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Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
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Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
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Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
I am all for this. Few industries and organizations take the bold risks that FIRST does, and as a result few show the growth and excitement FIRST does, and even fewer are making the impact on young technical folks that FIRST does. The response within my team is genuine excitement and an even higher target to shoot for. I respect that others are looking at this from a different level and perhaps their long-term plans or legacy has been compromised. At the same time, using how other teams might respond to this to make a point is a bit silly, let us all figure out individually what it means to us....I've always admired the "problem solving" aspect of FIRST.
As one of my professional mentors once told me in the midst of profound change..." let's stop debating whether or not the mule will go blind and just start loading the cart". Good luck and success to all on your journey! |
Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
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As soon as the 1/2 champs were announced, it was clear that it was already too late to prevent it. Commitments had been made. For at least a few years, that was the way it was going to be. I look at this announcement as a recognition that people want some sort of season ending event that was a big deal, and that the idea that there could be two world champions wouldn't fly. So, we know it's on the leaders' radar to have some sort of big deal event. If they manage to come up with something that works to fill that role, then it's awesome. If the event comes up lame, then we know they are looking for a solution. So, I try to be a glass half full. It not only is better than nothing, but shows an appreciation for the thing that so many people want. Will it work? If not, then it will be modified as soon as financial commitments and stadium reservations can be dealt with. For now, though, what it means is that every team that takes to the field at their district events in 8 weeks (!) will know that they are stepping on the path that ends at a world championship. We don't know what that will look like, but it's still kind of cool. |
Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
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(Still hopeful, planning for the worst.) |
Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
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Wouldn't you like to see what teams of students have learned the most and can apply it without assistance? I would. Would I like that to be the culmination of the season? Well, that's a different story. The most sensible, easy, path to take would be to have a traditional match between the winning alliances. That would be one no risk way to do it. But, if that's not what they have in mind, all sorts of possibilities open up. ETA: I guess what I mean is that if I were designing a "Festival of Chanpions", it wouldn't be "Einstein Field in New Hampshire". It would probably include that, but I would throw in something else. It would involve a multi-part competiton, only one aspect of which would involve the same old robots playing the same old game. Let's see what the Powers That Be have in mind. Whatever it is, I still like the announcement. I'm for it. |
Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
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South Champs teams drive North Champs robots and North Champs teams drive South Champs robots. You have 3 months to prepare. Go. But in all seriousness, I like the idea. I would have been thrilled for something like this when I was a championship driver (in my days, Einstein wasn't so glamorous...most people were off enjoying Disney after they were eliminated and the crowd was pretty thin for the final matches) I do wonder if any of the winning teams will not go to IRI since it is the weekend prior though. MOST winning teams have traditionally participated in IRI, so the argument of "more vacation time" doesn't really apply* unless the teams do both IRI and FoC. *Yes, I understand not everyone goes to IRI from a team, but more would likely be interested in going to this event as a celebration. |
Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
Who's going to volunteer to run the event?
They will need nearly as many volunteers for this festival as is needed for a full event. Certainly all the key volunteers and on-field volunteers. You need a FTA, FTAA, scorekeeper, Field Supervisor and full setup/takedown/reset team, Head Ref and Referees, Lead Queue and queue team, Spare Parts table ... the list goes on. You wouldn't need as many inspectors (perhaps they'll take a page from off-season playbooks and do away with inspection, but that brings up other potential issues). And not as many crowd control / safety glasses table / etc. Hey, maybe the guy who wants to be an FTA will get his chance! ;) |
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Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
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8 teams to inspect.... It would seem to me that the number of volunteers for the pits/inspection areas would be greatly diminished. |
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The ore I think about this the more I realize the event should only have an actual half hour of actual competition. That means an endless parade of speakers and skits. O joy.... |
Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
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With the high level of competition, I'd venture to guess there will a handful of FTAs around, but a couple with the most seniority will be playing the intermediary between teams and FMS Support. While we're at it, we ought to recognize those FMS Support guys for giving up so many of their weekends during competition season to make sure all the events run smoothly. Their names are Danny, Matt, Alex, and Chuck. If you EVER get the opportunity to speak with one of these guys, wether it be at Champs, or if they are running wild at some other event for whatever reason, tell them thanks! |
Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
I for one am pretty excited about this. While I would have preferred a different model, I think this one has potential to do a tone for those teams as well as do a ton for FIRST.
#1: Televise it. Webcast live the day of, and then a nice hour TV special. #2: What an opportunity for the teams! I hope that FIRST helps them out with some of the logistics costs, but teams are getting an opportunity that hasn't really been available since the early days of FIRST. There are a lot of details to be worked out, but this could be a fantastic 1 hour special. My biggest question would be do you set the event up to have a good live TV format, or do you set it up to be a great event, and then do an edited TV special. As much as I would like it to be a live program, due to the possible speakers and their tendency to go long, I would probably recommend the latter with a live Webcast and then a 1 hour special a few months before FIRST Registration deadline for FRC. |
Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
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For starters, we do know that there will also be the FIRST Tech Challenge winners from each Championship at the event. So there's potential for effectively twice as many matches (assuming they don't hold them simultaneously, which I don't see why they would with so few teams in attendance). But we know very little about the nature of the competition. Will it simply be a best-of-three between the two alliances? If so, your fears may be validated. But they could extend that to a best-of-five or even best-of-seven. Or use some other format entirely. They could shuffle up the alliances. They could have the teams compete in parallel to set higher scores. They could extend the length of the matches like they did with the televised "Hall of Fame" matches before 2014 Championship. Heck, it was already pointed out previously in the thread that this announcement never declared these teams would even be playing STEAMworks. Teams could be building brand new robots (or updating existing ones) as part of the event. The FRC and FTC teams may even be competing in the same competition. We simply don't know. To make the sorts of broad rushes to judgement we're seeing in this thread when we have so little information is rather ridiculous. |
Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
They could even be inviting past winners as well. Imagine a full bracket of the past 14 CMP winners (with backups/practice bots in to replace multiple time winners or dead teams) along with the 2 winners from the 2017 "championships".
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Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
Totally unrelated to the discussions above but I think FIRST missed an opportunity to call it the "FIRSTeval of Champions".
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Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
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Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
In my retirement I feel like I'm qualified to armchair philosophize this a bit...
In staffing an event like this, you're going to want to focus on efficiency. You've got FTC and FRC events going on in the same building, there is no need to have a full double suite of volunteers. Additionally, with such a dense area like New England, there's also no need to do a full call for volunteers - you'll have the cheapest option, volunteers within driving distance. So, if you are double trained in FRC and FTC, you're immediately more valuable as you can speak to both vernaculars. FTC is not as strong in NE due to Vex, so if you're local, see if you can sneak in a FTC event into your roster this year. Many of these are in February, so you'll have to take time out of build to do so. Additionally, playoffs are a different beast than qual matches. Alliances tend to clump together into little families because they're working so closely together, so they're easier to queue. The largest arena in NH does not have the space to do pits that are field side (if you assume a layout of the field towards the end of the arena as is typical of a hockey arena), and with the added point that playoff pits also include all four teams into one space, there may be some queueing, but not much. I also expect that many staff members will take over key spots, as they already do at Champs, but even more so because (again) they're local, and they built the system. I'd expect an average amount of FRC resetters (around 8-10, mostly because there's a lot of counting to fill the fuel correctly) and refs. I'm not involved this season at all so this is just my guess, but I think it's a pretty good guess. |
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