Regional Improvements
 

With the new season about to come to a start and some regionals doing letting teams form a Student Advisory Committee (like last year for the New England Regional). I'de think it would be good to voice the Robotics community at these meetings.

Suggestions can be broad or nit-picky, but but it's nice to learn the spectrum of what can be done to make regionals better run and more fun.

For example,last year a group of UTC sponsored teams including ourselves decided that we wanted a new type of team social for the New England Regional so UTC worked with us all to get the hypnomania guy that was also seen again later at Atlanta, and a comedian to do a show for us.


So express your voices and let the suggestions commence!!!

Re: Regional Improvements
 

UTC should include some kind of display during the alliance pickings to show what teams can and cannot be picked, and what teams are available. Last years alliance selection was a joke. :(

Re: Regional Improvements
 

All Regionals - Music needs to be playing from the moment the first person walks in the door. Would makes the event much more lively.

All Regionals - Need to have designated areas for banned-from-pit activities such as grinding, painting, soldering. The manual designates there will be such areas, but at every event I have been to they cease to exist.

All Regionals - Ban circular saws and cutoff saws over say a 6" blade from the pits, and use them in the "designated areas"

All Regionals - Allow Dremel grinding in the pits.

All regionals - Perhaps cut out all other sound (such as music) for important anouncements.

Los Angeles - Video screen needs to be bigger, brighter, and FOCUSED! A constantly updated video screen of any sort (even if it is a 13" TV) is absolutely mandatory on the PIT side of the curtain to show rankings and the such.

Phoenix - Don't change a thing. :)

All Regionals - Get Mark Leon as the MC and Don Knight as the announcer. :) I'm not saying anyone else is no good, but these guys are truly awesome!

Re: Regional Improvements
 

I'll throw the nod in for Ron Partridge and Dan Green. (John said it best--Dan is the man.)

Meanwhile, I don't know how possible it is, but how's about a simple duct tape line that officially defines where your pit area ends and where walking space begins? That might help with the issue.

Also, one thing I liked at Palmetto--either have a practice field there, or enough components of it.

And you can file this under "Extra Stuff" or whatever category you wish--how about a message board (either paper or electronic) in some semi-out-of-the-way place that teams can post their announcements/requests and et cetera?

(sorry, I was apparently spoiled by only going to Palmetto last year. :D )

Re: Regional Improvements
 

Great idea. I'd add that if its electronic, there should be some TV/monitor displaying what's currently needed. Its not likely every team will spend time refreshing a web browser or whatever.

Re: Regional Improvements
 

Definitely. Malicious expansionalism was a major problem at the LA regional. However, I would say that regionals that have the space and fewer teams, should give bigger pits. If you look at pics of the Phoenix regional, it is a huge arena with only 35-40 teams all crammed in the middle and tons of space around. Pit spaces need a defined perimeter. The area of pit spaces needs to be directly proportional to the area of the arena and inversely proportional to the number of teams.

Re: Regional Improvements
 

I think this is a great thread idea, but threads were started about the same topic closer to when the events ended this year and when all the problems-prasies were fresh in people's memories.

Here are the one's I could find with a bit of searching.

UTC 2004

NJ 2004

Re: Regional Improvements
 

Slightly off-topic...
A good way to prevent this is to be pro-active. Our shipping cart brakes apart and we use the pieces as tables. We put the edge of these large tables right next to our side of the masking tape (pit markers). Therefore, teams generally don't spill into our pit. Another technique teams are using is to create some type of display out of PVC pipe or other materials and completely enclose your pit. On the outside banners are displayed to attract attention to your pit. On the inside, you know that only the most ignorant person will try to move into your pit area. The extra isolation might even help you to think more clearly ;)

Re: Regional Improvements
 

I think this is a great thread, except for one thing...what are you going to do about it?

Part of that is what the Team Forums are for - taking suggestions just like these and voicing them to the ones that make decisions about the stuff you're suggesting.

Since those have passed for comments on the '04 season, the best thing to do would be to contact your regional planning committee. they'll be the most able to handle the suggestions that are specific to their regional, and I'm sure they would be able to know who to pass your suggestion to for a general event suggestion.

So...get to it! :)

Re: Regional Improvements
 

Pit Space an organization is definitely a problem at some regionals. I know GLR had far too many teams in too small a space. The aisles and pits were both small, so a team gathering at their pit after a match would mostly block and entire aisle. I don't know what exactly they can do about it, but something should be done.

As for making pits much much bigger where there's space, I think FIRST wants things mostly equitable between regionals, so I don't think they'd allow hug pits at regionals that have space.

Re: Regional Improvements
 

If you want to be sure this doesn't get repeated, make sure that your entire team (especially the person on stage) has read and knows the rules of alliance selection.

That being said, there was a screen in the scoring software that shows what teams have been picked, it was used from week 3 on last year. Hopefully some sort of screen like this will be included in next year's software package.

Tom

Re: Regional Improvements
 

One idea to put out is to contact the company sponsoring the event and asking them if you can help to form a student regional comittee that meets with some of the company's people one or twice a month for a few months preceeding the event. This way instead of having a long line of telephone, you'll be able to voice your comments directly to where you want it to go.

The reason i started this discussion was to get general ideas of what could/should/can be changed and to hear the little things that made some regionals run more or less smoothly than others. Who knows, maybe one of the decisions/complaints could eventually cause a rule change like pit space for example.

From what i've heard some regionals are going to add this student panel, so it would be good to know what sort of things are the major and minor problems you can bring to these meetings.

One thing i'm going to advocate for this year is lowering the stage at the UTC regional because it is about 4-5 feet above ground level, is hard to see if you want to be in front when your team is up, and the little raisers we were forced to stand on near the stage can only hold so many people at once.

Re: Regional Improvements
 

One thing I really did like this past year was the "Team Viewing Area" where you could go stand right next to the field and watch if your own team was competing. They never allowed this before and it was a good change.

Re: Regional Improvements
 

The UTC Regional is held at the Meadows Music Theater, and unfortunately the stage there really can't be lowered. More a limitation of the venue than anything, but the stage is designed for concerts where sound is more important than sight.

It's nice to hear suggestions and ideas for how to improve an event, but keep in mind the financial restrictions many of these events face. In 2000, the UTC regional was an extravaganza, with brightly colored blue and red stage lights to introduce each alliance, with spinning FIRST logos all over the field and in the crowd, with cameras and monitors all over the place. Unfortunately, things had to be scaled back due to financial limitations, into what are now known as "streamlined regionals", but that discussion has already taken place. To add to Elgin's post, here's another thread detailing regional improvements.

Realistically though, the best way to influence an event is to go to the team forums at the end of the competition season, and make your voices known to the people in a position to make those changes.

Re: Regional Improvements
 

I'll just note that many regionals don't have a single major corporate sponsor, and for those regionals, contacting a corporation isn't likely to be helpful. Even if you could actually get in contact with the person that knows what's going on, I don't think having biweekly meeting with them would help that much.

I think your best bet would be to try to get in touch with the local regional planning comittee instead, really.