Professionally done abstracts and bios. More days. More sessions. But I'd also love to keep them free.

I don't believe FIRST has the bandwidth to do this now, so it would take a partnership with another organization. And some funding.

This is doable.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

My apologies. To be fair, I did use the term Championships the first time. It's my first year of FIRST, go easy on me ;)

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

There should be more gamecasts like the one's from MSC. If you haven't seen it, here is the link to the finals. I wish all regionals/regional championships had something like this.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Wow! Yes, it is doable! I hope the right people are reading these threads!

We apparently need several team database computers (for a few key Volunteers and a few self-serve computers) set up at the most strategic locations in the venues (entrance, pit admin, the two inspection stations, etc.). Maybe a few "FIRST Ambassadors" with maps to personally escort people to the locations as well, as many people were super confused in the FRC Divisions by the pit maps. I had to ask an RI to escort a very confused person to a specific team in our division.

Maybe you could use text messaging to talk to Pit Admin? We used text messaging to communicate between the Galileo field out in the Dome and the Galileo inspection station when robots were having issues on the field. It's not instantaneous, but it worked pretty well for us.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Speaking of texting, it might be worthwhile to ask ATT to beef up reception at the dome and specifically the convention center. TMobile and Verizon both worked fine but for all my friends with ATT, message delivery time was measured in hours not seconds.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Agreed. We had about a 5 to 10 minute lag time on AT&T.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

> I would much rather see eight 50-team divisions, 10 qualifying matches and a quarter-final round at Einstein.

This is a hard solution to provide, but this is an attractive way forward on what seems to be the consensus biggest negative and probably the only way to even incrementally expand CMP (not that there aren't other considerations that might preclude this). One possible approach would be to run two divisions on each field, one in the mornings and one in the evenings. This would shorten the days for teams and reduce the number of people around for at least some of the time, but would require more volunteers (possibly for two shorter shifts in longer days). At the same time, everyone would still be at CMPs and there would be enough overlap that it would be one event.


It is really hard to justify a ranking system where wins and losses are not the top-line criteria, but maybe there is a way to reflect strength of schedule somewhere in the rankings. Individual team offence/defense can't be kept like the score, but maybe some scouting stats could be considered.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

At this point someone says that OPR should be used as the criteria for seeding. And then someone else points out how bad of an idea it is.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

As much as people hate it, OPR in 2013 would probably have provided better seeding than W/L/T. Unfortunately, there is never any way to correlate it to actual on field performance in eliminations vs W/L/T since eliminations are intrinsically linked to the seedings defined by W/L/T.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I'd lean toward the opposite: 4 100-team divisions, each with two fields, preferably on the dome floor (space permitting). As long as we're satisfied enough teams are playing in the eliminations, it avoids an extra (Einstein quarterfinal) round of playoffs.

There would be a need for more volunteers, and of course more field sets would have to be used for competition matches.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Two fields per division? Scouting your division would be doubly difficult.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I think a solution to getting more space would be splitting up FRC, FTC, and FLL champs. This would allow more teams from FTC and FLL to to go and allow for more FRC divisions. They could still be in the same venue, just separated by a day or twoo.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

In its existing floor plan configuration it may be difficult, but theoretically you could place them next to each other and play a match on one while the other one goes through reset.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

That's the ideal. It may be possible with staggered fields, or fields placed two deep or pointed toward the centre of the dome. Some of those arrangements pose problems for viewing, but it's probably manageable if there exists enough space. (Does anyone have 2013's dimensioned floor plan handy?)

You could always share three fields among two divisions if you had to. (In the old days of the FRC championship, you played on both Einstein and Newton during the qualifying round.)

If the extra fields for each division ended up in the pits, then yes, it could be a pain to scout (and verging on impossible for smaller teams).

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

How about a compromise? 6 fields, one division each; with ~70 teams each, there should be more than enough time for 10 matches or more. How do you deal with 6 alliances on Einstein, you ask? A round robin! I think that would be awesome, getting to see matches between so many amazing alliances. You could decide the winner straight off the round robin, or take the top 2 for a final best-of-3 (maybe if one of the finalists has a better W/L it gets to start with a win?) Yes, obviously this would take more time with the current format, but you could probably slice an hour or so off the divisions and still have 10 matches, not to mention all the time currently wasted before and during Einstein...

I can't take full credit for it, as it was discussed in TBA chat... still think it would be really cool, and I think it's pretty clear that there is room for 2 more fields.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I think I have to go against this one... 9 foot falls are a huge draw for a crowd (think NASCAR). Nothing could make the entire audience come together like a robot taking a dive this year. Even more so when that robot actually showed up to their next match and performed. There was nothing in the manual that said you had to climb, and those that chose to take the games name for what it was and climb were well aware of the risk involved.

After climbing the pyramid 20+ times in competition, we only fell once. That time was completely due to bad coaching on my part. A lot comes down to what you build and how you build it. Climbing itself wasn't hard to do, designing a fail safe method of climbing was the tough part.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

A good point but I have a good answer. If "Inspire" teams without robots were given special structured opportunities with opportunities to attend special workshops it would be worth the charge. Also bringing a smaller group of team leaders would be more affordable for some teams. More importantly: Many schools will not let students go unless there is some "official" invitation to attend and the school can justify it as a sanctioned activity. Schools are paid per student for the student to attend class each day at their facility so they are careful which activities they let students take off class to attend. I hate to admit this, but when I took off work and took my son out of school to attend the Atlanta World Championship, I had to call him in sick, otherwise under school policy it would have been an "unexcused absence" even though we were attending the FIRST championship and the school had a FIRST team. (I contend my son had previously missed no days before and had good grades so I feel the absence was justified and the learning experience he had at championship was educational.) So inviting schools to attend championships in some official capacity, (maybe through certain awards or special invitation or award) which honors them and gives the team an opportunity to attend minus the robot gives credibility to the teacher who requests permission for her team to attend.

Another thought: Maybe this is a bad idea, I am just throwing it out there. Could there be an extra field for a B championship, played by robots who are rookie teams, wild card teams, wait list invitees, and teams who might qualify other ways but maybe don't have the experience of championship under their belts? Perhaps teams that have a slower or problem robot but have great community programs which qualify them to attend World.

I am not complaining here, because FIRST is not about the robots, but in one of our matches, one of the rookie teams was confused and failed to show up, and the other team showed up with the wrong bumpers, and was not allowed to play. So it was our 1 robot, against 3. Again, this is just how it goes and we were just happy and honored to be at championship, but perhaps if these teams had a chance to compete at championship on another field and learn how the system works, (Championship the first year is overwhelming) it would be a good thing for all. And all the matches would move quicker with less teams playing for the World Championship honor. Perhaps this is a bad suggestion, but it is something to think about. And maybe this idea could solve some of the issues I am reading about. It also would serve as a field for emcees, announcers or referrees in training. As I stated before, just attending World Championship without a robot is an amazing experience and one I wish more students,teachers and mentors could experience, good robot or not.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I didn't like a couple of things about kickoff this year. I feel like they showed the game animation way too early and it wasn't as suspenseful as it was in previous years. Maybe I'm weird, but I actually liked sitting through a few hours of talking and animations and whatnot before the game reveal, I think it built up more suspense that way.

This is also more of a local thing, but the St. Louis FRC Kickoff at the Science Center was in a different area than where it used to be (was in planetarium last season and before) and I feel like the atmosphere wasn't as epic as it used to be. Also they used to play a slideshow of the pics from the STL regional the previous year and it was a fun nostalgia spree each time before kickoff.

Plus no Stephen Colbert, man...

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I do not think that labeling anyone as "B" teams is a good idea.

The wildcard teams are there because they "earned" the way. Being seeded 4 of 60+ teams in a regional is an accomplishment. If 6 teams show up with prior wins then the only way to not be a "B" team would be to beat out the "A" teams from other regionals?

Also... stacking the deck against rookie teams seems to be an excellent way of discouraging newcomers.

About the waitlist: I must admit that my first reaction to hearing that teams could "buy" their way to championships was not positive. I felt a bit of contempt for them. I was wrong to feel that way. The championships are, as they should be, about more than just rankings.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

ohmygodno, kickoff was perfect this year, for some of us western teams getting up at 4 am to go to kickoff sucks as it is, waiting through 2 hours of talking is a waste of our time. I liked this year where we showed up to kick off, got the game, saw the field and left, it was much less dreadful than last year.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Yeah, that is a little odd.

Our team doesn't have a close local kickoff, and traveling out of state for that event isn't practical when we can watch the same animation at home and then immediately use our home facility to start working on the game. So kickoff is one part of the year when we get to make our own decisions about how much introductory material is appropriate. We keep the kickoff on in the background and wait for the good parts. I've watched the whole thing a couple of times, and I end up zoning out for parts of it. Planning the kickoff warrants the same type of editorial restraint as planning Einstein - while the messages might be 100% on the money, the attention span of the average viewer (adults included) is finite.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I agree it was wayyyy better this year but I do think that it needed a bit more build up. I remember asking people around me to reassure me that this was, in fact, the game animation because it caught me by such surprise. I don't think it needs more speeches or anything, just a little hype is all.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Something not mentioned so far (because I'm probably the only one who cares): can the MCs bring back the original pre-match cadence?

Red team are you ready?
Blue team are you ready?
Drivers behind the lines...
3, 2, 1, go!

Saying those two lines would only take a few extra seconds, and it would do a lot for my sanity and stress level if my team ever lets me be drive coach again. :)

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

They do something along those lines at every competition I've ever been too. Its not always both alliance but "Drivers are you ready?" and they look at both alliances for thumbs up be for saying the rest of the schpeel that you mentioned.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

These folks are bright, intelligent leaders in their respective fields that are giving collectively millions of dollars, hours, and resources straight to you because they believe in you. If they choose to talk to you during kickoff, it's probably because they have something important/inspirational to say, and you should probably pay attention.

I have always been confused by the hordes of people who swarm Dean wherever he goes, give two minute standing ovations whenever his name is mentioned, and then gripe when he wants to talk to us.
Dean Kamen is a pretty smart dude. If he wants to talk to me, I want to listen.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Actually saying the "Red team are you ready...." part does add on quite a bit of time, especially if we wait for acknowledgement from the alliance members (if we don't, then what is the point of saying it at all?), and when we are generally working on a very tight match rotation (this year was a little bit of an exception because the FTA's overestimated the amount of time needed for match rotations) we try to shave off every second we can.

The current way that Emcee's are directed to say it is:
(Wait for Green Light, look to see if FTA, Head Ref, teams, and Scorekeeper are ready)
Drivers behind the lines...
3, 2, 1, go!

...or some sort of similiar varient.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

At Orlando, South Florida, and Newton (the three events I attended) the MC's all said this or something similar:
"We have a green light:
Red Alliance are you ready?
Blue Alliance are you ready?
3, 2, 1, GO!"

Sometimes they would add in the drivers behind the line but not always.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Again, this is an exceedingly minor issue.
At Chesapeake, Greg Needel explained to me that his instructions are to omit these lines during qualifications, but to say them during eliminations.
I'd argue the point is to help develop a rhythm for everyone involved in the field operations. It's a verbal cue that prompts people to transition from "setup" tasks to "gameplay" tasks. Like every NFL quarterback knows, messing with the cadence has subtle but powerful effects on mental preparedness.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

First time posting on here, just been scouring lately.
Not anything about the game that hasn't already been said, but I just want to see if anyone else's team had this problem.
Did anyone else have to format their cRio's multiple times to get it to work?
It took at least 3 times when we added something, switched it to a smaller one, or did it on our second robot.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This isn't really a complaint, but in most matches in the events that I was at/watched, the announcer uses the phrase "pre-programmed instructions" to describe autonomous mode. Also, the check to see if the alliances are ready is useful. Just because a team's robot is connected doesn't mean that they have selected their auto mode on the smart dashboard. I've seen them start without everybody ready only twice, but it would be a good thing to bring back.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I'm not a programmer but what's wrong with calling autonomous mode "pre-programmed instructions"?

Also, I dunno if it applies to other regionals, but the two I drove at this year, if you held up a thumbs down they'd wait for you.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

There's nothing wrong with pre-programmed instructions, but it gets a little repetitive to hear "In autonomous mode robots operate under pre-programmed instructions and score double points!" every time your match starts. Thinking back to it, it was only at one of the events that this was said every time.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

If you're not ready have someone (Coach maybe?) wave your hands in the ref/MC's direction. They wont start without you if you make it known.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Autonomous mode commands are programmed instructions. I don't program before I program :p

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

But you don't program while the match is going on, hence pre-programmed ;)

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

#beingthatguy
That'd make the entire match pre-programmed. XD

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Yes pre-programmed but not controlledb

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Cylinders are not fun to design for or inspect. A nice rectangular size constraint would be much easier on everyone involved.

The inconsistency between inspections at regionals (this is always something), but particularly shooter guards this year. This shouldn't be up to the LRI. It should have at least been adressed (one way or the other) after week 1 at the latest.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

The cylinder was the bane of my existence and invaded my dreams this year. I understand that challenging constraints can be lots of fun but this one seemed arbitrary. I think the reasoning for it was to accommodate the amorphous frame rules this year. Also, very few inspectors knew how to properly inspect for this, instead measuring maximum point-to-point distance instead of the actual cylinder. Some suggestions for better constraints:

-Max point-to-point distance on the robot
-Maximum extension from each side of the frame
-Max dimensions of a rectangular prism

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Yes, agreed, inconsistent and confusing. Game rules vs robot rules. It's not just the cylinder or shooters, it's bumpers also. Everyone has different experiences and areas of expertise. RIs have to know every design solution a team may come up with and if it complies at all possible times of a match. Thus, please help us to help your teams.

For bumpers, I like to feel the bumpers and push on them to make sure of their construction and ensure they are secured to the frame. However, not every RI does the hands-on-the-robot approach when it comes to bumpers. Why do I have to feel the bumpers and push on them? Why can't I just look at them?

We want every team out on the field competing in their matches. It is our job to help the teams get out there on time and be successful; however, there is also a limit to what we can do in a few hours vs what the robot rules stated 6 or more weeks prior. Thus, I'm going to have to ask you all to meet us half way.

I am going to suggest that each team have a seasoned student compliance lead that goes through the rules and checklist criteria comparing them to the actual build of the robot to ensure compliance to the rules prior to bagging the robot. I say this because we have seen several cases where the team assumed the rules had not changed from the previous year and went to town on their build resulting in a very noncompliant robot showing up at a regional. Knowing this happens frequently, we have offered as well as other super experienced teams have offered to inspect the robots for compliance prior to bag and tag. Unfortunately, we do not get many takers of this valuable service.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This was our first trip to the Championships. And while it was exciting and wonderful, and the access to seating was awful. And the teams that manage to make it in the morning and hold three or four rows are being incredibly rude and setting an awful example for our students.
The two wristbands for each team to be able to have at least two people see Einstein and then whatever they did so the teams playing there got preferential seating seemed to work, and that is a credit to the staff at the Dome. I was waiting near the entrance to the "pink band" seating to meet our captain to whom I was giving the band as he had to return from the pits. I was embarrassed by the number of people giving the Dome officials grief because the officials would not let them through without the correct identification. So not gracious.
If "scouting seating" has been discussed, then based on the behavior of the people in the stands, each field would require a couple of volunteers at all times to enforce the pin or badge system or whatever each team would be provided. But I would support this process and it would help the teams that are not able to stay right near the dome. Not every team can be right next to the stadium.
Someone in this thread mentioned big screens overhead broadcasting the matches to the pits, like the standings, and I think that would help ease the pressure in the seating area. But I would be a little concerned about safety as even with the standings some people get glued to the screen and overlook their surroundings.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Not that this is new to this year, but the inconsistency weighing the withholding allowance.

I was 3 events Thursday morning, yet only one weighed the withholding.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Somebody weighed the withholding? I haven't even seen this once in 7 years. We only ever weight ours out of habit.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Thursday morning at Finger Lakes. I heard it happened last year at Queen City(?) too.

We were well under our withholding weight (20 lbs), so it wasn't an issue, but the fact that it happens somewhere and not others is the frustrating part.

Re: 2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Queen City it DID in fact happen. I remember because we had our bumpers outside of the bag so they had us weigh them. Also at Waterloo (2013) they had me weigh our sponsor panel that they saw me bringing in. I don't remember any other time we had to weigh our parts we were bringing in.

I wonder if The Aluminum Falcons had to weigh their new shooter and such this year after people saw them changing it in competition??