Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

Well, it's been just over two years to the day since my wildly popular and hotly contested Petition to end the shouting of ROBOT. Two years later, I can say it definitely has had a effect for the better, and I'm proud to have been the initiator of a national effort to improve the perception of our program by the general public.

This year, I began thinking about other things that perhaps are turning people away from wanting to be involved in this wonderful program we run. While attending events this year, I realized what some of these things are. We are a goofy bunch of folks, who have built a culture around celebration of what we do, in some strange ways that are not at all related to what we do. You all know what I'm referring to when I talk about the pauses between the finals matches at regional events. It's the dances, to the same goofy songs every year.

And believe me, I have seen the pure and genuine joy and excitement on my student's faces when they're out there doing their thing, but to the unfamiliar observer, it is difficult to relate these goofy activities with a highly technical robotics competition. It's confusing, and hard to "get." I've been to other robotics competitions outside of the FIRST league, and they just don't have the same energy and appeal. But, I'm not convinced it's these silly songs and dances that make FIRST events what they are.

Why can't regionals run finals the way championship does, with awards between matches, instead of these goofy songs? Did we debate this before and I missed it?

And I strongly considered putting a question mark at the end of this thread title, because I'm not sure if it's something I feel as strongly about as I did the thing with yelling "robot" and I may get completely shut out disagreed with on this one. But let's get the dialog started nonetheless. I feel like this thread will result in much more debate, and much less clear of an answer than the previous one, but I'm curious what the rest of the community's opinion is.

And as a standard disclaimer, if this thread were to years from now result in any drastic culture shift in FIRST, I sincerely hope it's for the better.

Debate away!

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

Personally I liked the breaks to perfect the #cheescaking procedure.... so silly songs sure....

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

Thanks for introducing a much-needed dose of common sense with "Petition to end the shouting of ROBOT" - I too have heard it less and less often as the years have gone by, and I think it has had a continuing positive impact as the practice is no longer being "passed on" to new teams who might have otherwise picked up the practice without knowing any of the context behind it. Also, now is as good a time as any to say, congratulations on the WFFA!

Have you encountered people who are confused or turned off by the intermissions that happen between elimination matches? I think things like this are a part of what makes FIRST culture unique. I'm not sure there would be much of a net positive if some of these fun traditions were removed or reduced.

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

While I'm not generally one who enjoys hearing the same six dance songs every few hours at events, I don't believe they necessarily are a negative part of the competition experience.

They have parallels to things at existing sporting events. Take baseball for example. Between every inning at baseball games, there are all kinds of weird shenanigans that entertain the crowd while the teams switch sides.

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

It's like a Grateful Dead (or Phish) concert with Robots.

You walk in to the arena, the action on the stage is inscrutable, the audience is wearing colorful clothing and dancing a lot, people are responding to the action in unison and you're not sure why, and everybody is really nice to each other, GP.

In the end, I think it is about the students celebrating their hard work and that is a priority.

I am a little tired of the same songs too, etc.... but it works, and it is a collective activity, so, I dance with them.

I am also GA and we have had discussions in our conference calls about activities during the timeouts that have to occur this year for Robot "cooldown" in the SF's and Finals. We are trying to "mix it up" with activities that keep the audience attentive.
Your suggestion about doing awards between the matches is a good one, but awards require a cleared field for teams to walk down and be recognized. Probably won't happen until the CMP.

So, IMHO, no petition needed here. The petition about the shouting of "Robot!" had it's desired effect. This concern is more complex.

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

I'm down with banning the Chicken Dance (and take the Macerena with you when you go)!

To start I don't think the robot shouting petition hit long Island because it seemed as bad as ever.

But more related I do agree on some of your points.

1.reserve non team seats in the front. So say have the team seats higher up allowing for the general public to get close to the action and not go all the way to the nose bleeds because they don't want to sit inside a team.

2.do crowd activites. Anything from small quiz games about Frc or even showing small videos the community has been made will make a difference.

3. Play the game animation constantly. New people need to know what they are watching and being the announcer called them barrels consistently even though in the manual it says containers it really annoyed me.

4.end the blue Alliance red Alliance chant. Everyone not part of Frc I have brought also thought it was the most annoying thing and made no sense. Just please stop it. If the people want to shout their Alliance fine but when it's done 50 times every match It makes me want to get on the mic and scream purple Alliance.

That's all I have now

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

I think the biggest improvement regionals could make would be displaying informative graphics on the big screen between matches. There should never be a time when an audience member should need to ask, "What's going on?"

Suggestion: There should be ever present graphics between matches with the following info:
-Time since last match ended, previous match number, teams that played, outcome of the match.
-Upcoming match number, teams that are playing and their current ranks
-Some sort of graphic showing the phases between matches, with the current phase highlighted (scoring, robot removal, robot placement, connecting to field, ready for match) If a timeout is called, display the number of the team that called it, and a countdown clock. If there is an administrative timeout between finals matches, put up that graphic and countdown clock. If it's lunchtime, put up a graphic with a countdown clock until matches resume.

Having this info displayed would also make watching online streaming matches much easier to follow.

So, my solution to ending public confusion is simply to provide the information the public (and everyone else) wants to know: What's happening right now? What just happened? What's going to happen next? When will the next thing happen?

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

These two ideas are very promising. At some events (using Michigan states at EMU as an example), teams rush into the stands to reserve seats for their team. That leads to some safety concerns as teams run in a mob after the gates open. Reserving these seats also leads to hurt feelings between teams if a large team claims a large spot with very few people.

By saving those priority seats to the general public only, it stops teams from rushing in and saving seats. Who would want to run in and up stairs to save nosebleed seats?

Your second point has great potential. The Master of Ceremonies could do a "FIRST History" quiz about past teams and challenges. For example, "Which two teams joined together and 'rose from the ashes' after their two schools merged?". This would still involve students to participate and learn about FIRST history.

An idea to help newcomers to the game could be to hold scoring quizzes between matches. Even if they have no idea what the points are, teams there will and they'll learn which elements are worth more. For example, a question could be: "Which is worth more points, a 6 tote stack or a 3 tote stack with a recycling container?" Teams will answer the 3 tote + RC, and the MoC could explain in detail why.

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

I really like this - you can still play a dance song, do FRC trivia, or have some other thing happening while this graphic is up, if you so choose - but it would certainly eliminate the "Is this a time out? Cooldown break? Just hanging out? Is it over?"

I'm fully aware of the reasons we might have a break, and I'll still miss the announcement of "Team XYZ has called their 6-minute time out, so the clock will start over..." or whatever happens to have been done - so it's confusing to team members as well as first-time spectators. The seconds-counting-down on the overlay score bar isn't quite enough for this purpose.

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

We get a lot of outside visitors to events for our team. No one has ever seemed put off by the dancing. In fact, one of our sponsors comes back time and again because she loves the "energy" of the events, and she has specifically mentioned the dancing as a positive.

The biggest issue we have had was with teams being rude about "saved seats" (no such thing.) I think teams need to do a better job of informing parents, because they are the biggest culprits. We watched a near-war behind us at Woodhaven when a whole team came back late from lunch and expected their three rows of bleachers, saved by a few jackets, to have remained untouched. At Michigan districts, seating is almost always a problem. People get territorial, and guests have been snapped at or talked about loudly for taking a "saved seat." It's rude.

I think the announcers are the key to keeping the crowd informed. A quick word can explain why there is a delay or why something is happening. I also think playing the game animation multiple times a day is very smart, especially on Saturdays when visitors are more common.

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

Please do not take away fun from FIRST.... team members sitting on bleacher for hours get a break to stretch and relax. If anyone cannot take goofy song and dance, probably should be visiting pits, where pit crews are sweating. Promoting FIRST and educating masses about it, setup a informational/educational booth showing videos and lectures outside the arena. There is no reason to punish one to please other.

This comment is based on FIM district and not sure how other events and if they are putting off people from attending.

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

During finals, most of the pits are either gone or are in the process of being torn down. Some teams are gone completely.

I like the info graphics idea. I also wonder what it takes to do what FIRST did at the Champs last year - they had still photos & silent video of the multi-day competition at some point during Einstein. If wouldn't need to be a grand production - even a PowerPoint or a Prezi would be great.

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

I have absolutely no issue with showing information on screen. Those who are curious can just look up and see what's going on. The goofy music and dance is not just for students, we see volunteers, parents and small kids having a blast. In Michigan we love our volunteers. they do amazing job queuing up robots.

Re: Petition to end things that confuse the public
 

I have no problem with the "silly" things that happen at events. I think it's great that people are dancing and having fun. As someone who is, um, "coordination challenged" it takes a LOT of coercing for me to get up and look foolish by trying to dance, especially in front of large audiences. The only places I have ever felt comfortable doing that are at the summer camp I volunteer with... and FRC events. That speaks of how comfortable I feel in an audience full of friends. FRC folks are a friendly bunch.

I like the ideas for "how to explain to the audience what is going on" but ultimately I don't think it is any more confusing than any other spectator sport. I don't really follow hockey that closely and I still sometimes ask "what was that for? why did they do that?" when watching a game.

Any audience member that doesn't know what is going on can ask "what's going on?" and someone nearby will happily explain. Someone sitting near me was asking exactly that at North Bay and I explained to them what the game was about.