Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

Hello everyone!

Thank you to everyone who was able to watch the live airing of Spotlight Episode 2 on Tuesday!

If you didn't get a chance to watch, the video is now uploaded live to our YouTube Page, iTunes (search First Updates Now), and Sound Cloud.

Join us for our next show: Recap on Tuesday, January 12th at 8:30pm Eastern and the next Spotlight show will be on Tuesday, January 19th.

A huge thank you once again to Frank Merrick for coming on and being a great sport about fielding questions.

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

It's kind of a pushing-on-a-rope situation. District events are pretty much unaffiliated with FIRST HQ and totally volunteer run. Asking to get a talented crew willing to volunteer the time and expertise for every one is nearly impossible.

Unless FIRST or someone else wants to break out the checkbook, getting all these recorded and posted isn't going to happen.

Also, really, from a FIRST standpoint they don't care if they get it all recorded. In terms of promotional videos, all they need is a couple minutes of matches that they can get at champs.

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

I feel as though it isn't actually that hard to record match video for all or most FRC events. All you would really need for each field is a wide angle Go Pro like camera, a decent size sd card, and one volunteer dedicated to pressing record and stop who just transfers the video files over to a volunteer owned computer who uploads it to YouTube during or after the event. FIRST could even make a YouTube account for each event and give the event coordinators the login. Am I missing something or is it really that simple? I understand teams can do it but it's a lot harder for a team to dedicate one member to recording because the team member might be needed, harder to get power set up, and harder to get a good shot from the stands(especially when people stand up). Having a single volunteer take care of this would alleviate the issue. Besides the cost of a knock off Go Pro, is there any major problems with this type of system. I know it might not be perfect and matches may not be recorded properly early on but it's much better than what we have now.

Uploading matches during the event isn't possible because you are relying on an SD card. In order for that to work you would need the gopro hooked up to a pc with a capture card. Besides uploading in an event is not realistic due to bandwidth limitations. It's also very time consuming to do youtube uploads especially when your taking 100+ matches. So your saying people should use up their own Internet possibly raising their monthly bill and spend 6ish hours uploading.

Not hard?

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

I wouldn't expect most events to be able to do uploads during the event but after or the night of I'm sure you can. As far as someone doing it on their own time and internet plan, I'm positive that at most events, at least one volunteer would be more than welcome to do it. And if no one wants to at a particular event then fine. It could even be a representative from one of the teams competing that could volunteer to do it. I know for the Arizona events at least I would be more than happy to upload videos on my internet since I try to do it most years anyways. I know others in my area would do the same and many users on Chief Delphi would be up for it. The problem is getting decent video and having it all in one place ready to upload.

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

To chime in on the issue of archiving matches: Many teams at events already record video for their own scouting purposes (insert shameless plug for 1676). If FIRST doesn't have the resources to archive events themselves, maybe they should just officially support or partner with The Blue Alliance and ask teams to volunteer to upload their own full-field match footage.

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

You (and FIRST) are missing the big picture. Gathering data on and maintaining contact with alumni will benefit the entire organization tremendously in the future, if they do it right. If FIRST gathers "Where are they now?" type anecdotes as well as aggregated data, they (and we) can use it for justification that FIRST robotics leads to <insert adjective> better life outcomes for participants, compared to students who did not participate in FIRST. This sort of data can help mainstream FIRST into schools, grant eligibility, and social acceptance. Furthermore, by making the alumni connections and building a network of alumni, FIRST has the potential to connect its alumni with careers, in a similar fashion to how they currently connect students with scholarships, and Deans list students with universities.

Many well-established universities and organizations have alumni associations. The reasons they do are not superfluous.

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

Anybody have a contact at FRC working on the webcast project TBA could reach out to?

In the AMAA, Frank expressed desire to have a database where you can "Choose team 1519, select the 2015 season, and see videos for all their matches". TBA already has that exact infrastructure built, plus the historical backlog of video. Just sayin... :rolleyes:

Or maybe, in lieu of official FRC support, we could just make some standardization effort as a community to improve our crowd-sourcing efforts. As there any tools TBA could provide to help increase the number of videos being archived?

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

You mean exactly what RoboVisionOD does?, they are usually about 5 matches behind max at an event.

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

I have to admit I was thinking that myself but sometimes you just have to move on. TBA has been a huge resource for me personally and definitely has been on the forefront of solving a huge need.

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

There are also implications for FIRST from an organizational standpoint. I point to Minnesota and the http://www.mngofirst.org folks as examples of what alumni organizations can do for improving the quantity and quality of teams in a region.

There is A LOT more to the alumni discussion beyond collecting data and money. Go talk to universities about their alumni networks and how important they are.

There's obviously exceptions.

But overall it's hard to standardize something of this nature when all the work isn't done on premise. For instance the Sd card. Is the SD card property of First or the volunteer? How will they give first back their sd card. What if the footage becomes corrupted (A problem with some gopros)? Is first at fault? What if the volunteer decides they are going to not upload them all after the fact and is in possession of the Sd card? Is everything screwed? Lastly how will they make sure a level of professionalism is met what if the tripod is in a location that get bumped a lot or people walk in front of it a lot.

Not to mention sound. Great you have a gopro for video are you using the built in mic? Yes... No you can't. First events play copy righted music and what if the kids in front of the camera won't stop cursing? Besides the fact that mics in gopros suck. Then you have the issue That your not Getting field sounds or fms overlays.

What I am trying to say is it's not as simple as you think. If First is going to standardize something they have to do it at a professional level. A gopro probably won't cut it. The systems for doing this including all the cables cameras and hardware will probably cost $1,000 - $2,000 a small price to pay for it imo But, I can definitely see their reserve towards it.

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

For video streaming they should work with PNW because their streams are on point.

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

If they want to do it at a professional level for all 100+ match videos for over 50+ events then yeah it will probably never happen. If they can accept a $100 720p wide angle camera shot and a $25 disposable hard drive for each event to transfer the files to for uploading then yes it is completely feasible. If things go bad and stuff never gets uploaded or files get corrupted then oh well. Can't do much about that. But for the majority of events, full field video will be available for teams and would be linked to the blue alliance and most teams would greatly appreciate it. If this isn't okay for them then so be it. But it's a solution I think most would be pretty satisfied with.

Re: Live AMAA with FRC Director Frank Merrick on 1/5 @ 8:30pm EST on Spotlight!
 

I would predict quite a bit of complaining if FIRST says they will record events (or even support the recording) and some events fall through.