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

Hello FRC Community!

Spotlight is back with our second episode on Tuesday, January 5th at 8:30PM EST.

Our guest is a man who's quest for corndogs and cheesecake is never ending!



FRC Director Frank Merrick will be joining us to tell his journey of FIRST and to answer your questions live on the air!

Post your questions on this page. It could be anything about Frank, FIRST, or various food items! Please keep in mind that there will be some areas that Frank will not be able to discuss such as the 2016 game.

If you would like to watch live on the 5th at 8:30PM EST, please go to our Twitch channel.

Can't watch live? View it on our YouTube channel, or listen through iTunes, SoundCloud, or RSS.

Hope to see everybody in Chat Nation on the 5th!

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

Very cool, an AMAA with Frank!


Frank - What is the #1 administrative change you'd like to see happen to FRC over the next 5 years?

Thanks!

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

Frank- How does FIRST test games for spectator friendly-ness and design? Are practice and demo robots made to test out the games?

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

Frank-What on earth is wrong with Hawaiian pizza? (On a related note: what is your favorite type of pizza?)

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

Who is your favorite FRC mentor; and as a follow-up, why is it Andy Baker? :D

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

Chute door.

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

What is your favorite FRC game? Also, what's your favorite FIRST game? Think you could give a shout out to the Lunatecs?:yikes:

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

What are the components of making a good game? What are the GDC's goals at the start of the process?

Which COTS item from the last 3-5 years do you think has had the greatest impact in FRC? What do you think the next big COTS product will be?

Also what is your favorite restaurant in Manchester and why is it the Airport Diner?

What Is your favorite regional experience?

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

Frank - Will we get a(nother) game hint before the season starts?

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

I was lucky enough to meet one of the engineers at AndyMark who was on the FTC GDC and talked about how their missions get designed, which was REALLY interesting.
Who makes up the GDC? How does the GDC create and decide on missions/a game? Is the FRC GDC similar to the FTC GDC in that they come up with a few ideas/tasks for missions and let the engineers come up with a few designs that are easy to build with COTS parts and then come back to present them and the GDC decides on which ones to go with?

Where do you think FRC/FIRST will be at in 5 years? 10 years?

What will be the biggest positive (& negative - if any) change for teams this year (like how FTC switched control systems)?

I also know that you previously mentioned something about testing a format for webcasts at IRI this past year. Will webcasts be standardized this year with support from FRC? (I'm partially asking this since my regional asked me to help out with webcasting and I pointed them to a local video production company.)

Keep up the great work Frank!

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

To follow up on this - what about bandwidth constrained/prohibitively expensive venues like NYC? Apparently from what I understand they barely have enough to support FMS, let alone live webcast (probably due to venue charges more than infrastructure). Is there funding to support this?

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

Hello everybody!

Thank you for all the great questions! We will continue accepting questions for Frank through Monday so keep them coming :)!

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

Another question: what is holding us back from having a full field camera set up at each event to post match videos after events? It's 2016 and I feel like it should be easily doable to get every match on YouTube.

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

What was your first FIRST experience?

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

Frank, thank you. For everything.

Can you elaborate on some of the things FIRST HQ is doing to ensure a highly consistent experience for every team at each event?

In the past inconsistincies between the team experience at events was much higher, and I'd like to hear why appears to have become much better recently.

Don, now in ATL

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

Quoted for truth. There was a very good setup in 2012 and 2013 where even if not separated by match, there are videos on YouTube with blocks of matches (not sure if it's separated by days or just length restrictions) put up by FIRST. Why did this setup not return in later years?

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

There are 2014 videos out there on YouTube but they are tough to find again. 2015 had none. My question is also asking about having it at the regional and district events, but especially the championship.

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

For 2015, FIM and PNW (I'm pretty sure) have all the events up on YouTube with nearly every match available (there's spotty issues with certain matches, at least in FIM).

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

New England has most of ours up to, but I believe that is just because of a dedicated volunteer rather than FIRST getting involved. Which is fine if it's a consistent solution at every event (which it is not).

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

Frank,

Inquiring minds want to know: what is Frank short for? Franklin? Francisco? Francis? :P

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

Frank, how early do the game designers get done with the entire game creation process before kickoff? Also, how long does it take one game to be developed completely?

Finally, will there be a championship match between the victors of the split championships or two worlds champion teams?

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

Hi Frank
When will the new FIRST website will be fully functional

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

Is Joe Flacco a elite quarterback?

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

Frank, what is the most inspiring thing you have seen in FRC? Is it a team, person, robot, match, inspirational action or something else?

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

Frank, to what extent is the game design process an iterative one? Also, is there anybody outside of the GDC who has influence on the game design?

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

Is it still true that games are, for the most part, designed a full year in advance?

If so, how much do you adjust them during that year based on the feedback on that year's game, or anything else?

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

Pretty sure I missed the deadline, but if you can still squeeze in a question:

I believe that one of the most useful resources for newer teams is quality video of regional/district level matches. Seeing examples of what designs perform well at the "lower level" of play is more useful to a new/struggling team than seeing high quality video of CMP. Has FIRST HQ discussed support video recording (not streaming) at local events? As long as the videos get online eventually, this could be a massive resource for younger teams.

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

Is there any update on how the split championship logistics will be handled? Such as the committee on how to decide what teams go to what event?

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

Ditto.

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

Hello everybody!

We will be starting the show at 8:30EST. Join us on www.twitch.tv/firstupdatesnow !

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

That was cool, thanks for hosting it, please take him up on his offer to invite him back after kickoff :D

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

D'oh! I have a cold and was in bed :(

I don't see it on the YouTube channel yet, any idea when it will wind up there? :)

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

It is on twitch VOD right now, not sure how long it usually takes for the YouTube archive.

http://www.twitch.tv/firstupdatesnow/v/33820489

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

Thanks for posting this.

Sounds like he didn't have a great answer for my question about alumni involvement, which I'm sad to hear. I will have to listen to the rest tomorrow.

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

I think he was saying it's more of a FIRST overall thing vs. an FRC thing. Sounds like a great question for Michelle Long (whom I'll point to this thread).

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

Hearing from Frank that FIRST still doesn't consider video streaming and archiving a high priority is extremely disappointing. If they really care about outreach and bringing FIRST to more people, I can't think of many better ways to do it.

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

Overall a pretty good segment. Frank has good responses to most of the questions, and is a good representative for FIRST and a good communicator. While most questions were answered very well, one thing that was rather disappointing is the low priority given to tracking alumni. To me, alumni are the bread and butter results of this program. They are the proof that what we are doing matters. And currently, we just let them all vanish without a trace. This is something that needs to change. FIRST has data on diversity of program participants, but no real data on alumni of program participants (at least none that is publicly available)

Also, I wish I (or someone) would have asked what Frank's thoughts are on practice robots, bag & tag, and the mythical 6-week build season. I'm not looking to re-beat that dead horse here in this thread, but it would be interesting to hear Frank's thoughts on the matter.

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

The Video and Audio will be uploaded by later today (Probably around 6:00PM EST). Everything is in post process and is rendering at home right now so I will post on here when it is good to go.

Thank you everyone who did tune in and to Frank for being open to answering the FRC Community!

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

It was a good show, lots of good topics were covered in the show.

I had problems off and on with the feed freezing (thanks internet!) So I may have missed the answer to this question:

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

It's still in the twitch archive so you can watch it now if you want.

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

Was never asked.

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

For those who haven't watched, are you able to elaborate on his answer?

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

In regards of the alumni question, the problem is less of tracking alumni, it's getting alumni to want to be tracked and stay a part of FIRST. Any alumni that wants to stay affiliated with FIRST is already doing that through mentoring, volunteering, or even Chief Delphi. There is a limited database on alumni but it's probably not useful because the majority of alumni are not on it. Most people just look at FRC as something they did in high school and move on. If FIRST can figure out a really neat way to pull alumni back into the system, then that would be great. Until then though, I completely understand why it is a low priority. Especially since many of the best alumni are still a part of FIRST.

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

He basically said that they are working on it but that other things pop up that end up taking priority over video. He also mentioned that more and more events are being held in school gyms and that internet is a toss up on its availability and quality, in those venues.

They also mentioned trying to stress each event at least recording and then posting after the event was over but mentioned that that was a lot of work as well.

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.

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

One of the things he said that really caught my attention was that this year they will be stressing to the volunteers that the teams are the customer. To further that goal they will be providing key volunteers customer service training.

Being on both sides of this as both a mentor and a key volunteer I really think this is a GREAT move forward. I know early on in my volunteer career I did not have the best customer service skills. I was lucky in that some more seasoned volunteers took me under their wing and taught me what was and was not acceptable in certain situations, but not everyone has someone like that.

This will be a benefit not only to the teams, as they will in theory be treated with more respect; but also the volunteers and events. Some volunteers don't have any customer service experience and don't yet realize that the way they are conducting themselves is detrimental until they get to an event, and often I have seen that lead to the volunteer not enjoying themselves and not coming back.

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

100% yes this is huge! Whenever I am Emceeing on the field, I have to put myself in the mindset of 'If I was a student or attendee, what would I want to see and experience'. It's really hard for some people to take a step back (took me a few years) and realize that just because you are a volunteer doesn't mean that there is not any accountability.

I am also very happy to hear that Lead Referee's will receive on-site training to help reduce inconsistency.