FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

http://www3.usfirst.org/roboticsprog...-Pros-and-Cons

Cut it out with the paper airplanes! Frank hath spoken!


(^Not Frank Merrick^)

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

As usual Frank and FRC hit the nail on the head yet again with this list. Please stop with the paper airplanes, think about the poor soul who has to sit there and pick all of those up, and most of the time they end up hitting some unprepared individual.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

As for the paper airplanes I see his concern however, they are almost tradition when waiting for Einstein matches. Last year landing in the pyramid goal received more cheering and applause than many matches as does the first plane to hit the back curtain and any caught or presented triumphantly by field reset or other FIRST members on the floor. While I do recognize the quantity issue the crowd seems to know when to launch and when to stop.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Can we think outside the box? I enjoy the thrill of seeing the successful paper airplane soar from the heights, down, down, down... (not so much when the smack me in the back of the head on the way down) If the residue is the issue, why don't we all commit to taking a plastic grocery bag in with us, or a trash bag, and spending two minutes at the end of the event to pick up in and around our seats. Seriously, we aren't going anywhere, anyway, because of the crowds. Teams with floor access can gather the few airplanes that make it to that level.

This leaves the custodial staff with a lot less work in the seats and more time to clean up the confetti! :yikes:

And another thing! I disagree with the belief that the Hall of Fame display was adequate to showcase those amazing role model teams! Has anyone started a discussion of recommendations to make that area more respectful for the teams earning that honor and more valuable to the rest of us?

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

This, I agree with this as a much better alternative than stopping this tradition all together

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Team 254 intends to suggest that all HOF teams receive double wide (20'x10') pits to both house the robot and any display of the team's choice. We think this would allow teams to much more effectively showcase their accomplishments. This seemed to be well received amongst other HOF teams, but who knows if it is logistically possible.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I'm not sure going around through all of the divisions hunting for all the Hall of Fame teams is something the average Championship attendee is going to do.

Pit space is doubling next year. There will be more teams, but there should be room to give HOF teams bigger pits if that's what FIRST wants.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

And what about the one that landed behind Dean during ceremonies? I think most people know when to stop but it's pretty clear that there are some that don't.

I got into a conversation about this with other mentors on Saturday night after CMP and no one has a good solution but all of us know it is a problem.

No one wants to see FIRST send out laser armed drones to obliterate paper airplane throwing dissidents (well, maybe I do) but there does need to be a clear stopping point in the proceedings for teams to knock it off.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Except it's NOT a tradition. The first time I remember it was in St. Louis, maybe 2011. Three years out of twenty-three seasons of FRC, is not a tradition. The crowd clearly doesn't know when to stop - because they never should have started at all.

If you've been around CD for a while, you already know my feelings on the airplanes. It's disrespectful, and I'm happy that Frank finally spoke out about them. It's time for the airplanes to end.

I appreciate your optimism, but there are still teams out there who can barely handle Gracious Profesisonalism in the stands, let alone cleaning up after themselves/others. Also, there are no more teams with floor access, except for the FLL Champions, FTC Inspire, and FRC Chairmans award winners for the year. I have photos on my phone of the floor down by Einstein, from BEFORE the rain of paper really began. (I'll see if I can post one here.) Not something that our new Hall of Famers could really do on their own, nor should we ask them to. Frank said stop, so it's time to stop.

Agreed! I don't think it was big ENOUGH, but it was certainly a nice start to put them in the right place. Hopefully with more breathing room in the pit next year, the HoF can get a large lounge area twice the size (or more) of this year's. They certainly deserve it.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Not sure who noticed but the Hall of Fame teams had gold stars floating above their pits this year. Makes it real easy to find them, and looked kind of cool.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I'm pretty sure I remember paper airplanes in the Atlanta days, as well. Arena security was more aggressive about stopping people from throwing them, though.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I couldn't agree with Libby more. They are an embarrassment to our program, and I think that anyone who throws an airplane should be removed from the dome, I mean I dare you to throw something on to the field at any professional sports event* and try to stay to watch the rest. You simply won't be able to you will be dragged out by security.

Now I think what my hit this home for some people is what if you hit the president of Google or Qualcomm and caused them serious harm. Like took their eye out? Sure maybe they should have safety glasses on, but most people in the VIP section don't. How would you feel after that? I would be embarrassed and ashamed.

Now lets say they make the decision to pull their funding from FIRST now how would you feel? These people pay millions of dollars into this program. Don't let your need to throw a paper airplane ruin it. Lets act mature here throwing airplanes is dangerous and unnecessary.

*Throwing hats at a hockey game due to a hat trick does not count here

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

The Hall of Fame booths certainly have come far since Champs has been in St. Louis. I remember in 2011 when they were almost hidden away in the area with the FLL pits. There is definitely still room for improvement, but FIRST did a really good job making sure that the Hall of Fame teams get the recognition they deserve this year.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Paper airplanes have become as much of a tradition as YMCA, for better or worse.

Here's a thought, two minor competitions:

At a certain point during closing (and only at that point!) have a competition to be closest to a certain marker on the field. Each team given one special sheet in their package and they engineer their best design. Once that's done it's OVER (and a reminder to everyone that it's not GP to continue!) Get NASA or Boeing to sponsor it

Second competition is for the team who collects the most number of spent airplanes. That'll get them out of there.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I'd say FIRST is doing a much better job, but it could be better still.

I really like Cory's suggestion of giving HoF teams some extra space right next to their normal 10x10 pit. HoF teams are not exhibitors or vendors, they are competitors. No need to divide their resources among multiple locations, when the folks who would be recognized and inspiring people at a HoF display are the very same ones who are doing that anyway, in the pits.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Considering that FIRST releases a cloud of confetti over all of Einstein as soon as the winner is announced, I am not overly concerned about the littering aspect. (I'm a little more concerned about wasting paper, but I think most of those scouting sheets are getting tossed anyhow.)

I like the idea of a designated paper air plane throwing time. Put a trash can on the field and see who can hit it. Afterwards, I'd like to think that teams can police their areas of the stands.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who noticed - but one team who shall remain nameless chose to dump about 200 loose-leaf sheets off the upper level. Literally just 'threw' them off and let them fall in the stands below. Totally classless and non-GP.

That said, the paper airplanes are a neat idea but poor execution. It's really neat to see the ones that get out in the air currents and go super far. So here is my suggestion. Make it a competition. Each team gets 1. Set up some time for a single team member to release that team's plane - lunch, or whenever. Announce the team number, then let 'er rip, and keep track of which plane went the farthest.

Any other paper airplanes that get thrown result in the individual being asked to leave.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Put the HOF teams' pits together? A little inconvenient on the operations side of house for the actual competition, but I think that would be better then having their displays split up throughout the pits.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

There were even teams throwing wadded up paper balls at people. My dad and I got hit by a few, and we were sitting in the nose-bleeds. I can only imagine how much worse it must have been in the lower seating areas where there were more teams.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

For those promoting a paper airplane competition - there already is one. At the Boeing booth.
For all others - my five year old recognized that throwing airplanes during an event is disrespectful and silly. If you struggle with the concept of making your grandma proud, then try my son.

The part that frustrates me the most is of all the things to discuss about the Championship Event, paper airplanes are getting the most airtime. pun intended

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

You mean like how Red Wings fans throw octopi on the ice? Or how Cubs fans throw back home runs by the other team? Or the countless videos of little kids throwing back foul balls? Or the several junior and AHL teams that sponsor teddy bear toss events? Or the Florida Panthers' rat toss?

Your post is ridiculous fearmongering.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I'd disagree that it's not a tradition. Just because some don't like it doesn't mean it's tradition. I definitely remember them in Atlanta in 2004. I have no idea how much longer they were there before that since that was my first year, but they were definitely there. I'd say after 10 years, it's probably safe to say that it's a tradition.

Edit: and to back up my point, a quote from a 2004 thread:

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Like others have said, I think the only problem with the paper airplanes is when they are thrown during matches and when someone is speaking. I know that Will.i.am had to speak over the cheering for a plane atleast once.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

It was so distracting, he forgot the lyrics to his own song.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

An addition to the blog (new post, but figured we can throw it in here):

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

A few things:

First, I'm glad that Frank takes the time to give a post-event analysis. It's a good example for how teams should wrap up their season and look to maintain the good and improve the bad.

Paper Airplanes:
It's fun. Kids are bored. Endless speeches by people in suits is boring. Waiting for long periods of time is boring. To my knowledge, nothing official from FIRST has ever come out about throwing planes until today. The only commentary I ever recall is the Air Force general in 2011 stating he had a job for whoever threw the plane all the way to the stage.
Now that there is something official about stopping the planes, that will reduce the number, but it won't stop it. There have been official rules for a while about saving seats, yet year after year teams do not follow this. Enforcement is really the only way to ensure this stops. FIRST hasn't been good about enforcing off-field rules. It seems they believe FIRST students/adults are better and will self-police and act with GP. This is not the case. We're all people. Some people follow rules, some ignore them.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Not only this, but also webcast quality. All of the webcasts for the PNW events this year were extraordinarily better than the NASA streams at WCMP, and from what I heard, the PNW webcasts were all student-ran. FIRST should take a look at what PNW is doing and make that the standard for their streams, especially those at the prestigious World Championship. PNW camera operators also were familiar with the game and were able to focus in on the actual action, rather than simply zooming in to the part of the field where the most robots were, which is what FIRST told the WCMP operators to do. The WCMP also had a lot of weird camera angles, especially on Einstein. However, all of the divisions need improvement for their respective streams.

For comparison, here is a PNW match, and here is an Einstein match.

It also seems like PNW was able to cut up the match footage into the individual matches and upload them quite quickly, while last year, FIRST simply uploaded blocks of footage from WCMP, a few weeks after the event.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I've seen references to Paper Airplanes as far back as 2004. However, you are correct that it is much worse in St Louis.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Okay your right. I should refine my post. You will be kicked out of any professional event for throwing anything on the ice or field that is not, an official sponsored event. A teddy bear toss, or puck toss really? There's no connection between these and our paper airplanes, those are official team events they clear the ice and say go and everyone throws.

The rat toss or octopi? Those are actually traditions that have been around for longer than FIRST and the venue has official staff to clean up after them and they happen during a set time not disrespectfully during the nation anthem, or Deans speech.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

The paper airplanes was one of my least favorite parts of champs when I went in 2013. I was one of my team's representatives that got to sit down on the floor during Einstein. By the end of the ceremonies, the floor was covered in paper. I left feeling very sorry for the event staff that had to stay and clean up the mess, as well as ashamed that the members of an organization which normally holds itself to such high values would leave the place that hosts their championship so trashed. It is disrespectful to the speakers, Einstein teams, people below you, environment, and clean-up staff. Just because something is "a tradition" does not mean it should continue.
Making it an official event won't solve the fact that it makes a huge mess, waists a lot of paper, and is a danger to the people in the lower seats. I fail to see much engineering going into most of the planes people make. Having yet another contest to see who cleans up them most won't do much. Teams are already in a rush to either get to the finale or their hotels.
I hope that next year FIRST makes it known to the teams that they don't endorse this "tradition", and will enforce some sort of policy to stop it.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

The problem with that is in PNW, all of the A/V is done in house, and ran by volunteers. While I applaud PNW for doing that, and their webcasts (and on site A/V from what I have been told) has been phenomenal, it's impractical for FIRST to do that on a large scale. A/V will have to continue to be contracted for a least the near future, and with that people who aren't as knowledgeable about the game will be working the cameras.

As for the actual quality of the streams, (not the footage being shown on them), FIRST needs to look at what PNW did, as well as some of the other events that had spectacular streams. Since A/V is already producing the content, I see no reason why FIRST can't come up with an easy, quality, standard way of getting that content on to a quality live stream. As for WCMP, NASA should have a much better way of doing this already, it's embarrassing that it can't be figured out.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I don't know the exact cost of the AV equipment here in the PNW, but it has to cost less then contracting out.

We have 2 fields here, and each field has it's own AV setup. I helped setup the camera's at one event. There were 3 cameras that were wired into the AV desk, and then 1 wireless camera that could be carried around the field to give closer looks. Then there was all the equipment to hook this up to a computer and then to the internet. I'm sure that FIRST providing each field with good AV equipment would be much cheaper then contracting out the AV, and would look much better at the same time.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

My concern isn't the cost. I know purchasing it is the better alternative. My worry is finding the volunteers to both handle all of that staffing, as well as volunteers with the expertise to make it happen. You also have to remember, while it's doable at a district event, on a regional level, you also throw lighting and rigging into the system. Should we really expect FIRST and volunteers to do that stuff in house?

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I heard several complaints about the quality of the stream from people that weren't at champs. This seems to be working against FIRST's goal of "making it loud." If they are going to direct people who can't attend the event to the webcast, you would hope they would make every effort to have a quality stream. Maybe I have too high of expectations but I would think having 4 fields streamed at a decent (maybe not HD) quality without looping or skipping isn't too much to ask. Hope it's fixed for next year.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Throwing foul balls and homeruns back onto the field aren't "official sponsored events," yet they happen. Heck, they can make you internet famous or appear on SportsCenter. Additionally, the "rat toss" is not exactly a time honored tradition, and is certainly not older than FIRST. It happened first during the 1996 play-offs, and then once again in 2012. Nor does either the rat toss or octopi happen at a set time. As for the national athem...

The point here isn't really the finer details of throwing stuff at sports game (other than it apparently isn't consoned aside of these many scenarios :rolleyes: ). It's that your post was absurd fearmongering, and you know it. It's one thing to be opposed to throwing paper airplanes. It's another to invent some minutely possible doomsday scenario to justify that belief, and then substantiate it with half truths.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I watched the streams all weekend, and my main problem wasn't the visual quality-- I could tell what was going on on the fields pretty well most of the time. The main issue I had was that the streams repeatedly cut out and required me to reload then or the GameDay page to get them going again. Einstein was fantastic though-- almost no lag, little skipping, didn't crash once.

There are a lot of things about webcasts that can be improved, but I think hat consistency of the stream is a big one. One of my favorite ideas was getting Google onboard, and I think that ultimately, especially as we move towards Districts, it would be a good idea to move towards in-house AV/webcasting.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

What NEEDS to happen, and only FIRST can really do this, is a singular website that my grandma can use.

She goes in, types in 973. And a few things could happen.

-973 is competing at this regional in 17 days! Give us your email, twitter, number, w/e so we can send you a reminder!

-973 is competing THIS weekend at the CVR regional. They are currently 1-8 and are playing again in approximately 37 minutes! Enter your info for a reminder, same as above.

there could be links and short videos on the sides that are FIRST promos, etc... Links to match results, standings, SPONSOR ADDs.

Want to Make it Loud? Make this happen!

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I like to imagine that FIRST will be taking the opportunity next year to improve the way the Hall of Fame works and maybe to a lesser extent, those vying for the CCA that year. After you pass through the safety glass check at the designated FRC doors in the pit and move into Hall 4, you see the Hall of Fame. It is a line of spaces (I like the idea of double pit sizes) that spits Hall 4 diagonally. The pits for the first 2 or three divisions sit in Hall 3 and the remainder of Hall 4, and the other 2 or 3 divisions rest in Hall 5 and the remainder of Hall 4. You walk down the line that starts with the 1992 winner and go down the aisle until you get to the most recent winner, then maybe cap of the Hall of Fame's Walk of Fame with a stage and lounge where the teams can present themselves to others. The Hall of Fame teams, after years of under-appreciation and 2011 levels of neglect are the centerpiece fo the FRC pits, as they should be. The human pathways ride along the walls of the exhibit halls closest to the common areas of the convention center, with the pits of RCA winning teams all right off the pathway. Hall of Fame teams would not be in their divisions anymore, but the RCA teams would serve to be the anchors of their divisions, wit hthe yongest teams simply running (I mean WALKING! WALK IN THE PITS) down the line until they get to the RCA teams anchoring the division.

There are a lot of nice things that FIRST cna do when FRC has the dome and center to itself, and I hope this is one of them

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

http://www.atthecontrol.com/indexbackup.php

Not sure if actually signing up gets you email reminders.

(Shoutouts to 537)

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

This is a cool start, but it needs to be flawless and cleanly integrated and working for EVERY team at EVERY event.

I can't send sponsors links to webcasts without a huge amount of explanation.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

While the discussion is on pits and HoF teams...
I've had several conversations with several old-timers about the pit layout, and I'm still not sure where I stand. I do know that I don't like the idea of Rookie Island - I'd much rather have a mix of team ages throughout the arena. Maybe alternate HoF and RAS teams so the newcomers can see the Pros in action and start relationships with them.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

For other "minor" sports its quite common to bring in sport experts (I know the Olympics track & field spotter, and I've worked on other track & field broadcasts) to assist in running the telecast alongside the professional crew. FIRST just needs to anticipate that situation and assign the right personnel. The webcast quality will increase immensely almost instantaneously.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Here, here!!!

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I don't know how your pits are laid out at your regionals, but a neat thing Virginia does is have the veteran teams line up on the back wall of the aisles and the rookies at the ends. If the event had team numbered 1-60 based on oldest to newest, teams 1-10 sit on the back wall, then 11-20 are in the next row, all the way up to the front row with teams 51-60. Instead of having the walkways in the pit run parallel with this numbering, they run perpindicular. This means when you walk down an aisle of the pits you see pits from teams 4, 5, 14, 15, 24, 25, 34, 35, 44, 45, 54 and 55 all sit on the same aisle with the main thouroughfare running next to pits 51-60. When you "walk the pits" you first see the rookies and see if they are in need of any assistance. The rookies know that if they need help, they just walk towards the wall to the older teams. It's one of the few nice things about the event I wish other events would adopt. The pits are easy to navigate and can service all teams very well.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Tossing octopi on the ice has been banned. Those octopi are all snuck in under jackets. As a Wings fan it's part of the sport for me, but the fact is that doing so risks being ejected from the game.

The airplanes need to stop.

And as for the team that dumped paper... NO. Just no.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Ryan is specifically complaining about Einstein. Yes, getting every event an HD webcast with cameramen who know where to point is a big task, but Einstein at the very least should have this, if not all the divisions...

Watching from home in 2012 and 2013 was pathetic, to be quite honest. I remember watching one qualification match in 2012 that 67 was in, but I couldn't actually tell which robot they were.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I think there are two major factors that have contributed to the paper airplane "tradition".

1. In order to avoid getting stuck in the nosebleed seats, teams begin filling the Einstein stands well before the closing ceremonies start.
2. Given no other source of stimulation, most people find making and throwing paper airplanes to be an enjoyable way to pass the time waiting for closing ceremonies to start.

I think the easiest way for FIRST to discourage this practice is to address one or both of these factors.

1. I don't think it is wise or practical to try to keep people out of the Einstein stands until closing ceremonies are ready to start.
2. Give people something else they can pay attention to during this time. - What about a feed of the division elimination matches on the Einstein screen? Once those are over, why not have an Einstein Pregame Show with a recap of the division elimination rounds, and a run-down of the teams in the Champion alliances?

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Whoops, I mentioned Einstein, but I was trying to discuss the streams for all of the divisions. I'll edit that post to make that more evident.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Most of the time, division eliminations are still going on. We had already moved over to Einstein (to the nosebleeds) and noticed the Galileo elims were still happening (and I assume others as well). Why not broadcast those matches on the Einstein screen? For most people, nobody knows who they'll be watching on Einstein until the teams get there.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I used https://frcmega.com/ to accomplish most of this and recommend to our friends and families who aren't able to visit for real-time text reminders of upcoming matches and results. For our team we used frcmega to hook into our twitter and facebook to post real-time results. (And awesome customer service even for little things that were of my own doing!)

Taking some of these home-grown services- frcmega, at the control, tba gameday -- to the next level would have impact!

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Ok, so my initial post sucked because all my formatting didn't transfer from Word on my phone to CD's stupid editor and the content did not fit what I was trying to get across.

Basically, what I wanted to get across was that our system could work for FIRST since our equipment is honestly not too expensive. What we really need to do as a community is to have the other district model areas adopt PNW's style of presentation. This will allow for the A/V volunteers at all the district events to be able to transfer their abilities to WCMP. Which would give us a trained volunteer A/V Crew that has been doing the job for a while. This crew could take over the stream and make it so much better than it currently is.

The thing that bugs me is that we still see complaints from people when we are at World Level competition. I don't ever want to have to see this

kind of comment about the FIRST live steams in the digital age where I can take awesome video on my stills camera because it has the ability to resolve detail on an 18 MP sensor. Most broadcast cameras are capable of 1/120 @ f/2.8 or under with minimal noise and have lenses and sensors with equal resolution capabilities. We are a group of technologically capable people, but we can't get a good live stream going?

Also the way we got our videos up so fast was that we had a recorder that was separate from the stream running at the start of matches and then stopping at the point where the scores were shown. We then threw these on our closed loop server and got a person on a laptop to upload them to YouTube as we went through our day. It worked really well, but I would like to automate it for next year, because it is honestly just a tedious task that really just sucked.


I'm sorry for my rambling, I'm honestly not that great at making long-ish posts like this.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Replace "Standards" with "Websites that stream FRC events"

https://xkcd.com/927/

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Adam says that "only FIRST could do this" because whether or not something like this is first party and/or directly accessible through usfirst.org (which it probably should be) FIRST's inability (at least I hope it's an inability and not willful hostage taking of a valuable resource) to release stable tables to scrape the data from, much less a stable API for this kind of information.

No discredit to services like TBA or Mega, but in an ideal world these basic notification and archiving services should not have to exist on the fringe of the organization, but should instead be a basic service accessed through or actively partnering with usfirst.org.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Can we talk about field location? (This may also help out HOF teams)

I haven't seen it posted here yet, and it seems to be one of the bigger problems with housing an event like FIRST in a football stadium.

To get to the Curie field you had to walk all the way around the stadium, and it just feels unnecessary. Why not put Einstein where Curie is currently and move the 4 main fields closer to the pits. I mocked up this proposal. The four small blue boxes are the division fields, Einstein is given half of the stadium for floor space and seating.

This was not initially part of my idea, but it could work: put the HOF team's pits in the red box area of my map. This would give those teams "priority" for getting to matches and they could have bigger pits to accomodate their larger displays. It would be made accessible to the public from the stands and with the proper signage in the concourse, any spectator could walk down and visit the HOF teams.

I think that it will help ease flow of traffic to Einstein during elims, and it will make "getting good seats" less of a priority, because there are more sections opened for Einstein. Finding HOF teams in the pits is difficult if you are new to CMP, so putting them out in the open will help draw attention to their pit displays and their team in general, as they did win the most prestigious award in FIRST.

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This is very close to the set-up in Atlanta, which people forever have been wanting back. The problem is that the VIP lounge looks over Einstein in the current set up, and it's been a pretty much decided factor that due to that they won't move Einstein. While it's not the must effective layout overall, it's crucial to have the VIP lounge over look Einstein. Without the VIP's and Sponsors, we wouldn't be able to rent a giant Dome, so we do have to take care of them.

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People want Atlanta back, but STL and Indiana are the only two indoor football domes that they can remove the turf and have convention centers attached in the US*. WHERE will you put the pits (ESPECIALLY if they are going to be larger) if the CMP goes back to Atlanta?

As for Indiana, it has EXACTLY the same problems as STL. Airport isn't a hub, there is some crime, hotel situation isn't great... I can go on...

*That I know of.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

To clarify, I meant many people want the dome layout that was used in Atlanta back/executed in St. Louis.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I don't think we were hitting a space ceiling in Atlanta. The pits could go exactly where they used to go, with perhaps FLL or FTC moving to a different part of the GWCC.

If the "separate venues" plan debuted this year were done in Atlanta, it would be even less of a problem.

Turf can be covered rather than removed, right? Thought that's what happened in Atlanta?

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

The Georgia Dome is being replaced by a new football stadium prior to the contract with St. Louis expiring. The new stadium will be further away from the GWCC, so I don't anticipate a return to Atlanta.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

Nailed it David. Thanks.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

This^.
However.....
I work the floor and abhor the mess that is made. I try to do my part to assist the dome staff in cleaning up after irresponsible and unaccountable children.

Nonetheless....
I enjoy the spontaneous exuberance and tension as a plane coasts to crash.

This is one solution.

Great Analysis. Good suggestions. It's the lack of engagement that leads to undesirable behavior. (I'm a teacher, trust me, I know.)

FIRST made a great step this year in refining the Einstein experience. Adding the Division Finals and awards on the screens could render the airplanes moot. In fact, if they spread the divisions on four screens, teams might choose to aggregate in distinct areas.

I'm voting for this. +1

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

What has me the most confused right now is why didn't FIRST just use the event security and the speaker system to stop the paper airplanes if they were so concerned?

A simple announcement of "Teams, the final matches are about to begin. Please refrain from throwing paper airplanes for the remainder of the event. Anyone seen throwing a paper airplane risks expulsion from the event. Thank you."

That way they kinda stop the problem this year and could have set a precedent for next year at the same time.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

They attempted to do something along those lines.

We were walking in the upper level and a plane landed at my feet, I picked it up and chucked it over the edge. Just as I did this, someone on the event staff yelled at me to stop throwing planes. I specifically remember joking with some other teammates about how ineffective that would be, as there were about 2,000 other people throwing planes.

And on a seperate note: the truss system in place for the FTC fields got in the way of seeing the LED screen for Einstein. Our whole section had to go through every match wondering who was in the lead or how close the scores were, it really was not fun.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

At The Control dose work for every team and at every event. (http://atthecontrol.com/indexbackup.php). I'm a little curious as what you mean it needs to be flawless and cleanly integrated. And since there is a website that already handles alerts (frcmega.com) I won't be integrating a system like that, rather sending the traffic to frcmega.com I'm redesigning the dashboard for next season so pm me if you have any comments.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I'm not criticising your app at all, but the fact that it's not controlled by FIRST means you're at their mercy if they change any of the sources you're scraping from.

Also, you're not personally going out and making sure every event has high quality video all the time.

The solve this problem 100%, it really has to come from FIRST.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I know your not criticizing...

Yes at the mercy of FIRST however even at CMP they had issues that were out of my control! Frank was just on game sense and basically said they are making strides towards providing an API tool (or equivalent) for these third party applications. Which seems to me that they won't be stepping up to the plate with applications like ATC, FRCmega, TBA etc. And to be totally honest and I think those who develop these sites can agree, we put many manhours (unpaid remember) into building and promoting our apps that if FIRST came out and basically said hey were not going to allow these sites to be around because we are releasing our own, there would be a lot of angry people. I'm also sure they won't because it would cost a lot to hire people to develop these apps that already exist and have an existing user base... Not every thing is going to come out of FIRST.

I agree that I'm not going to be going out to make sure that the video at each event is high quality... FIRST doesn't handle webcasting though its really up to each regional. At the Wisconsin regional they almost didn't have a stream because they lost sponsorships and couldn't pay for two highspeed internet links.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

I've always been annoyed with the paper airplanes. Good options added here, definitely need to keep people busy and be more active about this. Saw event staff putting the boot down and I told a few students not to either.

Most everything's been covered so I'll leave with this image.

I was just disappointed to see a volunteer having to do this instead of enjoying the Closing Ceremonies.

Attachment 16965

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

This sounds like an awesome idea and I think FIRST should implement it right away!

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

For webcasts I have 2 ideas.

1. Why not have the groups running the divisions do it? Instead of paying a company to do it badly, FIRST could pay PWN/FiM/MAR/NE to broadcast a field each. This could both improve the cmp webcast and the division webcasts, with the practice they would get over the season. Then for Einstein they could either work together or just rotate each year.

2. For Einstein why not make a show of it before the finals? Do something like NFL does with redzone where they would show HoF/Good/Important matches of the different fields, along with short interviews of students and sponsors and maybe some the chairman presentations.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

NE webcasts are not run by teams. MAR webcasts leave much to be desired, and the highlight of FiM webcasting is MSC which (I believe) is done by an outside group.


FIRST needs to just buckle down and pay a company to provide strong webcasting services. Frank said on Gamesense last night that Don Bossi called a meeting next week called "2015 Webcasting", so hopefully we'll have something sometime over the summer about this.

Re: FRC Blog - 2014 Championship Pros & Cons
 

It's probably a contractual/union labor issue.