October 1st, 2004
 

Sparky is back!

Please come check out the new version of Sparky384.com on October 1st, 2004. We will be opening the site up to the world for viewing. This year the website will have many new features and team resources. I'm looking forward to another great year in the FIRST Competition and good luck to all the other webmasters and their websites.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

We have a few new materials and one big new project that we will launch in January. At Sparky, we CARE. :cool:

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

I'll be looking forward to check out the competition. Its always great to learn from other webmasters and come up with ideas. Hopefully this year, we can take the National Website Award with a good PHP/MySQL backend site.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

I look forward to visiting your website. If there is any preview of your site for this year I'd love to check it out..

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

www.sparky384.com

Its open!.. please come check it out.. i'm open to suggestions and ideas on the website so please post them here. There are a lot of sections yet to be completed due to the early release of our website, but many will be up soon with our installation of our gallery software.

Thanks

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

I like the nice crisp design. I think the design is enough to win a website award once you get the content up.

I hope you guys put up a form with the mail function enabled so teams can easily submit information or comments under the contact section.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

the site looks nice... everything is laying out very neatly... great job... when are you guys planning on adding pictures and start the forum? :)

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

Looks really nice, I really like the layout. A couple suggestions (keep in mind that though I may seem a little harsh, I'm just trying to give you my honest opinions):

• You might try changing the links on the top to rollover images, to make them stand out. Out of convention, people are used to having links change color when rolled over.
• The sponsors page is too long, it should be divided up into 2, maybe 3 pages. Its a lot of sponsors, something I wish we had, but with that comes a lot of scrolling.
• Consistency with the links (especially on the sponsors page). I like the headers being orange on the rest of the site, but you need to distinguish which headers are links and which are not.

Overall, I think its a great layout, not too busy, good color scheme, good menu system. Once you get the content up, you should be in the running for a website award.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

I love it. Webmasters take note; some simplicity in design and a professional look does wonders for a site. Maybe I'll be more critical when I get a better look at it, but I doubt it.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

Very nice I love the minimalistic design :)

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

Thank You All for your comments that has helped me figure out what I need to do to the website, and I look forward to getting our forum up soon so teams can chat. Also our videos and pictures should be up soon.

I look forward to all of the other team's websites and what they are designing ;)

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

pretty nice :)

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

Hey Pat, could you change the main banner from Team 384 to Sparky 384? Seems more concise.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

I tried using Sparky384 in the heading, it didn't look right.. I think we should leave it to Team384 and i'll make the www.sparky384.com bigger so people can see it.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

I like it. Simple is good.
It's been stated before, but I do think that your sponsors page is a little long. Maybe you should try to break it up by the sponsors that gave you certain amounts of money (Corporate, Business, Personal, etc.). That way there isn't the thought that popped up in my head that "I'm too lazy to read all this."
Otherwise, once you get all the content up I think you'll have a very nice website there. Can't wait for the forum!

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

Thanks, i'm in the process right now of going down our sponsors list and figuring out our sponsors for this year. That list is of last year's sponsors so not all those are our current sponsors.

Thanks for the nice comments and suggestions.

P.S. The media section should almost be done this weekend. JosephM and I are working hard on getting the media uploaded for this weekend. I should have the forums setup soon aswell.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

Just saw this and it sort of bugged me.

As a webdesigner, I have never had someone tell me "I love how everything is backed by a MySQL database and written in PHP!" I want my users to have fluid experiences, find the information they want, buy the product they want, and not worry about implementation.

You have done a good job when people can do whatever it is they meant to do on your site. Technical implementation and design are means to an end, not ends in and of themselves.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

Indeed. Nobody really cares how it's done, it's the user experience that matters. The site looks very nice. One thing that bugs me, though, is the forum. I've noticed that a lot of FIRST team websites have forums, very few of which get enough traffic to merit the countless subforums they have and even fewer of which sport templates matching the rest of the site. Are you planning on using the forum for much internal team communication? Do you honestly expect any people from other teams to become active members? Personally I'd love it if some team created a good alternative to ChiefDelphi, but that'll probably never happen due to CD's popularity and the fact that most people in the FIRST community I've met seem to love the extremely friendly and PC atmosphere here.

So, to sum up, I like your site in general but predict the forum won't get much use.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

While I won't speak for Pat at all, previous web forums we have used have gone the way of the dodo. I don't think we are planning on having this one be used as much as CD, or even used 1/100th as much as CD, but for internal back-and-forth team discussion I think it's a good thing. I'm currently thinking about how to get it running and maybe getting the kids to check the forums daily for important reminders and other things.

Anyway, thanks for the comments.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

The forums for Team384 are basicly a way for team members to quickly post and to respond to messages that need to be posted. Email lists are great but sometimes they just don't do the trick so, our forums will be used for quick messaging. In addition to team messaging.. it helps other teams who need to contact us quickly.

I agree no forum in the FIRST community will get as much traffic as ChiefDelphi but having our own forums for our own use is a good thing for us.. I think..

Thanks again for the wonderful comments..

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

I think that its good that there is only one big main robotics forum. A fractured community (or needing to check multiple forums) is a nuisance. Being able to go to one place to talk to the greatest number of people just makes sense. I'd rather individual teams come up with unique ideas, be it being able to swap programming or mechanical expertise, or maybe some sort of virtual drawingboard where robotics members could share ideas for strategy or whatever. (warning: ideas are half-baked and thought up to make my post look more impressive)

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

Personally, I don't like clicking page after page for information that can fit on one webpage. (Isn't that the point of a webpage - to scroll?) I don't like online magazines that split one article up into 3-4 different pages.
It's just annoying.

But, that's just me. A web user who surfs at a resolution of 1024x768.
I think I am a minority in that aspect, when it comes to the many different resolutions available as far as I can tell.

Most websites I visit I have 1" gaps on either side of the page (as Sparky does). :(
Too much wasted space in my opinion.

Also, you may want to separate the FIRST logo and the actual links.
The text under the FIRST logo threw me off. I love how you have the acronym FIRST spelled out to what it stands for, don't get me wrong... but
maybe a simple little horizontal line graphic to separate the two texts (logo text and link text) may look good?

Arghhh.. Captain.. Do we sense a mutiny on the good ship Chiefdelphi.com? :rolleyes:

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

Just to let everyone know now, our forums are up.. the design and colors are in the process of being completed but we will be finishing that up soon. In addition to our forums, the media page is up and running with photos. All the videos and photos should be uploaded soon and ready to go. Thanks again to all the great comments and suggestions.

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

You said it yourself, you surf at 1024x768 and are in the minority. A fixed width website like this one is the best compromise between supporting lower resolutions and not stretching all out wierd in higher ones.

However, your fixed width is too small! At 800x600 you get a horizontal scrollbar! Eek!

Cool
 

I like the site

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

Just want to give an update. We are currently getting our media up on our photo gallery. Right now we have the Championship from Atlanta and Sparky 2.0 at VCU pictures up. All those Sparky 2.0 pictures are new, and this is the first time the have seen the light of day on the internet. Go check them out!

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

$@#$@#$@#$@# that. People with 23" LCDs are people too! I don't see why anyone would make a fixed width page nowadays. It's so annoying to not be able to change the width of the page.

(Yes, the site I made last year was indeed fixed width. It was such a pain to maintain - and a usability nightmare - that I swore I'd never make another fixed width site again.)

Re: October 1st, 2004
 

I have my res at 1600x1200 for design purposes (I like the extra workspace while still keeping the toolbars). There is still something to be said about fixed width websites. Your's looks extremely nice and I wouldn't change the layout one bit. Websites that shift to fill the entire screen sometimes piss me off because they are hard to read, and I end up resizing them anyways. Go with whatever way seems best, but always keep in mind the people that have a quarter the screensize I do, because horizontal scrollbars are worse than unused space.