Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

I tried downloading the app at the venue and it failed multiple times. I gave up.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

Unfortunately the lack of decorum in this year's Presidential campaign seems to indicate we're headed the wrong way.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

I agree with much of what has been mentioned so far. One thing that they did right sometimes and not at other times at the championship is to give credit to the backup teams.

This has always bothered me (not just because 5254 was a backup this year), but when they announce the teams competing before every match in championship eliminations, they should also announce the backups for each alliance. Or at the very least before each new series.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

It's just the pointlessness, I'm trying to go over game strategy with alliance partners or review scouting data while someone is yelling over the intercom. I'm not saying that the pit announcer is bad, some of his comments should have been left off of the pit microphone and rather directed individually to the person who was running or whatever. My main point however, was that he got mad at everyone during the day and I don't believe that it was acceptable behaviour. Some kids genuinely don't know certain procedures but there is no reason to voice anger over the microphone, at least be calm before making general announcements.
I respect your opinion though, some of his comments were humorous but I believe that he got out of hand at one point.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

I wouldn't mind reserved seating for, say 6 scouts per team, at each competition. Our scouts spent the entirety of Day 1 at Hartford on their knees behind the judges (Hartford has a ton of room between judges seating and stands) because we got there only 1/2 hr early instead of an hour early and ended up seated in a location where we couldn't see the screen and could see very little of the field.

Regarding teams grabbing seats from drive team or pit crew... unfortunately we had an incident last year where our mentors and a few students got up to retrieve boxed lunches for the pit crew and strategy team who stayed in the stands. A few members of another team swooped in on their seats and spread out their stuff since there were more seats than of them. When our team returned with lunch and asked if they could move their stuff, they complained and yelled, "No saving seats!" Very weird. Thankfully this has been the exception.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

The speed at which robot carts were moving down the aisles was very dangerous. I have never seen so many teams, moving so fast with nobody walking in front of the cart.

I saw 3 people get clipped HARD in just the short time I was down in the pits.
One girl went to the ground. I went up to the pit admin and a safety advisor on two different occasions and was told the classic, "We'll look into it".

On Galileo, we were in K22, leaving the pit and stepping out onto the cart superhighway at our intersection, was risky business.

There needs to be education, supervision, and ENFORCEMENT of cart safety. Its out of control. FIRST is simply getting too big I guess. :(

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

This is another thing that should be covered by a good harassment policy with actual enforcement. Enforcement seems to be mostly what's lacking. There needs to be staff dedicated to investigating these things and addressing them, instead of just pawning it off on the free time of safety advisors or something. I'm not saying immediately boot people for the first offense, but you need to convey the seriousness of the issue. Detain them and explain things and if they miss a match, it's better than if they break someone's ankle later.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

I'll echo this. I happened to be having a conversation with Frank in one of the aisles when a cart sped giving very little time to move out of the way. Even Frank was concerned.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

QFT
For now.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

Yes, that's the point of having the zone begin as high as it does. Any lower and the bumpers would be bumping some of the defenses. You were free to design your robot with its bumpers another half inch higher if you wanted to make it impossible to contact the defenses.

It sounds like you're not aware that bumpers cannot occupy the entire bumper zone. They are only 5 inches tall, while the zone is 8 inches from bottom to top.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

I can't comment on the events you specifically attended, but I can speak for what I do as a scorekeeper at my events and what I've been trained to do.

First, a little background: the way FMS interfaces with AV is via a program called "Audience Display" that is the full screen and sound source for AV. Generally anything that's not a camera feed or a power point (to include the division awards at champs this year) is from our side, with the score bar chromakeyed out. We also have a "blank screen" option on our video switch, which we used to use at the end of matches (for suspense) but due to the "ref review" icon added this year, we were told specifically not to kill the score bar. The point here is that this year, in practice (if you go by what the official training says), any time you see nothing from FMS, it's AV that's doing that, not the scorekeeper.

Now, about your specific comments. The way I do it (which is how it's been done in Indiana as far as I can remember) is that I send the "alliance" screen to AV, until there is a captain who is having "difficulties" and needs a list (cue Jeopardy music), in which case I switch to the "available teams" screen. As soon as they make a selection, I swap back to the alliance screen. AV will often switch to a camera feed of the captain making the announcement; any breaks from the two aforementioned screens is usually AV's doing.

As for the Bracket screen, that was something that was actually mentioned during scorekeeper training this year; scorekeepers (and AV) were originally "suggested" and later supposed to do that. However, since it takes two to tango, AV has to put the bracket up. I can't speak for AV but I got the idea that at some point Blair (or somebody else in Manchester) sent an email to AV crews to among other things show the bracket at lunch.

That's the thing about scorekeeping and audience screens; it's a coordinated effort with AV. AV can only show what we send them. You can only see what AV shows you.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

I wasn't there when our students were being judged at one of our regionals, but that was the impression that they got as well. The judges were looking for a gotcha as well. The judges figured out that our vision code wasn't student programmed, and then were done talking to the students. Completely ignoring the fact that the students contributed in other areas, and that the number of students inspired by us having cool vision was way higher than would have been the case if the entire project had dropped through the cracks. We target similar amounts of work on a subsystem being done by students as by the mentors, and that's perfectly legal by the rules, and our decision. We have students doing code reviews, writing unit tests, and helping simulate how the robot works, and assume that is how all code is written. That's a huge success, and is only really possible with significant mentor involvement and drive. Next year, I think we'll have the students tell the judges that "they found a library to do that" to deflect those questions.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

Which is a shame. :(

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

Those judges really missed out on the stunning, inspiring, and borderline intimidating amount of passion and knowledge your students have for the machines your team builds. It really blew me away, for what it's worth.

Re: Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative
 

Back in PNW, we sent an aux feed to the projectors that could be independently controlled from the program(livestream) feed, but would usually display the same view as the program feed. This allowed us to let the audience display be up on the projector all throughout alliance selection and awards making it easier on the people in the venue to see the changes to the alliances and awards, while also letting the people at home see everything that is happening. This is something I should have remembered for Indiana's events this past season, but rest assured it will be fixed next season.

Champs could have done the same thing if they knew it was going to be a problem. It can be as simple as plugging a cable into a different output or extending a previously run cable to reach a different output of the switcher.