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-   -   Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127759)

Hallry 11-03-2014 16:18

Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
As most of you probably know, the 2014 Mount Olive MAR District Event took place two weekends ago as a Week 1 Competition. Though I’m sure most of you have heard about the drama that took place on the field, which was completely out of the control of the hosts, other than that it was a very well-ran event held by FRC Team 11, who actually had to hold back-to-back events with hosting the NJ FLL State Championships at their high school as well this past weekend.

Some of you may have been told that I’ve been holding back the full-field footage recorded at Mt. Olive due to an ‘issue’ I noticed. Since it has now been over a week and FIRST has yet to make any official mention of it, and it seems that they’re not going to, and now that most of the controversy from the event has died down, I figured I would take the charge of informing the FRC community, especially the MAR community, of what some may say is a pretty substantial error that occurred. Do I want to cause any more disputes from posting this? Not at all. Do I wish that FIRST would have addressed this issue publicly? Absolutely. But do I believe that the community deserves to be told about what happened? Yes,

When I got back to my dorm on the Sunday night of Mt. Olive and was uploading and reviewing the videos of the matches, I soon noticed that the videos recorded later on were shorter than those from earlier in the event. At first I thought that this was due to human or camera error on the recording side, but then realized that some of the matches were shorter than they were supposed to be. In fact, every match, both qualification and elimination, was 20 seconds too short in teleoperated mode, beginning in the reset of Qualification Match 31. (If you're wondering why the replays of matches 8, 30, and eventually 31 are also too short, that's because they were played at the end of the day on Saturday). This means that about 70% of the matches were too short: Instead of having 10 seconds of autonomous mode and 140 seconds of teleop, they had 10 seconds of autonomous and only 120 seconds of teleop. After seeing this, I immediately notified one of the refs from the event, who notified the FTA, who was going to notified FIRST. I also sent my own email to FIRST via the FRCteams email, but have not received any response, even after their ‘maximum response time of 48 hours.’

How did this happen and how did no one notice? Well, I don’t know how it happened, but I am guessing it involved something with the field clock when match 31 had to be stopped midway and then reset. What is quite odd is that not long before the error started, the FTA double-checked with one of the refs to make sure that the match length was correct, and it was. As for how did no one notice - Well, if you were at the competition, or even watching via webcast, I’m sure you know that there was A LOT going on during the eliminations. But, how did no one notice before the eliminations on Sunday or even later on during the first day of competition on Saturday? People are used to it being 120 seconds of teleop. The last time teleoperated mode wasn’t 120 seconds was way back in 2004, when matches were 120 seconds total, with a 15 second autonomous and 105 second teleop. With Mt. Olive being one of the earliest competitions of the 2014 season, I’m sure people were more concerned with other possible issues, and weren’t focused on something as simple as the length of the matches. Additionally, the schedule on Saturday was changed to go later in the evening and play 70 qualification matches so that Sunday would finish before the snow arrived. I would guess that most people just wanted the matches, and the day, to be over, and I’d also bet that some people even forgot that the matches were supposed to be longer than in past years, simply due to not being accustomed to it.

Now, what should be done about this? Well, what could be done about it? While Section T16 of the 2014 Game Manual states “If, in the judgment of the Head Referee, an “ARENA fault” occurs that affects the outcome of the MATCH, the MATCH will be replayed.”, with the blue box underneath is stating “ARENA faults include broken FIELD elements, power failure to a portion of the FIELD (tripping the ciruit breaker in the PLAYER STATION is not considered a power failure), improper activation of the FMS, errors by FIELD personnel, etc.”, it would be impossible to replay all of the matches that were affected. Could an extra 20 seconds have changed the outcome of some of the matches? Absolutely. Might some people that lost be mad that they maybe could’ve won with an extra 20 seconds? Sure. But, was missing the 20 seconds unfair to all of the teams? Eh, maybe not so much. Sure, maybe some teams had one more/less shorter qualification matches than others due to their schedule, but it’s not like one alliance had a longer time to score in a match compared to the other alliance. And, all of the elimination matches were the same (shorter) length as well. Honestly, I don’t have any suggestions of what to do, other than to say “Sorry, someone/something made a mistake somewhere”, and just to make sure it doesn’t happen again. How can people be angry at others for this happening, when they themselves didn’t even notice it?

With that, I have made all of 1676’s footage from the 2014 Mt. Olive MAR District public, and can be found in this playlist. Unfortunately, we had to switch to using a different camera for the end of the elimination matches, so we are still working on locating and uploading Semifinal matches 2-2 and 2-3, both Final matches, and the Award Ceremony. I’m doing my best to find those recordings and get them up A.S.A.P.

And lastly, to all of the people I overheard hastily saying “We won’t be attending the Mt. Olive District next year”: Really? I promise you that if you held a Week 1 Event, the same field errors could have happened to you. Did M.O.R.T. make the pedestal not light up for you? No. Did M.O.R.T. make your robot lose connection to the field? No. Did M.O.R.T. make all of the matches 20 seconds too short? No. Did M.O.R.T. have any control of what happened on the field? Not at all. But did M.O.R.T. host a great event otherwise? Yes. I got the chance to talk to 11’s head coach Mr. Bodmer very briefly towards the end of Sunday, and he was just as annoyed with the problems that were happening as I was, if not even more so (and that’s saying something, I was pretty annoyed). I would like to thank M.O.R.T. for volunteering to hold a Week 1 competition knowing that things most likely wouldn’t go perfectly, and will gladly tell anyone who decides not to attend their district next year that they’ll be missing an awesome event.

My soapbox’s worn out, so I’ll leave it at that. I’ll be attending the Clifton MAR District this coming weekend, and will be sure to keep a close eye on the field clock throughout the competition to ensure that it’s correct, and would suggest some others to do the same at your own respective events, just in case. If other people more knowledgeable than myself want to offer suggestions of what exactly might have happened or what should/could be done about it, feel free. Maybe if we all start carrying around classy pocketwatches that could fix the problem….or sundials?

Sincerely,
Ryan Hall

And as a public statement to everyone in MAR, which I unfortunately feel the need to say after some of the events that unfolded: Play Nice.

EricDrost 11-03-2014 16:21

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
At the Mount Olive 2014 District Event, every match after 31, and every replay (8, 30, 31) were played with a 120 second teleoperated period.

2 teams had only three correctly timed matches.
18 teams had only four correctly timed matches.
18 teams had only five correctly timed matches.

This likely occurred because the FMS allows you to change the default Autonomous and Teleoperated time in a match. During week one events, this defaulted to 15 seconds and 120 seconds respectively upon shutdown of the FMS. This required a manual override to fix.

While, I don't think there is a good way to handle this situation, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. This incident, the execution of this game, and my experiences this year leave me disillusioned with FIRST. FIRST is setting the example that mediocrity is acceptable by not doing due diligence in validating this game.

The FMS and referee tablets were not tested well.
The rule set is impossible to enforce and incentivizes bad play, the including value of penalties.
Every aspect of ball reentry from pedestal problems to G40 seems like an afterthought.
The metagame in regions where 8/24 eliminations teams cannot easily control the ball is far more focused on smashing each other to bits than assisting.

Any company that releases a product has to validate it. NASA, Boeing, and all of the other FIRST sponsors need to rigorously validate a product before they ship it. Companies would die if they delivered a product without validating it. It's just not analogous to industry.

A culture where mediocrity is acceptable is both a bad example for students and completely uninspiring.

Steven Donow 11-03-2014 16:30

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Thanks for being the one to make what must have been a tough post to write, Ryan.

Full disclosure, the unnamed referee mentioned in the post was me. Coming home from Mt. Olive I was already tired/stressed to begin with, so after planning on going to bed at around 8, I ended up staying up later to 'clear the air' about some of the things that happened. Then I found this out and nearly had a heart attack. I spend about an hour looking through whatever match video was up from other Week 1s in hope that this was some sort of wider issue, but it wasn't.

My personal story with this is that I truly, vividly remember initially telling the FTA that it's 120, then looking in the manual because I knew that sounded off, and then confirming that it was 140 seconds-I also vividly remember seeing 140 seconds in the input box on the scorekeeper screen.

I'm really not surprised that no one noticed-I know that in my three years of being on drive team I very rarely looked at the game clock before the final minute, and as a ref, I very rarely even looked at the clock once autonomous ended.

As to what can be done? Nothing can be done other than FIRST mentioning it on weekly volunteer calls to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

Was it fair? This is a question that I've had mixed feelings on. It kinda is fair because teams all had equal time in matches against each other, but at the same time, it also isn't fair because it could have possibly interfered with the seeding at the event, and, if the tiebreakers need to go that far, MAR points.

This isn't really something that needs to be argued over or for teams to be angry with over; it's in the past and all that needs to be done is to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

EDIT: Now that I see some more posts following mine...can this thread please not be turned into a, 'let's talk trash about the game!' thread; this issue had nothing to do with the flaws people see in the game.

Thad House 11-03-2014 16:31

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
This whole year feels very rushed. The game rules looked fairly decent on paper, but as soon as it started getting played flaws started coming out. The FMS, from all the stories, seems insanely rushed, especially after hearing that the timing defaults were still set to last years times. It seems very untested, because of the auto light timing errors, and the sounds and timers not syncing up with when robots are enabled, which I noticed and have video of here in OR as well. The tablets being laggy doesn't help this situation either.

I really hope FIRST is working on fixing as many of these issues as possible, because its just going to get worse and worse.

magnets 11-03-2014 16:32

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
This game feels very... mediocre. It's definitely not at the level we've been used to seeing in the past. The FMS has received only a small update, and we've suddenly noticed that it has awful timing accuracy for hot goal and autonomous enable/disable/ and sound effects. The referee tablets don't work, and the workaround for starting the match present in week one, proves that this system has never been tested. I'm not 100% sure, but I thought the older FMS in 2011 would reset the match length parameter between matches to prevent this sort of thing. The number of match replays is incredible, at least 10x what I've seen in the past and robots are getting bashed to bits.

coalhot 11-03-2014 16:34

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
It's funny, I heard that a few practice matches were run Friday night (at HH) with the timing from last year (long auto/teleop/endgame), and was noticed and fixed before any qualifications were played. Seems like that's an easy thing to mess up/not pay attention to.

All I can really say, after having volunteered at Hatboro-Horsham, that it's a week one event, and anything is bound to happen. Week one events are usually where most of the problems happen, and it's a calculated risk for the teams that choose to go to them.

Jscout11 11-03-2014 16:42

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
This is very disappointing news on several levels. A ton of planning and hard work from volunteers goes into this event every year, and I sincerely hope teams will not be discouraged from attending the Mount Olive District Event in the future.

MaxMax161 11-03-2014 17:13

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
This could have happened in any week 1 event, I for one hold nothing against MORT for mistakes made.

What should come of this is a protocol for FIRST to professionally handle mistakes they make, this isn't the first or last time something like this will happen, and protocols for similar problems to be avoided in the future.

techhelpbb 11-03-2014 17:28

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
As the CSA on this event, a sponsor of Team 11, a mentor of Team 11 for programming and CNC, and an FLL Judge...
I want to say a few things about this:

1. It's a tough job setting up one of these events and made only more complicated when you host it the first week. Odds are if something is going to go wrong it's going to go wrong the first few times you do something.

2. I have to say I find it strange that FIRST has gone to great lengths to have remote access to their fields since the ill-fated Einstein for troubleshooting reasons but doesn't trap this sort of error at their central location.

3. I've worked with the FTA and FTAA in question and I want to say that generally they have been professional and responsible and as I said sometimes things happen. There is no process in place that I am aware of either locally or remote to the field to check this condition. It could happen at any time or any place. That should be addressed and if there is concern for this happening in the future someone should time the events and bring it to the attention of someone. I know no one brought it to my attention during the matches. Had they done so I wouldn't have stopped till the concern was addressed.

4. I have been critical of FIRST in the past about issues with the fields and let me say clearly I've been involved with setting up and tearing down several of them over the years (hardware, electronics and software). I have to say that there are some things with these fields that need work. I've stood up and defended the fields when I felt there wasn't adequate proof from various teams but I see issues that -will never be solved- because of the limited access to the fields. These current issues are obviously hard to resolve because of their nature. Other issues are more deeply technical. I am going to say what I essentially have said before: please FIRST understand that you can't ignore the frustration your organization creates when the culture exerts pressures like this on people. This field system needs work and whatever is going on with the 2015 RoboRIO and the radios I hope that it won't take several years and random people stumbling on things before any bugs are acknowledged or even recorded. When a team - any team - raises a concern they can't solve themselves it ought to be at least recorded somewhere and I too often feel it gets quietly lost in word of mouth.

5. I also want to add and I've said this before with people from MAR: when I am the CSA or any other volunteer position at any event it doesn't matter to me that I am mentor or sponsor of Team 11. I have an ethical obligation to not allow my affiliation with Team 11 to alter my actions negatively in that role and I take my ethics *very* seriously. To hold the professional obligations I have means that I can't lower myself into that sort of situation because it would reflect on me elsewhere. To my knowledge - no one on Team 11 has ever allowed their team affiliation to alter their duty as a FIRST volunteer. In short even if someone, somewhere feels that because this event was hosted by the home school of Team 11: Team 11's standing during this year at that event ought to demonstrate that we are not influencing anything intentionally. Unfortunate situations like this cut us all. No matter the perceived rivalry with Team 11 I am there to provide good clean competition and anyone that has watched me work knows that I will spend hours and my own money if that's what it takes to make that happen.

Robotmmm 11-03-2014 18:02

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
I agree with everyone that MORT is not to blame. They hold a top notch event.

Clearly replaying these matches is not possible, but I would like to disagree that no harm has been done to teams that attended this event.

While checking the stats on SPIDER after week one, and again after week two I noticed that the Mount Olive District had the lowest average match scores of all events. This seemed curious to me, but now it is clear why this is so. Of course the averages would be lower because the matches were short by 20 seconds and it is possible to score a lot of points in that amount of time.

So the harm to teams.......OPR.

This number will be skewed negatively for all those teams that competed at MO. This is a lasting effect that will follow these teams until Champs. Not sure how to deal with this fact.

jlmcmchl 11-03-2014 18:21

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Robotmmm (Post 1357586)
I agree with everyone that MORT is not to blame. They hold a top notch event.

Clearly replaying these matches is not possible, but I would like to disagree that no harm has been done to teams that attended this event.

While checking the stats on SPIDER after week one, and again after week two I noticed that the Mount Olive District had the lowest average match scores of all events. This seemed curious to me, but now it is clear why this is so. Of course the averages would be lower because the matches were short by 20 seconds and it is possible to score a lot of points in that amount of time.

So the harm to teams.......OPR.

This number will be skewed negatively for all those teams that competed at MO. This is a lasting effect that will follow these teams until Champs. Not sure how to deal with this fact.

OPR is a terrible metric in this year's game, and a low one should not be considered as a harm to the teams attended.

Back on this, major thanks Ryan for posting this, it's a very touchy subject and it takes a special type of person to speak about it. FIRST has had more technical issues this year than I've ever seen; here's to learning from our mistakes and fixing them as this season goes on.

Robotmmm 11-03-2014 18:24

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
[quote=jlmcmchl;1357605]OPR is a terrible metric in this year's game, and a low one should not be considered as a harm to the teams attended.

I agree. But that does not mean that the metric will not be used by many teams.

Kevin Sheridan 11-03-2014 18:26

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Robotmmm (Post 1357607)
I agree. But that does not mean that the metric will not be used by many teams.

If a team is using OPR from different events to make comparisons, then that team is not using OPR correctly.

Gregor 11-03-2014 18:47

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevin Sheridan (Post 1357609)
If a team is using OPR from different events to make comparisons, then that team is not using OPR correctly.

And they're not a team you want to be picked by.

bduddy 11-03-2014 20:19

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Does this really have to turn into another silly OPR argument?

This is a huge issue that (of course) has gone entirely unaddressed by FIRST before its public unveiling. Expect an apologetic blog post in the near future and no real changes.

mlantry 11-03-2014 23:38

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by bduddy (Post 1357723)
Does this really have to turn into another silly OPR argument?

This is a huge issue that (of course) has gone entirely unaddressed by FIRST before its public unveiling. Expect an apologetic blog post in the near future and no real changes.

I disagree with that FIRST will definitely correct the issue it may not fixed what happened but at least it won't happen in the future

Cam877 12-03-2014 00:04

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
All of the puzzle pieces have fit together now. This is unbelievable. I was wondering this whole time what the supposed problem you guys were dealing with on the videos, and I too had noticed the significantly lower match scores as compared to other events, and now it all makes sense. Thank you for posting this when FIRST neglected to. I have to say though, I think that time could have changed the out come of the matches. I can recall many matches where the game could have been won by a last minute goal or truss shot but they either couldn't get it off or they missed because of being rushed. Not to mention all of the cycles that could have been. However, I do believe it was still a "fair " event, because outside of the few starting qualification matches, everybody had the same time to do everything. This is a huge issue though, and I personally am disappointed in FIRST for neglecting to address this issue. While it's pointless to get worked up about it, it still should have been addressed at the very least, or it should have never happened. It's a shame. All I can say is I hope these incidents doesn't prevent teams from coming to mount olive in the future.

EricDrost 12-03-2014 00:05

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by mlantry (Post 1357855)
I disagree with that FIRST will definitely correct the issue it may not fixed what happened but at least it won't happen in the future

It's been fixed in the FMS for week 2 and on, but that's not exactly the point. That's just common sense to fix a bug.

Ideally, FIRST puts procedures in place to catch these types of bugs more quickly in the future. I think bduddy is suggesting he does not have faith that better procedures will be put into place.

Ian Curtis 12-03-2014 00:15

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by EricDrost (Post 1357870)
I think bduddy is suggesting he does not have faith that better procedures will be put into place.


There is a reason airplane manufacturers don't put this switch on board to be accidentally toggled. :)

I understand FIRST is in between a bit of a rock and a hard place (do they use this option to schedule practice matches?), but it seems ridiculous that the default would be to change it instead of leave it in place. As Eric said, why isn't more of this validated beforehand? Since the burden is really on Districts now, can we run more official week Zero events to shake this all out earlier?

Perhaps this discussion is a more interesting note on what CD finds important. A thread of whether you can use tape to make your bumpers look nice blows up right away, but a thread about something that actually impacts teams in a meaningful way just simmers in the background.

Link07 12-03-2014 00:36

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Keep in mind that some teams might not want to come back to Mount Olive simply because it's a week 1 event. I attended HH that weekend, and it was very clear that MO and HH both had significant issues due to the nature of the game and it's understandable that some teams might want to avoid these events as a whole in the future, especially after this year where matches were stopped, replayed, or shortened constantly.

I wasn't at the Mount Olive event, but unfortunately it sounds like everything that could go wrong did go wrong this year.

Ian H. 12-03-2014 00:40

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
I think despite FIRST's growing size, FIRST's volunteer culture means ultimately we collectively have the power to fix problems like these. It's kind of ironic to me that nobody noticed for quite sometime, and so we blame FIRST for the mishap. What about all of the people at the event?

I get what people were saying, this was certainly unfair, but it seems unfair in the same way life is unfair. This doesn't ruffle my feathers too much, it seems like I'm in the minority.

Brandon_L 12-03-2014 01:54

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian H. (Post 1357887)
I think despite FIRST's growing size, FIRST's volunteer culture means ultimately we collectively have the power to fix problems like these. It's kind of ironic to me that nobody noticed for quite sometime, and so we blame FIRST for the mishap. What about all of the people at the event?

I get what people were saying, this was certainly unfair, but it seems unfair in the same way life is unfair. This doesn't ruffle my feathers too much, it seems like I'm in the minority.

The cause of the issue was a fault from FIRST, a bug in the FMS

team222badbrad 12-03-2014 02:46

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Link07 (Post 1357884)
Keep in mind that some teams might not want to come back to Mount Olive simply because it's a week 1 event. I attended HH that weekend, and it was very clear that MO and HH both had significant issues due to the nature of the game and it's understandable that some teams might want to avoid these events as a whole in the future, especially after this year where matches were stopped, replayed, or shortened constantly.

I wasn't at the Mount Olive event, but unfortunately it sounds like everything that could go wrong did go wrong this year.

Week one events have never been without field issues. Unfortunately there is not always a way to "opt out" of week one events. If no one attended week one events then there would be no week two events! Week one events have many advantages and disadvantages so as previously mentioned it can be a gamble with the outcome your team receives from attending one.

We typically prefer not to attend week one events, but Mt. Olive has always been a 1st class district event. Great location, parking, venue, food and people, etc.


With that said Mt. Olive will most likely remain as our "go to" event for 2015 even if it is a week one event.

Ian H. 12-03-2014 03:00

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Brandon_L (Post 1357921)
The cause of the issue was a fault from FIRST, a bug in the FMS

Yeah, I get that.

ehochstein 12-03-2014 03:23

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Brandon_L (Post 1357921)
The cause of the issue was a fault from FIRST, a bug in the FMS

Some would call it a feature, being able to change the match time.

Ian H. 12-03-2014 03:38

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
What I'm trying to say is I know we pay a lot of money to participate in an event every year, but I don't feel like we're paying FIRST to put the event on, I feel like we're paying as a group to make the event possible.

Yes, I know the FMS has an option to set auto time and teleop time. And it seems like maybe it auto reset to 10 seconds for auto and 120 for teleop, so whoever updated the FMS this year, possibly a volunteer, didn't fix this problem. And then Steven made a mistake not realizing the time was incorrect, I'd assume he's a volunteer. And then, what really gets me is that unlike all of the other times that people complain about 'FIRST', this time all any team had to do to fix the problem was realize there was a problem and notify the FTA like Hallry did and they would have fix the problem.

We all volunteer to do this, because another volunteer messed up we point fingers at the big entity that is FIRST as a scapegoat? You wouldn't use Steven as a scapegoat would you?

Answer42 12-03-2014 03:51

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
I'll add my 2 cents in here. I like this game. It's simple and to the point. It encourages elegant design, allows low level teams to make a useful robot, and can still be dominated by a team that builds a sufficiently amazing robot. Seeding is definitely weird, and not fair in the slightest due to the nature of the game. But with good scouting and communication between teams the right alliances end up forming anyways. And it's refreshing to see 1 picks 43 instead of 1 picks 2, 3 picks 4, ect. G40 was awful in week one, but reasonable now. Defense is huge, but I wouldn't say it's the meta-game. Both the the finals of CVR and IE were primarily offensive matches. So really. The only aspect that's disappointing to me here is that we're hearing about this mistake from a third party source. First should have addressed this publicly, and I hope we'll see a blog post soon explaining why it wasn't addressed.

scottandme 12-03-2014 08:03

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Wiifi (Post 1357943)
Some would call it a feature, being able to change the match time.

But most people would call it a bug, when the system defaults to the wrong match times, and requires manual override to make the event run properly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian H. (Post 1357887)
I think despite FIRST's growing size, FIRST's volunteer culture means ultimately we collectively have the power to fix problems like these. It's kind of ironic to me that nobody noticed for quite sometime, and so we blame FIRST for the mishap. What about all of the people at the event?

I get what people were saying, this was certainly unfair, but it seems unfair in the same way life is unfair. This doesn't ruffle my feathers too much, it seems like I'm in the minority.

So you're essentially suggesting that FIRST volunteers should find and patch bugs in the FMS system? The issue in this thread is the illogical method used to set match timing, but you don't have to look too hard to find multiple major issues with the FMS (hot goal timing & activation, poor UI/lag on the referee tablets, pedestal light activation delays). It's clear that the FMS (and game itself to an extent) was not developed or tested to the level of rigor necessary.

FIRST is going to receive over $750,000 in registration fees from MAR teams this season, but only $110,000 will go back to MAR to fund operation of the entire district. So yes, for that amount of money - I would expect that FIRST should be able to deliver a tested and well functioning field, since MAR and the volunteers are on the hook for essentially everything except a new game every year.

BrendanB 12-03-2014 09:54

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis (Post 1357874)

There is a reason airplane manufacturers don't put this switch on board to be accidentally toggled. :)

I understand FIRST is in between a bit of a rock and a hard place (do they use this option to schedule practice matches?), but it seems ridiculous that the default would be to change it instead of leave it in place. As Eric said, why isn't more of this validated beforehand? Since the burden is really on Districts now, can we run more official week Zero events to shake this all out earlier?

Perhaps this discussion is a more interesting note on what CD finds important. A thread of whether you can use tape to make your bumpers look nice blows up right away, but a thread about something that actually impacts teams in a meaningful way just simmers in the background.

I think something that would greatly benefit FRC would be to reevaluate how current Week Zero scrimmages are being run.

Our team is very lucky to have the opportunity to attend the Week Zero event with an official field & FMS hosted at Merrimack HS and formerly Nashua HS. This event seems much like a one day off season we have grown familiar with. Practice matches in the morning, three regular matches, alliance selection, and then a quick elimination bracket of four alliances and done. Teams get the time on the field and FIRST gets to see how the game is played but there is still a lot missing from it compared to a regular event. Penalties were "called" in that the refs were scoring them but never telling teams what fouls occurred and there wasn't even the guarantee that refs were looking for fouls each match. Pedestals were an issue then as well and quite possibly the hot goal problem seen by 254. Since many teams didn't have a working auto mode it didn't matter and we weren't looking for it.

A lot of the issues we have seen this year could have been "fixed" or at least recognized sooner if the scrimmages were run more like an official event. Some sort of feedback form would also benefit FIRST as teams can notify FIRST of what isn't working and what is so if one group noticed something that another didn't at least FIRST was notified.

Some issues just won't be fixed by Week Zero scrimmages being monitored more. Didn't seem like we lost 20 seconds of match time.

Lastly, FIRST needs to start taking this stuff more seriously and maybe they are just we haven't heard anything. I think its the latter part that bothers me the most because teams who attended Mt. Olive haven't heard a word from HQ and what happened there was worse than tech fouls being worth too much as they lost a lot of match play time. Frank came on board and really started to better the communication to teams but since we've seen these issues this year we haven't even heard, "We see there is a problem and we are working on it".

Racer26 12-03-2014 10:21

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by BrendanB (Post 1358005)
Lastly, FIRST needs to start taking this stuff more seriously and maybe they are just we haven't heard anything. I think its the latter part that bothers me the most because teams who attended Mt. Olive haven't heard a word from HQ ...

This is what I don't understand.

FIRST is collectively an organization of tens of thousands of the smartest people in the world.

Where is the logic in hiding the problems, sweeping them under the rug, in an effort to keep up appearances? If HQ were more transparent about problems as they happen, more eyes attached to brilliant minds get on the problem, and an optimal solution can be found much more quickly.

When problems are kept from view, they fester, until someone notices (again, because we're all smart people), and says something. When that happens, we end up with threads like this one.

I realize that in this case, there is little to be done that isn't already being done, but in many cases, there are things that can still be done, and I believe a culture of admitting problems where they exist would lead to a better program as a whole.

Steven Donow 12-03-2014 13:20

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Racer26 (Post 1358014)
<snip>

again, full disclosure, the unmentioned Ref who was asked match time by the FTA and the one who Ryan initially told about the match time issue was me.

Mt. Olive had controversial events beyond this as is. Aside from the typical week 1 replays, there were other non-match related controversies that needn't be discussed here. It was stressful for all involved. The "I survived Mt. Olive 2014" joke was started before this issue was noticed.

When Ryan first told me about this around midnight last Sunday, I was flabbergasted with no idea of what to even say beyond a single expletive. I made the decision that it should, for the time, stay between as few people as possible until FIRST addressed it in some way or someone else noticed it and posted about it. The only person I told initially were the FTA, and a few days later, a fellow ref.

Simply put, I decided that it'd be best to wait until all of the other week 1 dust settled because to me, that was a more important thing to be discussed/settled than what occurred due to a minor oversight. It could have been avoided not just by FIRST.

I have no problem with FIRST's lack of immediately addressing this situation, which I'm sure is something many disagree with. I'm sure they're up to their necks in all the other issues (which, in the sense of the progression of the season are much more important). I'd rather the hot goal, pedestal, and overall FMS issued be fixed first.

I'm sure there are many who disagree with me, but I truly don't think this needs to be no.1 on FIRST's priority list until they determine what course of action to take on this.

Hoover 12-03-2014 15:11

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Nobody's talking about the elephant in the room. This went on for a good part of Saturday and all of Sunday and yet not one person in, what, a few thousand, ever noticed it? It never rose to the level of attention for any of us? Did anyone see when the gorilla walked across the playing field? I think I'm going to go watch a few episodes of the TV series 'Brain Games'.

Hallry 12-03-2014 15:14

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Hoover (Post 1358200)
Nobody's talking about the elephant in the room. This went on for a good part of Saturday and all of Sunday and yet not one person in, what, a few thousand, ever noticed it? It never rose to the level of attention for any of us? Did anyone see when the gorilla walked across the playing field? I think I'm going to go watch a few episodes of the TV series 'Mind Games'.

Well, why didn't you see it?

That's the same reason why everyone else didn't.

Andrew Schreiber 12-03-2014 15:21

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by scottandme (Post 1357964)
But most people would call it a bug, when the system defaults to the wrong match times, and requires manual override to make the event run properly.



So you're essentially suggesting that FIRST volunteers should find and patch bugs in the FMS system? The issue in this thread is the illogical method used to set match timing, but you don't have to look too hard to find multiple major issues with the FMS (hot goal timing & activation, poor UI/lag on the referee tablets, pedestal light activation delays). It's clear that the FMS (and game itself to an extent) was not developed or tested to the level of rigor necessary.


And doesn't freaking warn the operator that they are not running defaults. Seriously. Bad User Experience... to quote the UX guys here at work, "That's just poor design".

Scott, as a volunteer I will do my best to find and patch any bugs in the FMS I can. Wait, I can't. Because for some asinine reason it is proprietary and closed source. Oh, and in place of open communication protocols and COTS parts it uses closed protocols and expensive parts most people can't get. I guess that is just a microcosm of FIRST itself.

magnets 12-03-2014 15:35

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
As previous people have pointed out, FIRST is a massive organization with extremely bright people, and a decent amount of money and sponsors. They are capable of holding an incredible number of competitions and organizing the massive championship event in St. Louis, and other fantastic accomplishments, but they can't seem to test the FMS, the magical closed source networking nightmare of complexity.

If FIRST had set up a field, and played 10 matches with boxes on wheels robots, they would have noticed a significant number, if not all, of these problems. If FIRST doesn't have the resources to do this (which would be surprising...), then they need to be transparent about it. Letting the FRC community know would only help. They still haven't acknowledged any of the FMS issues.

coalhot 12-03-2014 15:52

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by magnets (Post 1358216)
If FIRST doesn't have the resources to do this (which would be surprising...), then they need to be transparent about it. Letting the FRC community know would only help. They still haven't acknowledged any of the FMS issues.

But that's what week 0 events are for, aren't they? :D <- much sarcasm

Andrew Schreiber 12-03-2014 15:56

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by coalhot (Post 1358232)
But that's what week 0 events are for, aren't they?

Maybe I'm blind but I don't see the /s

By that time the GDC cannot make large changes to the game without ticking off lots of people (see last year's rain of discs)

Simple playing of the game with Kitbots would have revealed many of these issues. And a dose of common sense (read as having EVER been part of an FRC team) would likely do a lot of good too.



Of course, not trying to shoehorn political crap into a game MIGHT also help. (rant about coopertition bridge here)

Lil' Lavery 12-03-2014 16:27

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Perhaps taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture might help too...

techhelpbb 12-03-2014 16:30

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Donow (Post 1358120)
I have no problem with FIRST's lack of immediately addressing this situation, which I'm sure is something many disagree with. I'm sure they're up to their necks in all the other issues (which, in the sense of the progression of the season are much more important). I'd rather the hot goal, pedestal, and overall FMS issued be fixed first.

As others have said and should be echoed.
There would be less to fix if more testing was done already by that time.

This isn't a dig just a question of accumulating risk.

I wonder if it's possible for MAR to get a field and spare parts a little earlier so there's more time to test ourselves so we can report obvious issues instead of falling over them.

Andrew Schreiber 12-03-2014 16:44

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery (Post 1358275)
Perhaps taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture might help too...

You mean the bigger picture of we pay $4000 to play an untested game designed by a group of people who, after being informed of this, sat on it for quite some time and have yet to publicly say anything about this issue.

Or are you going to say we should sit around, hold hands, and sing songs because this is all a bunch of volunteers?

Lil' Lavery 12-03-2014 17:17

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber (Post 1358292)
You mean the bigger picture of we pay $4000 to play an untested game designed by a group of people who, after being informed of this, sat on it for quite some time and have yet to publicly say anything about this issue.

Or are you going to say we should sit around, hold hands, and sing songs because this is all a bunch of volunteers?

If your only form of discourse is to be confrontational and openly mock those who have other viewpoints, there's no use in having a conversation with you. I meant what I said. Perhaps you should take a step back and look at the bigger picture here.

Brandon_L 12-03-2014 17:18

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian H. (Post 1357940)
Yeah, I get that.

Then why tell us to not blame FIRST, when it is clearly an issue caused by FIRST? Sure, a ref/volunteer/someone could have noticed and corrected it, but at the heart of the issue who is at fault?

More importantly, why are we playing on an untested FMS in a game where "what happens if the only scoring object for an alliance becomes stuck in a disabled robot?" was an afterthought?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wiifi (Post 1357943)
Some would call it a feature, being able to change the match time.

To echo what Scott said, while changing the match time is indeed a feature, when the system boots up/restarts/what not, it shouldn't default to the incorrect settings. That is a bug.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber (Post 1358238)
By that time the GDC cannot make large changes to the game without ticking off lots of people (see last year's rain of discs)

And I thought bad calls/foresight couldn't get worse then that at that point in time.

Andrew Schreiber 12-03-2014 17:22

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery (Post 1358300)
If your only form of discourse is to be confrontational and openly mock those who have other viewpoints, there's no use in having a conversation with you. I meant what I said. Perhaps you should take a step back and look at the bigger picture here.

Ok, enlighten me - what bigger picture? Because in my opinion that IS the bigger picture. And the fact is, any time anyone is critical of FIRST here we are told to look at the bigger picture. The issue is that the bigger picture is obscured behind a series of blunders that make it very hard to appreciate it.

Racer26 12-03-2014 17:27

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber (Post 1358308)
And the fact is, any time anyone is critical of FIRST here we are told to look at the bigger picture.

Its one thing when its people who haven't been around long are being critical, to dismiss them out of hand for 'not seeing the bigger picture'. When its 10+ year mentors, associated with well-known teams that are being critical?

Something is very, VERY wrong.

DonRotolo 12-03-2014 18:12

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
OK Folks: Everyone take a deep breath, and wait several hours before clicking "Submit Reply" button. Don't post something you'll want to un-post later.

Thank you.

Cam877 12-03-2014 23:09

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Answer42 (Post 1357948)
I'll add my 2 cents in here. I like this game. It's simple and to the point. It encourages elegant design, allows low level teams to make a useful robot, and can still be dominated by a team that builds a sufficiently amazing robot. Seeding is definitely weird, and not fair in the slightest due to the nature of the game. But with good scouting and communication between teams the right alliances end up forming anyways. And it's refreshing to see 1 picks 43 instead of 1 picks 2, 3 picks 4, ect. G40 was awful in week one, but reasonable now. Defense is huge, but I wouldn't say it's the meta-game. Both the the finals of CVR and IE were primarily offensive matches. So really. The only aspect that's disappointing to me here is that we're hearing about this mistake from a third party source. First should have addressed this publicly, and I hope we'll see a blog post soon explaining why it wasn't addressed.

I completely agree with you on the game. The assists, even though most hate them, add a whole new layer of strategy to the game and ensures that good scouting and strategy is being done to take an event home.

cgmv123 13-03-2014 09:10

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...21#post1358521

Akash Rastogi 13-03-2014 10:10

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Frank addressed the issue. It has reportedly been fixed in the FMS.

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...inst-the-Rules

Lil' Lavery 13-03-2014 23:49

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber (Post 1358308)
Ok, enlighten me - what bigger picture? Because in my opinion that IS the bigger picture. And the fact is, any time anyone is critical of FIRST here we are told to look at the bigger picture. The issue is that the bigger picture is obscured behind a series of blunders that make it very hard to appreciate it.

The bigger picture is obvious. What happens on the field is only a small fraction of what FIRST is about. It's a means to an end, but the end goals are discrete from it. It's about changing culture and inspiring the next generation to appreciate science and engineering. The "political crap" is an integral part of the message and vision of the program. I'd challenge you to find a single student that opts not to pursue a STEM career because of what happened at Mt. Olive, or a sponsor who opts not to support FIRST, or a media outlet that decides not to cover the event, etc. The actual goals of the program, the bigger picture, are barely impacted by incidents like this. Considering nobody noticed this issue until the event was over, I feel confident to say that this did not hamper the bigger picture at all.

You're not merely being critical of FIRST so much as you're being adversarial. You're attempting to enlarge and inflame controversy, and you're being openly disrespectful not only towards the volunteers, but the professionals involved as well. These are still human beings who pour just as much, and quite frequently much more, of their time and energy into this program. This isn't some faceless, nameless Scrooge McDuck that's stealing your $4000 to swim in. It's a group of professionals and volunteers who deserve the basic respect that should be shown to any human being. They are no more happy about the "blunders" that took place than you are. Rather than call them "asinine" and question their common sense (read: the volunteers at Mt. Olive are on teams), perhaps you should reach out and find productive ways to improve the situation. These people feel bad enough as it is, piling on solves nothing.

FIRST didn't attempt to sweep it under the carpet, nor did they sit on it for an extended period of time. There are proper channels that are followed, such as FTA conference calls and FMS updates. Considering that the FMS has already been updated to fix this issue, it's obvious that FIRST gave this issue immediate attention.

If you feel their results are not up to par with your expectations, and that you can get a better bang for your buck that better aligns with how you wish to inspire your students for $4000 elsewhere, I encourage you to do so. We all have the same goals here. Rather than being inflammatory and dwelling only on the negative aspects, be progressive and help improve the product while keeping in mind the end goal.

Andrew Schreiber 14-03-2014 00:30

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery (Post 1358758)
The bigger picture is obvious. What happens on the field is only a small fraction of what FIRST is about. It's a means to an end, but the end goals are discrete from it. It's about changing culture and inspiring the next generation to appreciate science and engineering. The "political crap" is an integral part of the message and vision of the program. I'd challenge you to find a single student that opts not to pursue a STEM career because of what happened at Mt. Olive, or a sponsor who opts not to support FIRST, or a media outlet that decides not to cover the event, etc. The actual goals of the program, the bigger picture, are barely impacted by incidents like this. Considering nobody noticed this issue until the event was over, I feel confident to say that this did not hamper the bigger picture at all.

You're not merely being critical of FIRST so much as you're being adversarial. You're attempting to enlarge and inflame controversy, and you're being openly disrespectful not only towards the volunteers, but the professionals involved as well. These are still human beings who pour just as much, and quite frequently much more, of their time and energy into this program. This isn't some faceless, nameless Scrooge McDuck that's stealing your $4000 to swim in. It's a group of professionals and volunteers who deserve the basic respect that should be shown to any human being. They are no more happy about the "blunders" that took place than you are. Rather than call them "asinine" and question their common sense (read: the volunteers at Mt. Olive are on teams), perhaps you should reach out and find productive ways to improve the situation. These people feel bad enough as it is, piling on solves nothing.

FIRST didn't attempt to sweep it under the carpet, nor did they sit on it for an extended period of time. There are proper channels that are followed, such as FTA conference calls and FMS updates. Considering that the FMS has already been updated to fix this issue, it's obvious that FIRST gave this issue immediate attention.

If you feel their results are not up to par with your expectations, and that you can get a better bang for your buck that better aligns with how you wish to inspire your students for $4000 elsewhere, I encourage you to do so. We all have the same goals here. Rather than being inflammatory and dwelling only on the negative aspects, be progressive and help improve the product while keeping in mind the end goal.

The bigger picture is being obscured by this series of avoidable blunders. Blunders FAR larger than the Mt Olive situation. This was merely the latest in a series of incidents that have led me to believe FIRST needs to take a step back and reevaluate whether it should focus on this "small fraction" because they clearly don't have a handle on it. We have a game that is impossible to ref. We have "potential sponsors" insulting high school students. We have a game where teams can barely play because they spend the entire match being rammed. Yeah you can bet your rear end I'm going to be adversarial.

I'm not attacking the volunteers. The refs, the scorekeepers, they are doing a great job. I don't fault the Scorekeeper at Mt Olive one bit. I fault FIRST HQ. I fault the folks that are PAID to deliver a product. Yes, you may see that product as only a small part. But it is the critical part of FIRST's mission. There are dozens (if not more) groups advocating for STEM education. FRC is the key differentiator between FIRST and Generic STEM Org 4. So, I'm going to have to disagree with the entire premise that your bigger picture is more important than missteps that make FIRST look like it has no clue how to run an event thus undermining anything it says.

And regarding professionals and volunteers. This may come as a surprise to you but I am one of those volunteers. I asked about a problem I saw and was told that there was a lack of experienced folks to do a job. So I'm doing it. If FIRST comes out and says "we don't have enough folks properly vetting our software" I'd do that too. If they need help they need to ask for it. FIRST is probably the only organization I'll willingly write software for and not expect any sort of compensation.

About the professionals - I'm a professional software engineer. You know what happens when I put out a product with a sloppy user experience? My department head comes into my lab, yells at me for 20 minutes, and I hear about the screw up for the next year. And that's assuming it's only a minor screw up. You don't want to know what happens if I screw something major up.

So, as a professional engineer, I'm going to show these folks the same respect I'd ask they show me. The respect to say that you can do better. I've had the pleasure of meeting a large number of folks who work at FIRST, I know they can do better than this. If you can't, what do you need to do better? Because I really DO want you to.


And my aside about the 2012 coopertition bridge - Political crap. Total idealogical crap. Did it foster collaboration? No. It fostered lying and manipulation to screw over teams.

So, even though you didn't ask for it I'm going to give FIRST some simple advice that I think would fix a lot of this sort of problems - Whatever your QA process for your software is, change it. Get some automated unit testing. Hire a UX expert (not UI, UX!). And last but not least, the second you verify that something like this happened? Shoot out a blog post saying "Hey crap happened, we're investigating fixing it and will keep you posted".

AlecMataloni 14-03-2014 00:55

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery (Post 1358758)
The bigger picture is obvious. What happens on the field is only a small fraction of what FIRST is about. It's a means to an end, but the end goals are discrete from it. It's about changing culture and inspiring the next generation to appreciate science and engineering. The "political crap" is an integral part of the message and vision of the program. I'd challenge you to find a single student that opts not to pursue a STEM career because of what happened at Mt. Olive, or a sponsor who opts not to support FIRST, or a media outlet that decides not to cover the event, etc. The actual goals of the program, the bigger picture, are barely impacted by incidents like this. Considering nobody noticed this issue until the event was over, I feel confident to say that this did not hamper the bigger picture at all.

If I'm trying to bring outsiders into FRC, how can I, with a good conscience, recommend them to be a part of something with major issues, and expect them to forgive the flaws just like that?

I'd be embarrassed if I sung the praises of FRC and drew people to volunteering, only for them to have a sub-par experience. This is personally why I care so much. If I'm putting my name out there supporting an organization like FIRST, I'm expecting FIRST to live up to the amazing experiences I've had in years past. I want newcomers to see FRC how I see it. Currently, with all the blunders and mishaps in 2014, It's difficult for me to justify going out in the community and getting people to invest their capital in an organization which doesn't have a cohesive product.

StevenB 14-03-2014 01:39

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by magnets (Post 1358216)
As previous people have pointed out, FIRST is a massive organization with extremely bright people, and a decent amount of money and sponsors. They are capable of holding an incredible number of competitions and organizing the massive championship event in St. Louis, and other fantastic accomplishments, but they can't seem to test the FMS, the magical closed source networking nightmare of complexity.

Hold on. FIRST is not a massive organization. It's actually a pretty small operation, in terms of full-time paid employees. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the FMS software is basically written and maintained by one or two people - who also have other things to do. Moreover, they do test the FMS with real robots before week zero. The problem is that the people testing it are the people who wrote it, and the fact that certain things are unintuitive naturally go unnoticed. Then suddenly you run a few thousand matches with dozens of fields and scores of new volunteer users, and you're guaranteed to find problems.

I'm not suggesting that it's ok for FIRST HQ to be sloppy. Last weekend was my first time driving the FMS, and I'll admit, it is not a pretty piece of software. The UX design is somewhere between confusing and awful. It could definitely be better, and I would love to see parts of it open-sourced.

But this outpouring of rage is unnecessary. I'm sure Frank, Matt, and the other folks in Manchester feel terrible about this. They pushed a software fix for this week, and they're doing what they can. Competition season is pretty intense for the FRC staff. Let's work to support them and help them do a better job, not tear them apart.

techhelpbb 14-03-2014 08:12

Re: Mt. Olive 2014 Footage and Match Length Issue
 
We'd all like to think that volunteers can address all the issues.
Truth is that there are limits to what we can and are allowed to do.
Our access is limited in many ways as well.
During matches we all have multiple responsibilities.
In a game with this much human attention required for scoring it's easily distracting for people on the field.

If it makes people feel better to fault volunteers for falling in the holes and complexity left for them to stumble over feel free. It's like mocking a team for robot problems. Anyone here want to pretend you've never had robot problems?

Just like robot problems a team can let this pull them apart or they can put the politics and egos aside and work the problems.

This being said: project management *IS NOT* and *WILL NEVER BE* about cleverly roasting the assigned resources with negative feedback. That's not project management and that's not team leadership. What that is, is what happens when you have an organization with issues, a lack of appropriate skills and resources to solve those issues and too many chefs.

I respect the people that know from personal and professional experience that the field systems need work. I respect and acknowledge that we as teams and volunteers have had several painful examples that should not be ignored. However let us lead by example. If I was one of those one or two people that maintain FMS (I am not) all this would do is demotivate me not motivate me. It's wonderful that FIRST has acknowledged this issue and corrected that bug. However it is pretty clear that the follow through on this sort of stuff in the future is uncertain. As I wrote before, and I write this with respect is it possible FIRST that you could explain to your membership what is going to be changed in the future to make this a better experience?

Changing the game isn't going to fix a process that produces the support technology for the game.
Getting the interface fixed doesn't address the other technical issues.

What's going to change to heal this process so that what comes out of it does more to inspire and less to aggravate?


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