2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

What things do you feel FIRST could improve upon for future years?

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

FIRST needs to put their long standing teams at a higher priority than mass expansion, and they need to hold some real feedback sessions with teams or an advisory panel of teams, because it seems they have a mission of what they're trying to do, and it doesn't always align with what the teams want and need. And I don't mean this about the two champs thing, but I speak on other factors. They need more integration into education.

Also, the timing of the Chairman's Award and other top awards needs to be communicated clearly, before any music festival or dance party, and certainly before everyone leaves.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Well to start they need to make autonomous less important, this year and last year if you missed in auto the game was over and that is not fun for that alliance or anyone watching. Going into the finals of Einstein, it was obvious that Newton was going to use every tote. As soon as they got three cans in tbe first match it was all over. In the second match, there was an even split but Hopper did not get their auto so everyone knew it was over then as well.

I also feel like far too many things were left to the refs discretion this year. Refs need to make calls in regard to penalties but they should not get to decide what scores and what does not. At the end of the season I was left wondering so many things about what counts and what does not. Can I be touching the auton stack if I am not supporting it? Does the same apply to last second cans on stacks? What does fully supported even mean? Now the point is not that there are no objective answers to these questions but that refs can and have given me different answers.

Also transport configuration was a cool idea that was implemented so poorly that it sucked what little fun this game had to offer out before the match even began. Frank said at the drivers meeting at Champs that teams have 1 minute to setup as soon as they are allowed on the field. This is however 'just a guideline' and a ridiculous one at that. To be clear, our team used every second of that minute to just unfold our robot normally. Now add that 5 robots are moving around you along with a plethora of volunteer carrying stacks of totes around and you would be lucky if robots were ready after three minutes.

The tournament structure was awful, it just does not feel rewarding making it to the finals and losing. In all honesty it felt like a challenge more than a competition and I was pretty sure that the 'c' in frc is not for coopertition.

FIRST should realize they can keep it simple, there is no need to add unnecessary game pieces that no one wants and are worth far too many points (litter).

Finally, for the love of bot just let there be some defense. This game was so boring to watch, or should I say wait becuase all I did was wait for one side to mess up and then stop caring becuase the match was over if auton had not already decided that.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I'll add quickly that while the championship in person is a great experience, I feel like those unable to attend and have to watch through the webcasts were treated somewhat poorly.

I understand some technical faults and whatnot through webcasts (dropped webcasts, cameras failing, etc.). I want to make clear that I am okay with the parts we can't fix, but rather what we can actually fix itself.

There's already been complaints of poor quality of the webcast. When I can say I prefer the Chezy Champs and PNW among others over how the championships were streamed, something isn't right about how FIRST streams. FIRST has to set a standard for streaming (and I mean in the sense that they have to be far more distinguished, not regulation)- it just looks so odd when another robotics team/organization is performing far more vastly than FIRST itself.

Also, there was just poor scheduling on the behalf of award announcements. Not once throughout the entire Einstein broadcast was it mentioned that Chairman's would be presented at the concert, and that concert in turn is streamed on the exact same stream. At the very least, it could be mentioned in the passing when the awards will be announced, instead of leaving all of us viewers confused about when it will happened.

There were also divisions being streamed through other division webcasts. I don't know if this was to entertain the crowd while the matches were starting since this was on Thursday, but that just seemed like a silly mistake to make.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Either stick to the published schedule, or have ubiquitous video screens showing when things are really going to happen.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I don't quite agree with you. Although I think autonomous shouldn't fully determine the winner of the match - it is no fun knowing who'd win after 15 seconds - I must say the programming in FRC is in general almost trivial.
As a programmer joining a FRC team, I felt both great joy when seeing all the awesome elements the competition has to offer, but I was also disappointed to just program couple of Talons/Victors. It was just sad to see all the potential and programming knowledge of my teammate being thrown away, redundant, like that.

Well, You might say, "there always computer vision (CV) if you want to do something complex". And you'll be both right and wrong. CV is extremely interesting and challenging (we even reached out to NVIDIA), but generally it doesn't provide any actual advantage to the robot -especially this year, when the only vision hints where the idiotic reflectors on the yellow totes.

So, to wrap up - yes, it may be better to let the auto be a little less crucial but programming must be kicked up a notch.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This is not true at all. Driver control is only so useful. Lots of teams take advantage of sensors to automate stacking and scoring routines, feedback control is very useful in giving a smooth driving experience, and providing an easy to use interface for the drivers to use is essential for top teams.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

They need to do something about having super large student body teams taking completely over all the prime seating in venues. Its ridiculous.

I get the team spirit stuff...but in no way should one two or three teams take up for the entire days competition all the best central seats. I was looking for a single seat to scout and thy were all saved by various teams with enormous student bodies. One day I found a central seat and would not budge all day.

All teams deserve some of the prime space. Fix it. That aspect was really bad this year.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

There is no seat saving...

If there is an empty seat you have the right to take it.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Have a spot for all the eliminations where the 4th alliance member can be with their robot to be introduced, they deserve that.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

If you want to get an advantage w/ programming focus on controls not CV.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I did..that does not change the issue when you have hundred same team members taking up an entire prime seating section. There are 40-60 teams not just 3 huge student body ones.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

The idea of moving thousands of people from one end of the dome to another in the middle of closing needs to be revisited. I felt bad for the winners and finalists of Einstein getting their award in front of a empty stands. Breaking up the closing activities with another 45 minutes of pounding DJ music before continuing with the program seems like a poor choice. Finally if you aren't going to provide food for everyone then there needs to be a LOT more concessions open with better options.

FIRST has struggled to recreate the finale in Atlanta in St. Louis. This year's event was another attempt but by starting so crazy late after people had been sitting for over six hours didn't work out for many. Well over half the dome emptied.

Looking back over my last 11 years of leading a FRC team things that seem to make good games are:

1) The outcome shouldn't be decided by what happens in autonomous or endgame. This year's can grabbing auto and minibots come to mind as bad game design.

2) There needs to be defense! It's not really a game without it. This year was more of a robot demonstration.

3) Games constantly decided by penalties are frustrating especially in the early weeks. That wasn't a problem this year but was last year.

4) The engineering challenge needs to be different and interesting. This year was good in that regard. Totes and Cans were hard to manipulate.

5) Auto should be worth the trouble. This year's game was fine in that regard.

In my opinion this year's game was one of the worst and the engineering challenge among the best so I guess it averages out. Hopefully we'll return to an actual game next year.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Posting on mobile on the bus home so please forgive some typos.

1) Don't have the Einstien matches on one side of the stadium and closing ceremonies on the other. It messes with the flow of the event, adds more time delays go an already behind schedule (probably) evening, and moving a group of students through those crowds efficiently and safely is a nightmare. Also it left few people to cheer for this year's Champion Alliance as they got their award.

2) If you want FIRST to grow outside the usual crowd someone must provide a better home viewing experience. That means tailoring a broadcast too a remot audience instead of pumping out the in-stadium feed on a webcast. The FRC Live bit is a step in the right direction but the desk commentators were grossly underutilized and the on field interviews didn't really provide any nuance or useful insight. That's not entirely the field reporters fault BTW, that's a much harder job than people think and FIRST should have prepped her better or got someone whose done more of those type of standup reports before.

3) there needs to be more arena staff at Champs, especially in the upper bowl on Sat. There was no one to be found as people sat in the aisles, threw toilet paper (don't know where they got that) over the jumbo torn and clogged the stairs.

4) Make an announcement to stop throwing paper airplanes.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

FIRST, if you are reading this, please do this. I was probably hit in the back of the head by ten paper airplanes, and there was someone in front of me who was hit even more. This was my first time at CMP, and saw a paper airplane land on the field before a good portion of the matches were just about to start. What if someone decides to throw it during a match, and it lands in a team's lifting mechanism or drive train, rendering them useless? Of course they might call a replay, but if someone is throwing the Championship pamphlets (like I saw a few times), it could actually damage their robot.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Yeah, I think it's pretty rediculous that you can win a match in a robotics competition without doing anything autonomously. They need to force teams to do something - anything - during autonomous. I would be in favor of there being some trivial autonomous task that is worth so many points that it is obvious on a first read of the rules that you can't win without doing it.

This would decide some matches during autonomous though.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Programming controls is boring. trivial.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I don't think you understand what "controls" means...

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

please, I am begging you FIRST with all my heart, please have a professional company do the stream and the audio. For those of you that were not watching the stream you have no idea what it was like.

1. Awards for so grainy and washed out you didn't even know who was talking
2. we were lucky if we got audio at some parts
3. During Einstein, we saw more of the human players and drivers than the actual robots
   
4. the cameras kept cutting back and forth between individual robots and missing the action so when it was over your like "huh, when did that happen"
5. please for the love of "bot" just show us a full field view that's what the people want
6. You were lucky if you got a whole match without it freezing.

I could continue in with this list but you get the point. Even if you didn't get pros to do the audio and video at least get the kids from PNW that were doing it. Shout out to the PNW A/V crew you guys were the best. High quality streams and never missed the action.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

So let me go through this in order of the season:

Preseason:
My team hosts a kick-off where we usually build a team built field for others to come and look at. I understand that FIRST does not want to give teams like mine an unfair advantage but the rate in which drawings and instructions for kick-off teams come out is really irritating. My team did not receive the final field drawing till Friday at 10:30 pm due to "a miscommunication" with when that drawing should have been released.

Kick-off:
The webcast was ok from what I can remember, but I think that is going to be a big factor in my negatives this year, this game did not lend itself to memorable events.

Build season:
Please do not mock our intelligence, how did you honestly not think we were going to figure out the noodle agreement? Why are game pieces always more expensive than diamonds? FIRST should really hint to suppliers about things that may be needed to be stocked up on for certain games (Mecanums this year, ANY wheels in 2013). Why is there still not a q&a for "hypothetical or design based" questions? If I am going to ask you a question it is because either a) My robot will do a thing that then may cause another thing will I be penalized? or b) My robot is built a certain way that the rules are ambiguous about can I receive clarification on if I will be allowed to compete?

South Florida:
I do not like week 1's. I said it. We have no time to reflect on our design or finish any components, or even really fully utilize our withholding allowance. The setup for this game was unacceptable with an increase of teams we need a better seating setup as there was no way to actually watch the game unless you were in the top quarter of the seats or standing at floor level.
This is in bold because of all the parts of this game (and it beats Luncay as my least favorite) this is beyond my least favorite part of the season. I learned at the Bayou Regional that a Woodie Flowers Finalist from an out of state team was told he would not be coming out to present the award with the rest of us as it was for Florida Winners only. Who ever made this decision you are a detriment to our organization and do not deserve the power that allowed you to make that decision, while some of you may not like my bluntness their, the first ever Woodie Flowers Finalist at South Florida was from Massachusetts, and at Orlando for several years in a row was won by mentors from Pennsylvania, so it's not like their is a lot of us.

Bayou:
Load in should have been a little clearer. Pits should really, really, really, be done numerically, a scavenger hunt does not make for easy scouting or communicating will alliance partners. For pictures of awards winners your photographer should have chosen a better location.

The Game Itself:
Since Bayou was were my competition season ended I will give my feedback of the Recycle Rush here. This game sucked. I have never immediately disliked a game so much, and then continued to dislike it more and more as the season went on. I dislike any game with a lack of defense, I really dislike any game where I never interact with the other alliance. The ranking system honestly resulted in some more anguish over certain matches, what I mean is in the previous win/loss system if I had the "weaker" scoring alliance we could play defense and make the game closer or even win it, in this game if I have a "weak" scoring alliance sometimes that one match is enough to drop me out of top 4 or top 8 all together. The playoff structure was even more unforgiving and really punished teams for lack of consistency but it also meant if you had a bad first match in quarters it didn't matter what you did in the second because you were already done. I dislike the all or nothing autonomous, and really hate that at the highest level the game was decided in the first 5 seconds. Litter is the worst game piece ever actually that isn't fair, litter is the worst scoring system ever. In a game called Recycle Rush why am I being rewarded for throwing trash in my neighbors lawn?(Credit to 180 SPAM for that) Also why is 3 pool noodles thrown over equal to 6 Totes? Finally as I said/implied above this game was BORING, I do not remember a single one of my teams matches or a single play from any of my events where I thought "wow that was impressive", try to make a highlight reel out of this game then compare it to ANY of the previous ones from the last 10 years, tell me which is more entertaining.

The 2017-2020 Championship Announcement:
Why? Just why? I have answered every survey that FIRST has asked of me for 10 years and never once has the question of 2 Championships been posed. Based on Geographical distribution I will never play at Championship with any member of my 2007 or 2014 Championship alliance partners. I am not so much upset about the split I am more upset with how it was handled

2015 Championship:
I did not attend Championship for the first time since 2011 because I did not like the game that much. I also did not watch until division eliminations, which I only did in order to support the teams who I am friends with. I really really really did not like the interviews done on Einstein, they felt forced, repetitive and awkward. I REALLY REALLY REALLY did not like the treatment of the Chairman's award especially from watching at home as there was not mention of it at all.

Overall:
I love FIRST, it has shaped my entire adult life, given me life long friends, and memories I will cherish forever. That being said if this is what the new FIRST looks like I am not worried about leaving FIRST as I think FIRST may be on the track to just leave me. Please don't let Recycle Rush and the entire 2015 season be a sign of things to come, let it just be a small bump in the road to a much greater future.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Suggestions (from one of the scorekeeper/field power guys on Hopper):

Champs

-Paper airplanes need to be discouraged, not encouraged (as they seemed to be at least during opening ceremonies).
-Makes the opening ceremony in the evening if possible, or else have an afternoon load in with an evening ceremony before actual qualifications.
-Announce chairmans before Einstein matches, and give the winning team field side seating like was done in the past. It feels like chairmans has been kicked down a notch.
-The audio during the first half of-of ein-ein-stien-stein was-was bad-bad and-and echo-ho-ey-ey. Didn't somebody do a mic check, or at least have a spare mic in case there was a problem?

Game

-Bring back defense, in a 2013ish way, not a 2014ish way (2013 IMHO was the last really good game pre-IRI)
-Don't make autonomus the game deciding (or close to it) factor; this was 2003 all over again, and I don't just mean the use of totes as a game piece.
-Cheesecake in moderation, please. While it was consensual on both ends, I felt the amount of cheesecake was "gluttony" this year, especially during sub-division playoffs.
-Make the endgame where a new ability is added, not removed. While the committers of litter entering penalties should have known better, due to the lack of litter processing by most teams, it was a stupid rule.
-Bring back W-L-T, even if the quarters and semi's are matched up round robin.

Other

-When making big changes to long term strategy, ASK the community, at least those who are known to be knowledgeable and/or experienced (HOF mentors, WFA's, etc.). Sure one can't divulge venue bids and whatnot... but the split championship concept probably wouldn't have seen the light of day (at least in its current form) had such people been consulted before venues were being chosen in the first place.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

The audio during Einstein was terrible, at least in the upper levels where I was.

Have judging start on Thursday, not Friday.

More details on the event schedule, like what was happening next during Einstein, after Einstein so people can be in the right place at the right time (show it on the screens occasionally if nothing else)

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

FIRST really needs standards for livestreaming. This year, they had so many technical problems, streams crashing, horrible angles, and horrible sound quality.

FIRST needs to set standards for webcasts. Some teams can record all the matches better then they can. By having better webcasts, we can help grow FIRST by getting people excited (like in the closing cerimonies)

Keeping to a schedule at CMP was a bit of a problem. I understand that a lot can offsest the schedule, but Recycle Rush had an extremely long reset time

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

There's a reason why control systems is one of the toughest subjects in mechanical and electrical engineering, and why controls engineers are heavily sought after in the job marketplace. Controls is definitely not trivial. As RC said, you may not understand what "controls" means. I suggest you look at some of the code 254 and 1114 have released previously.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

1) Everything that was wrong with AA is right in this game, and everything that was right in AA is wrong is this game. I think FIRST underestimated teams' ability to make can pullers, and they overestimated teams' ability to make cooperative autonomous modes. I think some facets of RR came out of an overreaction to how last year's game was played.
2) moving to the other side of the stadium for closing ceremonies took away from the significance of the ceremony. Many people didn't get to see the Einstein finalists and winners receive their award, and people were already leaving as the championship chairman's award winner was announced.
3) the paper airplanes need to end. They are nothing more than an irritation and a mess. They get stuck in the robots. They hit the people on the floor. They encourage immature, wasteful behavior, which is pretty ironic for a recycling-themed game.
4) take the money used to get the DJ and use it to hire the PNW media people.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I don't really want to talk about my opinion on the game because honestly, everyone has said it already. It was just awful. The tether idea is neat, but not one EVERY team just takes another team's idea and uses it on their own robot. At least in 2014 if you were going to add something it had to be somewhat complex, not just a ramp attached by a piece of string.

The championship webcasts - What the hell were you guys thinking? 240p? Really? The footage itself was so grainy that you could feed a family of 5 cows with all of it. The sound quality was better than the video, even with that there was constant echoing and voice amplification which hurt the viewers ears. Please do NOT raise the the volume unexpectedly! I sat there for over 1 and a half hours waiting for Einstein, and what did I get? A sub-par viewing experience WHERE I COULDN'T EVEN SEE THE WHOLE FIELD! Half of the time the can races weren't even being shown. But that can race in finals 2, that, was crazy.

Oh, and thanks for not telling anyone about the chairman's award. We sat there looking at the logo for 45 minutes, bored out of our minds. Then, you cut the stream when the concert comes. I thought you wanted to give the championship experience to everyone?

If you want people to "get into robotics more" maybe have a viewing experience where I can see the whole field.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Please, don't do round robin if there is any appreciable defense. It will only incentivize the weaker alliances to gang up against the most powerful alliance.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

It might be small, but load-in was really confusing. I have no clue whether registration contributed to the lack of volunteers there. The only volunteer we found co-ordinating it was organizing buses and let 2 vehicles stay parked directly in front of a door for 2 hours. Please set up lines if you want teams to abide by them, or have more solid limits on how long a vehicle can be parked.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Thanks for the compliment; I feel like I have been hearing this a lot, but it would never work. We usually have 15 people max for one event and even then it is tough. Kids get trained on the spot and our most knowledgeable members use all their time off from school and work to attend our local events. Heck, we barely did IRI last year because so much was coming out of pocket and the adults used up vacation days.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Flaws of RR:
1. The bins were basically a chokehold this year. This made matches at the high level pretty boring because you know, provided no one broke, who would win based on how many bins they got. I prefer 2010, where the "Unbeatable" blocking of balls could be countered, but still gave an alliance a HUGE advantage.

2. The litter was way too powerful. Alliances could basically dominate early events with a terrible robot but amazing noodle thrower.

3. Basic bots could barely add to an alliance due to lack of defense. I mean, they can at least play defense most years!

4. The streams at world champs were disgusting. I had a friend interested in the program who was planning to watch it with me, but left because the quality and camera angles turned him off (FULL field view, PLEASE)

5. The strategy this year was very basic, because of a lack of defense.

6. The game really lacked a WOW factor, an edge-of-your-seat feel. There was no end game that could change the flow of a match, nor defense to stop scoring.

Suggestions:
1. Make autonomous less powerful, the cans decided EVERYTHING.

2. Make defense a thing again, PLEASE.

3. Set up a better stream at champs, I understand this is too expensive for regionals, but champs deserves this.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I couldn't have stated it better. Streams were horrific. In the closing they stated its our job to grow FIRST. How can we do that with crappy webcasts. We need to use webcasts as draws to FIRST. First is all about Tech, so let's get techy.

Some teams have scouting programs (like mine). We need tools to train scouters. Such as FULL FIELD view from the stands.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I agree with a lot of whats being said except for the cans and match outcome being decided in auto.

Even when 1678 and 118 got 3/4 cans, (I believe it was in semi finals on Einstein) 987 and 2826 still pulled out the victory scoring well over 200 points. Winning the can wars definitely helps, but it doesn't mean instant win or loss. You still have to stack them. In addition there were barely any matches this year where one alliance got all the cans off the step. (I can only recall two) And again in one of the two matches, the alliance that got all the cans only put up 4 very sub optimal stacks with cans, and was eliminated. There was only one match that I can think of the whole year, where the outcome was decided in auto. I think I can live with that.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I'm curious: which divisions were you guys watching on the stream? I watched Curie, and while the resolution was pretty bad, I generally found the camera angles and split view to be pretty nice. That said, I was generally not focused on a particular team, but rather trying to take the whole thing in as an un-invested spectator. Einstein was notably worse, with its focus on players and such (although I will say that, for those in the dome who could see the physical field as well, it may not have been as bad)

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I had all of them going, on 3 monitors and a TV, so two per screen. I was not impressed at all. I hated the split. I would more rather see the whole field, the entire time.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I had octoview going.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Without getting personal here - Please, I am well aware of what controls are. I also did already see 254's code and it isn't very complex. There's just a lot of it.

I want to go ahead and further clarify that I wasn't at any point suggesting that general controls programming is easy, nor that the programming you might learn at FRC is not extensive.

I meant that the FRC controls are boring, and I'm speaking solely about the robot code. Especially when the common programming language for the cRIO / RoboRIO is LabVIEW (our team is C++ing, though), you don't really learn too much when comparing, for example, to the mechanical knowledge you might gain from a good season in FRC. The only way IMHO to gain real and comprehensive knowledge with programming at FRC is to do something that is not directly related to the robot (i.e. 254's ChessyArena is absolutly fantastic), but again - few are the teams that do such projects.
The other option IMHO is to do CV - but it didn't get you real advantage in any of the last years games. Even last year the hot goal reflector was broken. I think this symbols how FIRST treats CV.

Also, I think I can safely presume that the code at 254 is more complicated than the code you will find on the average team (i.e. TrajectoryLib ). All powerhouse teams have complex mechanics, and us such these teams have more systems to control. Programming more cylinders is exactly the same as programming a few in terms of complexity.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

What do you mean? If a team loses in the finals, what do you want to happen?

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

+1

FIRST is a technology organization. Poor stream quality, especially if they want new people to be interested in FRC, is unacceptable.

Strike a deal with Google and YouTube or one of your other supposed sponsors and partners and get every event, but especially Championships, better streaming quality.

And for Championships, get a broadcast like the one for the Michigan State Championship going on Saturday. MSC is incredible to watch, even with this year's game due to the incredible production value put into the event.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

And hire the Roboshow guys to do interviews and help with game analysis.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

As a member of a large team, I can tell you that we get to the stadium early to have good seats. That opportunity is available to all teams.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

While I don't dispute your ability to get to the stadium early to get good seats, what my (also large) team does generally is position the scouting section in good seats at championship, while the cheering and spectator section can be further up and out of the way. This also allows them to stand up and cheer more, because they won't be in the way of any scouts.

If you manage to arrive early enough to get enough seats for your large team, all the power to you. Just don't stand up right in front and cheer while my scouting team is also attempting to scout.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Well I feel like we are pretty good about only standing when they are announcing our team and a quick cheer when the match is over, but if we have ever stood in your way while you were scouting a qual, you have my sincerest apologies.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I think this is a very good point.
Imagine if AA had been scored like RR. The weaker alliances would play no defense on each other so that they would each score huge points and move on.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Not you in particular, just large teams that stand in front. Huge pet peeve.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I think that my least favorite thing about Recycle Rush was the feeling that it generated among the teams and supporters due to the method of ranking teams (and determining quarterfinal and semifinal matches) by average score.

In other years, there was always someone to cheer for. If your team wasn't on the field, you could root for an underdog, a friendly team, or a prior alliance partner. (I can remember being ranked in the top-10 in Ultimate Ascent games and screaming for some lower-ranked teams to pull together and upset the highest-ranked ones.) Even if you had your own team's best interest in mind, there was always a team to root for.

But during Recycle Rush, the best thing for your team's ranking was to put up as many points as possible and have every other alliance do poorly - canburglar fails, stacks falling over, collisions, confusion, fouls, etc. The best case scenario for your team was to have all other teams score as low as possible.

It's a terrible feeling to have to wish that on other teams to allow your team to have the most success.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

The Higest Rookie Seed Award for Carver-Curie went to Team 5442 which was ranked 16th on Carver with an average qual score of 142.90. The higest rookie seed on Curie Team 5407 was ranked 17th with an average qual score of 143.00 which was higher than the winner's. When they combined the awards for two different fields, they did not think it through. The award should have gone to the rookie team with the higher average.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Plenty of things to go in both threads, but my initial though about Champs itself is the level to which badges/lanyards were regulated.

For those who weren't there, essentially everyone was required to wear a namebadge similar to a volunteer badge. Enforcement of this was incredibly strict. I saw many students, in groups all wearing the same team clothing, get seperated from their groups and not allowed through certain doors because they didn't have their badge. Even an, 'I'm going to the stands, my badge is there' was responded to with a, 'You need to go down to the registration desk'. Not to mention the fact that they were only allowing one direction at a time Saturday morning between the pits and stands, even going as far as cutting off teams from walking together...

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Does anyone know what prompted the change so that everyone had to have a lanyard?

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I agree. There was no recovery, no way to get rid of a bad match unless you advanced in ranking. It was an issue my team ran into during our second regional as well. Due to the lack of the 2 out of 3, it felt like every alliance was cheering for all other alliances to do poorly so they could advance. I hope we no longer have to use averages to determine rank. I look forward to going back to the 3v3 format.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

People actually cheered when those stacks fell over? That's just terrible, I'm so sorry. You guys are an amazing team and constantly inspire me, I hope that doesn't bring you guys down too much.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Although I wasn't with a team for most of the season, I was able to make it to a competition and was there for the first day or so.

It seemed to me like this was a much more technical challenge with precision and repeatability the key goals. For the drivers, I felt that this year was just as challenging as any other year.

Construction wise, it was much more challenging - slight timing delays or malfunctions couldn't be compensated for by "let's go play defense lol".

I felt the real losers from no defense were the crowd. While the FRC students all get excited about whatever and will cheer and yell for their team (or other teams) this wasn't exciting to an untrained observer.

Despite the increased elegance in design required, I would not want to bring a grandparent or non-indoctrinated student to RR. It's simply not exciting to watch.

I strongly felt that FIRST was going the right direction after Lunacy - with Breakaway, Rebound Rumble, Ultimate Ascent and Aerial Assist being very simple to understand games for the crowd. Flying stuff is also entertaining, which is good.

I also felt that this game detracted from the ideas of coopertition and gracious professionalism - in many cases, it was clear who would move on in a given elimination matchup. If your team made a mistake, you were done, and from that point on silently hoping for another team to make a worse mistake. Even if lower-seeded teams got through more often, it wasn't through superior strategy, just opposition errors.

I also felt that it was boring on account of a lack of buzzer-beaters and other dramatic finishes. I don't really mind the whole no-endgame thing so much as the fact that the match is pretty well determined within the first few seconds of canburgling.

If the goal is inspiration and recognition within STEM-interested individuals, this game is good. But to interest and attract those outside, we need real, hard-hitting defense in my opinion. Making FRC appeal to those who aren't otherwise interested in STEM or even education on the whole is a big deal.

I didn't really like this game. In fact, I would hesitate to call it a game since there is no direct competition. I understand that some people really liked it and I have no problem with that view at all - I've always been defensive-minded as a student and now as an alum who helps out on occasion. For me, this simply wasn't near the best game FIRST could produce; I felt that they regressed in the areas I consider key. To improve next year, I feel that they could

1) Bring back defense, even if it is limited. If robot-to-robot contact can't be a thing for whatever reason, why not goalkeeping?

2)No more average scores, this hurts teams who do well but have one off match

3)Flying objects/big, fast stuff is always entertaining. Putting a new twist on it shouldn't be hard.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I think you need to go to Championship event-The Thread "Videos from CMP"-It has your QF match, I do not think that is cheering, I think it was shock. When we lost in the semi-finals we got cheered for a great effort. The cheering was for the match not your lose.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This is something that I think should be considered more. A lot of people complain about robot-to-robot contact, and especially in the case of 2014, trying to regulate this contact in an objective way. With this game it's made me realize that it's not that the alliances are divided that is bad, it's that there basically no interaction between the alliances. The can races were the only interaction, and they we're probably the most exciting part to watch, ignoring that they decided matches.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that keeping the robots divided can be fine, but there needs to be interaction. There can be interaction with more goalkeeping. I was initially excited about the goalie role last year, but disappointed that it was so uncommonly used, mostly because it wasn't useful a lot of the time.

FIRST was trying to mitigate all the complaints about Aerial Assault, but instead of removing interaction, make it more of a goalie role. I don't have a lot of experience with past games, so I don't really know how often a goalie-role, rather than a robot just bumping into another and trying to block its path, has existed, except maybe 2013.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Another thing which I think many of you will find unfair is the dealing with snow days. My team lost 12 DAYS to snow. It was absolutely awful, but we were proud of what we were still able to accomplish. I'd like something for teams that have that much trouble, as I know many teams in New England will feel the same way.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This isn't so much a lesson-learned from 2015, as a common sense suggestion (In my opinion, anyway). This year FIRST officially recognized Wednesday as the starting date for each Regional...in that same spirit PLEASE let teams set up their pits on Wednesday night. Keep the robot bagged...but get everything set in its place so teams can hit the ground running Thursday morning.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

+1+1+1!

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This game was pretty meh til the elims started. I wished they would have founf a use for the yellow totes outside of autonomous.

The Can o' Worms at the champs for queing was not my favorite thing in the world but with alot of tweeking we made it work and that made me happy. It'll be much better next year.

The team badges were a disster! There were people using them to come down to the field and the stadium staff who were so good at keeping unauthorized people out let a ton of people in and just added more stress to the volunteers.

The paper airplanes need to stop! They make us look like unruly fool and make the field look like it's being played in a garbage dump! Is this how little you think of FIRST?

We need more districts!!!

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I will second, third and fourth this. Districts this year and last year in the PNW have been amazing (with some select exceptions) in terms of quality robots that teams have built. What Autodesk has done in PNW CMP really makes it feel big and important.

Just my two cents.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Autonomous was good. It's not necessarily meant to be easy. Programmers spent weeks of late nights working it out and pushing mechanical to improve things that were an issue. I didn't see it as being make or break but a definite bonus. There were plenty of teams in finals that couldn't do it.

Taking take our thirteen hours to run division finals and Einstein was crazy. That's a long day of doing nothing when you're out of it if your going to hang out and watch. Then nine hours of travel after that.

The average of the scores outright sucked. Teams made it to the finals that really should not our would not have been there on their own. This dilutes the championship. Adding more teams has already done this and will again when they split to two locations. The top teams are there already. At that point they will be adding more teams that are not top teams. More diluting of the quality. If they would like others to have the big experience, then improve the quality of states or regionals. Cmp was a big let down after msc. It was like going through divisional in week two again. There were some more good teams to watch, but many that need some work yet.

Maybe IRI will become the real CMP without the first endorsement.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Does anyone have a link to the bad lip reading video. That was funny and the kids are looking for it. Thanks!

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

It was a very fun game overall to watch and be a part of, however I felt that this game should have had an endgame. The end game really shows which teams can push the envelope from good to great

Just my two cents

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I completely agree with the Chairman's Award thing. Our team was not going to stay for the concert, but we felt like it was really important for us to watch the Chairman's winners. Unfortunately, we didn't get to because they were very slow at starting. We probably sat there for close to an hour before deciding to leave. Everyone was exhausted and sitting in the stands for another couple hours didn't help.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I don't think so because averages are dependent on the field and the teams on that field.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

It's the highest rookie seed award, not the highest rookie score. In previous years it was the exact same way with W/L (actually was worse in previous years since W/L could be more easily luck based).

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This year my only official interaction with FRC was volunteering as field reset at the Utah Regional, and chaperoning my old team at the Championship.

---
Volunteering for the first time was nice, but could have been more organized with instruction of what to do and where to go. (But, I was late on day 1 due to a ~1 hour drive, so can't complain too much.)

---
I had a great time being with my team and old friends at Champs, but was pretty disappointed in many things. For context, I have only gone to Champs one other time (2013).

First, the opening ceremonies on Thursday morning. In 2013 that was a nice way to start off the event and feel like it's "real." My team skipped this year's opening ceremonies because it was just another thing after a long day.

For the webcast, just do one overall camera view. While watching it in the pits on the big screen, we could hardly see any detail at all.

Also, I disliked how the division finals/champions awards were handed out. My team's alliance made it to finals of Archimedes, and handing out the medals/trophies just seemed rushed. It was just kind of walking down and high-fiving the refs (after a controversial call that knocked us out too..) and didn't have a special feeling the kids deserve.

Oh, one other small thing is that the fourth alliance drive teams in the division finals should be brought out to the field to shake hands. We were a fourth member, and it was just kind of disappointing to not see the students get any recognition as being part of the alliance.

And oh, then there's the Einstein event/closing ceremonies. I was very surprised and disappointed at this.

First off, start things on time please. I watched our division playoffs, then went to the pits and we had enough time to pack everything, etc and when we all came back, we still had to wait a very long time for Einstein to start. First needs to better plan the timing of events.

Of course on Einstein, there were all the A/V problems. The terrible echo, split-view on the webcast, bad camera angles, spending way too long on camera on individuals in the crowd. Those all can and should be fixed easily.

Then, besides the matches, I was just not entertained much. My idea of a good show does not involve sub-par music, and jokes that aren't that funny. Step up the performance and make it more professional. Have entertainment that appeals to an audience of anyone.

We didn't stay for closing ceremonies, but moving everyone to the opposite side of the dome just isn't a good idea. Additionally, I heard that Dean talked for almost two hours, which is just not okay. His message is important, but again things need to be on schedule and entertaining. Also, Chairman's should be given more recognition than they were (as we, and many others, had already left and not even seen the award).

---
Anyway, sorry if I sound cynical. I had a great time at the two events I attended, and hope that FRC can continue to get better.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This was the worst game I have ever played, and perhaps the worst game in FRC history. I don't think it's impossible to make a decent game with no defense. I don't think a decent stacking game is impossible. But this wasn't it.

Of the many fundamentally broken aspects of this game's design, the one that bothered me the very most is the strong disincentive for specialization. Doing "one thing well" was all but a competitive death sentence, and I think it will take years to recover from it. One of the greatest subtleties of almost every FRC game is that if you were smart and stayed within your resources / limitations, you could create a winning robot by mastering just a few critical aspects of the game instead of being a jack of all trades. Teams that over-reach who felt everything was necessary to be competitive often struggled, and those who learned the important lessons of setting priorities and knowing one's own limitations found incredible success. This year turned that on its head. If you couldn't manipulate both totes and cans, if you couldn't get a can with a five stack underneath it, you just weren't going to win events (without something odd like a can burgular, specific metagame needs, etc). Now a generation of students and teams have been taught that the only way to make it is to try and do everything. We'll see an increase in teams over-reaching for years, and FRC is worse off for it.

Obviously, the presence of a chokehold strategy in the form of the center can race was quite problematic. I'm sure others will touch on this point extensively.

The tournament structure, specifically average scores with no forgiveness for any mistakes, was atrocious. It's robotics - things go wrong. Consistency should be important, but if the first second of the first match can make your entire elimination run completely worthless, something needs to change. I never want to see the morale of a team so quickly killed again. I never want to have to make students play a match that they know is utterly pointless again. This must not be the new norm.

I'll have to post other things I have (including positives) later, I'm already procrastinating too much. But I just want to say - I have never, ever, ever seen an FRC game cause more of FIRST's most dedicated and respected mentors to reconsider their future involvement than this one. We can't survive more than one year like this.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Even still, semi-autonomous actions only get so complex. 90% of the time spent making a PID loop is really just tuning three variables, since it's not even a dozen lines of code (using WPIlib, that is). I would agree that programming needs more emphasis, seeing as autonomous is the one time programmers get to take risks. I also think some of the point values were a bit low. Only 8 points for a container set?

Autonomous in 2013 and 2014, in my opinion, were nearly satisfactory, but a bit more complexity might be nice.

Although this may be true for quarterfinals, you should take a look at the 1st alliance in semifinals on Archimedes: Semis 2, 4, and 6

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This can't be repeated often enough. As a mentor for a team with limited means, this has been the design philosophy I have stressed every single year, and it has served us very well. It simply was not possible this year, and the result was that our design process was very much stressed and our end result suffered.

This game had two game pieces, neither of which were easy to manipulate, and both of which had to be manipulated in order to score. It was simply *too hard* to build a "minimum competitive concept" bot, and I saw *lots* of teams suffering from this.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I'm not going to say your many points of emphasis are based on a feeling of bias or not a feeling of bias. But I will add that the FIRST game-makers need to factor in a ratio system for point values (not saying they haven't). The potential for a large point value in autonomous should be considered important and it needs to be. I mean they are robots, robots should be programmed, hence their given name. But I feel it quite unnecessary to put important game changers (Recycling Cans) in the hands of autonomous. I will also agree with saying if a game is decided in the first 15 or so seconds then why compete? I mean a stack of six without a can is a measly 12 points to a stack of 6 with a can, regardless of litter. If one alliance has already grabbed an uneven amount of cans in their favor before tele-op begins the maximum point value for the opposing team would be 258 points. That 258 being a maxed out score for that alliance. Really good alliances would only score 204 if they really were good at trowing litter. So if you create a game designed like a see-saw you will find very uneven possibilities. With a point range of 204 you would be doomed during playoffs on the Einstein fields.

Although its purely speculation that a team could consistently snag all four cans off the step during autonomous, it raises the question if they had been able to do that they wouldn't be matched.

But this is all post season talk and the what-ifs about the spontaneous possibilities that could have happened during the Recycle Rush season.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I will flat-out say it, the game was boring. It was missing the defense and the high-flying action that games of years past had. Stacks of boxes aren't nearly as impressive as robots hanging from pyramids or a bridge balanced with three bots on it. Recycle Rush just dropped the ball when it came to creating an exciting spectator sport.

This year just had a different atmosphere during the competitions. Our bot was a mid-low ranger this year, and due to the average score rankings, many times we felt like a hindrance to our alliance partners rather than a help. At least in previous years when our robot had an issue with performing a task, we could make it up with another. (i.e last year when our robot's catapult system broke, we played defense) This year however, it was either, you stack, or you're in the way, and that definitely needs to change for next year.

The early season was riddled with problems. The Northern Lights Regional during Week 1 ran so far behind because of problems with the field, that members of my team fell asleep in the stands on several occasions. I understand this is a problem with Week 1 in general, but it became quite ridiculous having practice matches end an hour and a half later than they should have.

Livestreams were a real let-down this year. It was real exciting last year to have won an award at a regional, and then have people from back home watching the stream wishing congratulations. This was missing this year, as the quality at many of the events, especially the Championship, was poor. I've heard a lot about the PNW having fantastic A/V, and if that is the case, that sort of quality should be the standard for events. (and I stress this again, especially the Championship.)

Now I move onto the biggest let-down of all, the Championship.

FIRST certainly didn't prove to me that they could handle 600 teams, let alone the 607 that ended up attending. The event was unorganized, chaotic, and half the time my team and I had no idea what was going on.

It started with the identification badges, which my team had no idea about. It wasn't well publicized that these were required, and could be picked up on Wednesday, so most didn't bother. The reason for these (as we found out later) was security reasons, as a week ago there was an apparent bomb threat at the Old Courthouse building. If anything, they're a great souvenir!

Next came a problem several other teams in the Hopper/Newton area faced, as several things were stolen after the pits closed on Thursday. We specifically lost a drive computer, (thankfully Team 1816 graciously helped us out!) but other teams reported missing laptops and other personal items that were left in the pits, areas you'd think would be safe and secure.

Then came the divisional award ceremonies, which for reasons I still don't understand, were lumped together. In every right of the word, the eight groups of teams were divisions, as they had their own fields, finals, and representation on Einstein. So why place the two nearby subdivisions together strictly for awards? I understand the reasoning when it comes to an award like Engineering Inspiration, as that qualifies you for next year's championship, but for other awards like Team Spirit and Excellence in Engineering, there is no reason why they couldn't have been sub-divisional awards. I don't feel this combining of subdivisions was communicated very well either, as many people seemed to be surprised by this.

The merchandise lines were way too long. (sometimes an hour or longer) The clothing area of the store was a real let-down as all you could get were $50 jackets, or iron-on custom t-shirts.

The paper airplanes need to stop. It got way too out of hand this year, as people draped toilet paper from the top level, ripped up programs into tiny pieces and dumped them over, and threw other objects like water bottles and glowsticks. It looked nothing more than a massive spring break concert, and created a huge mess. Having sponsors encouraging this activity isn't good either.

I don't know about anyone else, but this year Einstein kind of lost it's charm for me. Not having the massive LED background, and trading it for two fields sort of made it seem like the qualification rounds with everyone watching. Last year they had a lot more going on between matches, (Awards, Speeches, Performances) and that seemed to be missing this year by separating everything. I personally wished the Einstein field was located on the side with the stage, as then you could have had performances, speeches and awards in-between the action.

The finale was a let down. Last year, we had a carnival, free food, dance lounge, and a game lounge. This year, a DJ that stayed on stage way too long, and two acts performed that very few people even knew about.

This ends the long list of complaints that grew over this season. I feel of all things the Championship really needs to improve. If FIRST cannot prove that they can hold 600+ teams and maintain "championship experience", then how will they be able to maintain two championship events with a total of 800+ teams in years to come?

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I think you pretty much summed up the entire year, I enjoyed reading what you had to say.

I will say though the lag between matches was morose and boring at times. This problem could have been rectified with activities for the crowd or just basic announcer and crowd interaction especially at championship. As well as the speed of robot set-up and field reset (of which I was a part of). The field crew and FTA's definitely played a major role in how fast the matches were played.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

- The game. If it's even accurate to call it that, since Recycle Rush was way more of a challenge than a game. Specifically:

- It wasn't a good spectator game. My sister only liked watching noodles being thrown after seeing parts of Alamo, SVR, and champs. (In general, watching stuff being thrown is more fun than watching stuff being pushed around.)
- The lack of defense, and alliance interaction.
- The chokehold strategy, and matches decided in the first <0.2sec.
- The all-or-nothing points, especially in autonomous.
- The multiple game pieces, both of which were necessary--using one and doing well was almost impossible.
- The unscored litter points. Everything about it--the fact that only HPs could score it and that it has basically no point and yet could disable the best robots--was frustrating.
- The inability for third robots to contribute much. I'm not against cheesecaking from any side of it, but it would be nice to have a game where it's not required to win.
- Difficulty for teams to score. Litter points were often the majority of points scored in earlier events. The importance of containers, the easiness to knock over stacks, and the all/nothing scores made many low scores.
- The focus on working alone. There were a few alliances where teams would work together to stack/cap, but the most successful ones just did cycles by themselves.

- Average points for elims advancement. I'm divided about how I feel about if for quals, but for elims it's just brutal. One match can completely ruin a team's chance of moving on, and there is no way to make it up.

- Mecanum. We've done it once, and I hope we never do it again. It's confirmed what I thought, and much more. I never would have expected us to get sucked into the "mecanum trap*," but we did, and it wasn't fun. I'm looking forward to the return of defense so we won't do this again. That said, it was nice to see it well implemented by many teams.
* My name for the idea that omni-directional movement is important enough that spending time on a drivetrain that we've never tried before, and will spend a significant amount of time on, will help us in the end. (Okay, it's just team-specific, but it was something I learned this year...)

- Champs webcast and the whole split screen thing. We tried to watch a few of our matches from the pits, and it was very, very difficult to tell what was going on.

- Paper airplanes. This really needs to stop. Period.

- The split champs announcement, how it was done, the response to it, and the town hall meeting (from what I've read/watched, I wasn't there in person). Basically the whole attitude about it, their unwillingness to listen, and the complete lack of any survey beforehand.


In all, 2015 was an interesting year, and one that I learned a lot in, but one I'm very happy is ending. Good bye 2015. Good bye Recycle Rush. Good bye and good riddance.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This is all for FRC:

-I want to see FIRST do more robot durability challenges. For example, I would always love to see a hockey challenge (one on real ice or some sort of friction-lacking surface if possible) because if it is similar to the real life sport like in the NHL and at the IIHF championships, it would be very much into cooperating with teammates and strategy. Also, I know it is sort of risky and difficult, but if defense is allowed, I would like teams to focus more on durability and maybe even having "skating" robots as opposed to standard drive systems. And if defense is allowed to a certain extent, teams will need to build robots that can take checks, hits, and deflect pucks like ice hockey players. Although it would be a very big change, it would be a challenge that is harder to "exploit" if you know what I mean.

-Overall, I want to see challenges that make teams use their teammates and not "take advantage of the game" all by themselves. I understand that teams are allowed to do and build as they please but I mean in 2013 when SPAM (FRC 180) sat at the feeder station in South Florida and just kept sniping disc after disc, it seemed like it was not even fun or competitive anymore. I mean for me that would not be fun unless I was the human player (which I am now), and the drive team can't have fun with one control in use. I feel like a hockey challenge would be so cool though. Like especially if they implement powerplays and penalty kills where teams would lose bots temporarily due to penalty infractions. If in any way a hockey or similar challenge is done, it would be amazing. I would love to see challenges that require utilizing teammates.

-One thing I noticed about this year (especially at championships) was that there were too many game pieces and it delayed the game flow and game play. Although so many volunteers present, the re-configuration of gamepieces took a few minutes and it was even worse when there were scoring disputes because the field was closed until referees resolved it, holding up the field staff longer.

-The bandwidth for the field needs to be increased or re-allocated in some way. We originally had a camera on our robot at our first regional, but the bandwidth of the field only allowed us to process 7 fps, which was not even useful. So we scrapped the camera idea as a whole. The FTA and field staff already do good enough of a job, but if they could use more bandwidth, please do.

-I feel that because every year FRC has the clear, frame perimeter of the field as a way to make the field bound, FIRST should make money with this as they do in professional sports. Dean says FIRST is a sport of the future, so why not place ads there for companies. Although it may seem like an executive decision that I am in no way qualified to make or suggest, the money they make can be used to reduce costs to teams and save everyone money.

-About the two championships idea... It is a great idea but it is in the wrong places. It is great to see that FIRST is trying to accommodate to people from all over the world, but Houston and Detroit are the worst places to do it. It seems to be a North/South facilitator, which is reasonable as there are many teams from Canada, the Northeast, and Michigan of course. But in the South, everyone is so far apart. In South Florida, the closest team to us is 20 miles away. I would suggest doing an East/West duo of cities. Detroit is such a run down city that unfortunately does not have the means to rejuvenate. In St. Louis every hotel was booked within 20 miles in every direction from the EJD. If this shifts to Detroit, you can't book hotels in the east as you would be in the Great Lakes. I also feel that inclement weather could prevent flights and mess up competition scheduling. Not to mention, with the mass amounts of people coming into town, how are there going to be enough hotels to facilitate to everyone? I'm not saying this out of paranoia of being in dangerous areas, but in Detroit, the entire west side is slowly becoming a ghost town. Are teams going to have to stay in the abandoned houses or are they going to have to stay 1 hour west in Livonia, Ann Arbor, etc?

-Also, these recent competitions have not been the best to demonstrate with. Recycle Rush and Aerial Assist were awful for us in demonstrating. Our team could make the fields out of wood, but we never demo in areas with enough space. On top of that, this year, we were invited to meet some senators and legislators in Tallahassee (our state capitol) and I cannot tell you how embarrassed I felt when we showed them a game with monotonously colored totes and trash cans. I was ready to apologize to them personally. And as if that was not bad enough, spectators from all around were watching us on the elevated hill that the capitol sits on. Yes it was good that it is attracting eyes and it is hilarious for us students, but to adults and especially people who actually have the political power to enhance this program, the past two years robots were awful for showing off to people not familiar with the program.

-Most importantly, I know that Dean Kamen cannot attend every competition, but please make efforts for him to. My team saw him in Atlanta at Peachtree and the entire philosophy of FRCs were completely changed with one 30 minute speech. in my opinion, Dean is such a realist; he realizes our struggles with money and the reality of only having a 4-5% chance of actually winning a regional. Some teams out there, especially those in Florida, take this WAY too seriously and are too harsh on themselves and the other teams. I love the competition atmosphere but every robot does not need to be considered "overpowered" or "useless." Dean's speech at Peachtree taught me that at competitions, you should really evaluate your team in terms of competition as looking at what people are missing out on both at the regional and people who do not compete in FIRST. Your robot is so "you." It is unique to the team, whether it be in skill, design, or cosmetics.

Thank you to everyone who made this season another amazing success! You all really changed my life this year. It feels so invigorating to have gone to championships for a sport I was finally good at.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Its true! Jenny yelled at me a couple times when I stood up during the competition! Sorry about that! :-D

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

It sounds like your problems with the Championship start with your team not keeping up with the information made available in advance. How would you have preferred to receive the word that everyone would need badges?

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I feel like more announcement and signage about badges on Wednesday would've cleared up the confusion. I personally wasn't at the convention center on Wednesday, but what I did hear from the reps and mentor that went over was that they didn't know or hear about everyone needing badges. (if an announcement was made, the sounds of load in and pit set-up may have drowned it out)

I just felt quite out of the loop this year when it came to events and happenings. I had no idea that Scholarship Row was moved into the same building as the Innovation Faire, nor had any certainty as to where the Einstein matches were to be located until I saw a massive congregation move toward the Archimedes-Tesla side of the Dome. I'm sure part of this is me being oblivious, (and believe me, I sure can be sometimes) but perhaps more finalized scheduling and locations information would've been great in the registration packet/folder that all teams received, so at least mentors could be in the loop.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

This. Although the thread name is "the negative" I want to pick up on MSC as a positive example to contrast to.

I was stunned by the high quality of the MSC broadcast. The video resolution, the angles, the field of view, the commentators... it was all incredibly professionally done and a credit to the people who arranged it and did the work. I'm in the "great engineering challenge, weak spectator sport" camp regarding this year's game, but the MSC broadcast even made a positive difference on that front.

My team was on Curie this year and for quite a while at the start of Quals there was no field audio. Period. In Q1 the robots started auto and no one off the field knew it was coming. The audio on Curie sometimes alternated between deafening and inaudible, but once it was fixed it was generally ok. I appreciate that the production team must have had to work hard to fix an unanticipated problem that somehow got past testing. Anyone who's worked on a robot understands that pressure and frustration. However a working PA system has to be table stakes when we've got people on line and in the stands who we are trying to get interested in FIRST and STEM as mentors, volunteers, sponsors, or any other angle.

Einstein audio was unintelligible (no exaggeration) in the upper decks for most of the intro speeches due to a severe echo. The echo was briefly fixed by making the volume nearly inaudible. Eventually it was sorted out, and the match calls were fine. I do not know if that early problem was limited to the dome, the area of the dome where we sat, or affected the webcasts as well. Same point as for Curie. That kind of problem with the blocking and tackling of the PA system doesn't help new people get hooked.


Disclosure: I work for PTC, a FIRST Crown Sponsor. Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Of all the negative posts, not one mention of the biggest change this year. A change that affected every team ---- The Roborio and the new control system.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Hopefully some Canadian teams will stay in Windsor, if Customs is fast enogh.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I think maybe it was intentional to prevent teams saving seats

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Defense. Please bring Defense back. It allows the game to be more complex and fun to watch (as said previously) but it also gives new challenges to the drivers of the robots.

Without defense, all of the robots do the same basic things. You are either a canburgalar, or a stacker. Robots either stacked totes with cans already on top at the human feeder station, or they capped stacks that other robot s had already made. I personally never saw a litter sweeper robot, it was an add-on for others. And I never saw a wall like last year to try to block noodles.

Defense will make FIRST more fun to watch, more fun to participate in, and more challenging all around.

Other: Also, with the whole breaking Champs into two events, I have 2 problems with this. 1. Why would you go North and South? Sure, it's closer to Canada and Mexico for those teams, but teams on the eastern seaboard and western seaboard have to travel about the same distance... West and East would have made more sense IMO. and 2. Now this isn't going to be a true "Champs". It'll be a Northern Champion and Southern Champion. It won't be crowning true winning alliances.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Your teams design decision is not part of the game. FIRST didn't mandate the drive like in 2009, you really could have chosen anything.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

My family and I were there as spectators on Saturday. No team affiliation, just there to watch some robots firsthand.
Having to go get lanyards & badges was an unnecessary complication. If FIRST is going to promote this event to the local public (city bus wraps, billboards, etc), why make it difficult to attend?

There was no signage or anything else explaining the game around the EJD - or the America's Center from what I could see. Given, my family and I knew what was going on, but once again, for random families coming in, it would have been distractingly confusing.

The game was what you make of it. In many respects, it reminds me of car racing. Some people really enjoy the strategy, the engineering, the teamwork employed; others think it's boring until somebody crashes.

The entire Einstein experience was embarrassing. I was glad I hadn't brought prospective team sponsors with me. Horrible audio, ridiculously long wait between matches, poorly executed crowd engagement routines. We ended up leaving before finals because my kids were bored. Seriously. If robots can't hold the attention of a 6-year-old boy, something isn't right.
Maybe it was because turnaround time, which was about 6-7 minutes during the season, was roughly half an hour?

I wonder how many teams missed their flights, had to pay an extra day for charter bus getting home late, or got home way after curfew because the Einstein event was so poorly managed and executed.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Reading through the thread, I agree with a lot of the comments and suggestions made so I won't make this a long reiteration. However, my feelings are as follows:

Recycle Rush - I won't go as far as saying this was the "WORST GAME IN THE HISTORY OF FIRST" because maybe those who are saying that weren't around for the "game that must not be named" in 2001 (although I know this point has been made). This year was better than that, 2009, 2003 and 2008 even (which is of my own opinion and I could spend an entire thread talking about just that). However, with that said, FIRST, I understand the idea behind it and that you are always trying new things and pushing boundaries but I have to say, you pushed a little too far this time. This was a glorified FIRST Lego League game minus the 100% autonomous but if this is the direction they're headed in then count me out. I just didn't feel the "Competition" in FIRST Robotics Competition. It didn't matter the "opposing" alliance's score in the moment (during Quals) so there was not motivation factor to try and "win". Not until Elims did both scores really factor into mine or the drivers' thinking.

I also saw no reason for a team to specialize in any one this this season, I saw no reason for actually working together as an alliance and as we got further into the higher levels of play, you really only needed two teams that could MAX stack or as close to MAX stack as possible to win and the third (or fourth for Champs) only needed to stay out of the way (again, my observation, not yours).

I hope this "Average Score" and no "W-L-T" is an experiment because the experiment didn't produce good results. Considering that, as far as we know, the FIRST design committee builds games years in advance, I sincerely hope they have settled on a traditional 3v3 game which takes into account teams' abilities to specialize and work as such, a team. Please, FIRST, if you do anything, stop the "no robot contact, no head-to-head" before it gets out of hand. It didn't work in 2001, it didn't work this year.

Outside of the game - I can't comment on Champs as a whole as my team did not attend. I don't think the stream was nearly as bad as it sounds, quality wise, but the angles provided (no full-field) and the insane amount of time sitting and waiting for things to start (just watching different teams dance) was crazy.

There's other opinions on the 2-champs split, etc. but I'll save those for the actual threads discussing those topics as it's just too much information for one post.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Part of this might've been because, especially for a kid, there's not that much excitement in the game itself. The game this year was pretty boring to watch because it's the same thing over and over. I watched a live-stream of the finals at home and my eyes kept drifting to other screens (my tumblr dash, facebook, etc) in the set up I had because watching robots stack totes isn't that interesting, even if some do it faster than others.

The Einstein matches also started horribly late. I was worried I had gotten my timezones mixed up because they started like an hour and a half later than the scheduled time.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

The autonomous part of the game was all or nothing. A few really good teams could get a tote stack or container set. But requiring all three teams to do the same thing to get auto points only works if there is only one possible thing to do. Having three possibilities makes it so there will almost never be three robots in a qualification match that do the same thing. We wasted too much time on auto before figuring this out.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I think that is a testament to the amount of effort that NI, WPI, CTRE, FIRST, and all of the beta teams put into testing it. There was a beta testing feedback conference/round table and it seems like the new control system is a massive improvement overall from the old. There are still some bugs to be worked out though.

Sorry, this is the negative thread... Umm, I guess we all had to learn how to use the new control system and that took time away from building... :confused:

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I sped read the previous 6 pages so sorry if this is repetitive.

Fix the problem so the tracking app like spyder & blue alliance work in real time. Hard enough to track what was going on in my division let alone what was happening to friends in other divisions. Real time streaming for matches should just work. Having this stuff buggy kills the excitement we are trying to build for the competition. First is supposed to be the innovator in STEM. It is embarrassing.

Fix FMS connection issues. The wrong combination of robots on the field still breaks it. The robots are not the problem... They are the messenger.

Funny that the real autonomous battle was for the cans & not the initial points. (This is in the wrong place because I don't view as a negative.)

Time management for the First finial. The finial & closing ceremonies in general. Who thought shining bright lights into the spectators eyes was a good idea. I left after getting a headache.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

The lanyards were for security. In case of an issue they wanted to have a method of telling those who belonged from those who did not. There were riots not that long ago, not that far from the center. First was understandably concerned about upping the security.

That said here is my list of gripes and whines:

Event was too large. Didn't feel as elite as last year and even that felt too big. Why not multi state championships that are like this and then a smaller championship that was less than 100 elite teams.

Moving from one end to the other caused a lot of rudeness and nastiness in the stands. We literally had our stuff tossed aside and one girl literally stood up to ask me what we should say to them and while she was standing in front of her seat someone shoved underneath her and sat down. Rather than cause an incident our team moved up 2 rows where there were plenty of seats available.

I assume it is to make the stands look more full, but that particular problem would have been alleviated a LOT by not choosing the smaller ends of the field and instead the nice long sides. Yes it would have looked less full, but it would have been a nicer event for all.

Cheesecaking has to go in its current iteration. I like helping other teams. We have done it many many times, but this year it has gotten to the point of ridiculousness. In the past it was to help a team enhance the work they had spent all season doing. (Last year for instance, Rush, Enginerds and us helped a small team whose mentor had been in a car crash. They came to the competition with the kit bot barely functioning. We managed to put a few small pieces that let them play. Then we ended up picking them for the 2nd seed alliance's 3rd pick because for a team with a non-tech mentor and a team with only 4 kids they had heart. That to me is what cheesecaking was meant to be.

Not gonna talk about the game because I have the same issues with it as everyone else.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Oh yeah... get the API working. It makes us all look bad. We can get over 600 robots to work in an event but we can't update the website? (FYI I do API's and stuff like that for a living, it isn't that difficult)

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Unfortunately, I have far more negatives than positives this year, which seems to be the general consensus based on the posts here compared to the positive feedback thread.

1. This game was dull. It felt dull immediately after the game was announced, and my opinion did not change much. There were moments of excitement, but they were few and far between. Most of the time there wasn't even much cheering when a qualification match completed because there was no winner. In fact, the only time when there was much of a crowd reaction at all was when something negative happened, which shouldn't be the most interesting part of the game.

2. The area in which alliances had to work was over-crowded and any unplanned or uncontrolled robot motion could end put costing your alliance a lot of points. An alliance should ALWAYS be at a disadvantage if they're playing 2v3, but that was not the case this year, and in many cases it could have been considered a strategic advantage.

3. The Can Races. Possibly the worst part of this game. The cans are the most valuable resource in the game, they are limited in number, and more than half of the cans available to each team can be contested by the opposing alliance. I don't consider myself a strategic mastermind, but I saw can races coming as early as day 2 of design, I have trouble believing the GDC didn't see this coming. Once a certainly level of play was achieved, this was a required element of the game. Most of the matches on Einstein were over within less than 1 second of autonomous play (barring mistakes -- again, rooting for failure?). While it didn't decide every match, it decided the majority.

I feel that these races are even worse than the minibots were in 2011 in that everything comes down to the activation from the FMS. I never saw a clear answer about how robots were enabled, but when the race comes down to 100ths of a second, having something completely out of teams control possibly decide the match is a pretty terrible decision. NOTE: My team did not create a canburgler mechanism (though it was discussed), so this particular comment is not a reaction to a specific event.

4. Litter. Thrown litter was at best annoying, and at worst completely detrimental to watching robots actually perform the game tasks. I saw 0 robots that manipulated litter at all and none that intentionally "cleared" litter to the landfill. (Being the lead scouting mentor I watched nearly every match of both of our regionals). What I did see is litter actively clogging up drivetrains and mechanisms of many robots. Watching a high quality robot fight with a pool noodle as it drives is not inspiring to anyone. Thrown litter was also worth far too many points. That 1 piece of litter was worth the same as a 3 robot motion auto was a joke. (Though this may be more related to auto scoring than anything)

5. Co-op. The co-op bonus this year was not well designed. It felt very weird that the co-op task didn't seem particularly related to the rest of the game. I saw plenty of robots that could score co-op, but never built a normal scoring stack. Additionally a good number of very successful robots couldn't do co-op at all. Just a strange design decision. At least they could have had a way for the yellow totes to be useful in the playoffs.

6. The relative worth of these robots moving forward. These are the worst demo bots since 2009. I doubt we'll ever use this robot after the post season competitions are finished. We already had a demo which we could have used this years robot for, but opted to used 2014 instead. It was a massive hit, to the point where we broke our dog shifter by shooting so much. And because we were unable to get replacement parts quickly, we're using 2013 as a fill in. 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 all made good demo bots to some degree. 2015 will sit on a shelf, because its too big to easily transport, and the tasks it completes are not generally "cool" to demonstrate.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I completely agree with this. Everyone was cheering that their alliance made a stack, but the loudest cheering was when an alliance knocked over a stack or made a mistake... Not exactly the best thing to teach to students.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I didn't like the type of cheesecake at Worlds.
2011 style cheesecake, where robots shared Minibots? Awesome. I can't get enough of that. It didn't reconfigure the robot in the eyes of the community, it was just a neighbor helping a neighbor.

Throwing the robot that students built with mentors and teachers in their community and proudly showed off to sponsors and schools in the name of a last ditch effort to get picked? This is questionable ethics. Would I do it if I was in the situation? Sure, its a survival tactic, and as a mentor my students would be down in the dumps and it would be terrible to say no. Should it be against the rules? Yes. Keep the Build Season Sacred.

I would also like FRC to engage communities like Robot In 3 Days to maybe work out better guidance to better keep an "Innovation Sanctuary" during the build season (ie - Release RI3D material after week 5).


Now this is starting to sound like the Financial World and Regulation. Do financial institutions like making lots of money? Yes. Should we be allowed to do it certain ways? No.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Ouch.

I'm really disappointed to see that consistently negative views of Detroit as one of the new homes of the Championship event. I'm also disappointed to see so many people in the FIRST community speaking on stereotypes/perceptions before doing their research.

Detroit is a beautiful city, with a rich history of technological innovation. It is home to the largest concentration of FIRST teams in the world. Our Governor is very, very committed to making FIRST successful and rebuilding the economy of Michigan with a STEM foundation. Detroit is coming back, in a very tangible way.

In case you missed it, here is what's going down in Detroit in the next few years before Championships arrives:

• $300,000,000 in road construction projects in the next year
• M-1 Lightrail system being constructed downtown to improve public transportation
• $650,000,000 project that includes a new Red Wings Stadium in Midtown, near Ford Field and complete renovation of the surrounding 45 city blocks to connect Midtown and Downtown. This renovation includes demolition of most buildings, and the construction of residential, small business, and corporate spaces. An additional 2 mile radius around this area includes plans for repaired roads, sidewalk installation, street-light installation/repair, and landscaping.

There's not much inclement weather in SE Michigan in late April. Snow is sometimes a vague possibility, but it will in no way be severe enough to impact flights or competition scheduling. The likelihood of a tornado in St. Louis is higher than severe weather in Detroit in late April.

Really? Abandoned houses? That's a little unnecessary.

Detroit is not becoming a ghost town. Real estate prices are skyrocketing, population has stabilized and is increasing, and things are looking up. And, for the record, Livonia is not an hour away. It's less than a 30 minute drive straight down I-96 Express.

I get that people have an ingrained picture of Detroit in their minds, but reading through CD over the past few weeks I'm getting frustrated by all the nonsense being spouted about my (and many others') home. Frustrated by FIRST's decision? Fine. But keep in mind that you're talking about a place that a huge chunk of the FIRST community holds near and dear to their hearts.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

The overarching problem with this game wasn't that it was boring, or that there was no defense, etc. It was that none of the concepts made sense. Why was there no defense in the context of this game? Why were half of my totes contestable? There were very few things that anyone could present a logical explanation for this year, and that is why I am dissatisfied with this game.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

I had to work the week of champs in Boston and did not arrive till Friday night. The problems with the remote data feed are just ridiculous. There can be no excuse. If volunteer/s were in charge of this, please reassign them. If FIRST paid a company or persons to implement the remote data feeds, they must be fired. Did I mention it was ridiculous?

I'm willing to do something about it. Ask me and I (with a good team) will fix it. This is not rocket science.

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Volunteer food for those of us with dietary restrictions was abysmal.

Here let me make this very simple - if the only option is some lettuce it's not enough. Vegetarians (vegans too) have the exact same dietary requirements as everyone else. Which means we need protein and fat in our diet. Every single night I had to go out and get food because the volunteer food didn't even remotely meet basic dietary needs.

Sorry to harp on this but I cannot eat meat, it makes me physically ill.


There was also the issue of gnats all over the volunteer grazing area.

I'm going to go back to hoping seeing mecanums on einstein was just a hallucination brought on by poor diet for almost a week... /s

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

RIP Schadenfreude Rush...

Re: 2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative
 

Ditto to a lot of this thread, especially disliking how the game really forced you to be an everything bot to have a decent chance of success. We're not that team and we do poorly whenever we attempt it. We stuck with specializing in tote stacking and ended up with a bot that could nearly clear the landfill when we were on, but was largely useless to an alliance without a can specialist. Based on the Curie picks, most teams figured 2 mediocre can+tote stackers were a better bet than a can specialist + tote specialist. Convincing the team to avoid the omni-bot trap next year is going to take a bit of doing.

Things I haven't seen mentioned:

It really should have been obvious that herding 256 teams from the Pits into the Dome after alliance pairings was going to take forever unless someone organized it. If they'd pulled teams in order of their elim match play, or just prioritized robots vs. mini-pit crews, they probably could have started division elims a lot sooner than they did. If I recall correctly, Tesla was running something like 45 minutes late because of this.

Crowd control is, of course, a perennial problem. The confusion Saturday morning about opening the doors to the Dome but not opening the doors to the Pits seemed unnecessary. Especially when security tried to tell us we HAD to go to the Dome and couldn't wait for the Pits to open. Plus the lovely chokepoint on the 2nd-level where they only had one set of doors open between the Dome and Pits.

Rules enforcement. If you're going to make a rule, you need to enforce it:
Transportation Config was pointless because, to my knowledge, it was never enforced. I know of tether bots that were transported in two separate pieces because it was easier and deemed safe. Meanwhile we put wear on Anderson connectors to make sure we transported in our inspected transport config.
Since everyone was told on Friday to clear a 5x5 for a crate on Saturday morning, we did so and we greeted with a crate on Saturday morning. Literally no other pit around us bothered to do so and had their entire pit to work in. If we'd known this was optional, we wouldn't have bothered doubly inconveniencing ourselves. As it was, we insisted our crate be removed so we could do some work on the robot and pack without it in there like all the other teams around us.

Also better communication. I there were at least 2 different versions of how to get your crate removed on Weds. First we went to the SES desk who told us to just put the empty sticker on it and it'd magically disappear. I believe this was also the version announced over the PA. Our inspector, however, told us we actually had to request SES to remove it. We eventually shoved it into an empty aisle and let FIRST figure out what they wanted to do with it. Since it reappeared to inconvenience us on Saturday, they apparently figured things out.