Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

Were these the conferense sesisons that you are speaking about? I wasn't aware that any had changed.

Not only were they unintelligible and WAY too loud, the Vex Pit Admin was admonished for using our microphone to make an announcement to our teams- apparently we were not allowed to do so unless it was an emergency! :mad:


http://www2.usfirst.org/2006comp/Man...ents_Rev_C.pdf Section 7.16 Team checklist includes water cooler/cups and water bottles. You could bring them to any event.

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

My big two:

• Better escalator management. When all the teams were leaving the pits at 8pm thursday, on all the sets of three escalators, two were going down and one was going up. This created a huge bottleneck on the one up escalator while no one was using the two down ones.
• Better handling of pit closing. I understand that the volunteers have to be forceful to get teams out of the pit, but seeing some of the volunteers actually screaming at teams just reeked of ungracious amateurism. I even saw one volunteer Friday yell "get the hell out" to a team. I'm sure this was just coming from a small minority of the volunteers (a vast majority of whom were great), but this should be address at the volunteer briefings.

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

I won't defend volunteers who scream at teams, but I can certainly understand the screamer's frustration. The days get very long for volunteers in the pits. One particularly under-appreciated job is managing time-slots on the practice fields.

Overstaying your practice time or continuing to work on your robot when the pits have officially closed are both (IMO) akin to working on your robot after ship date outside of a fix-it window, making parts in your hotel room, or entering the pits early. The only motivation for doing these things is to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other teams that don't -- so all are forms of cheating.

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

My team went to several of the conferences on thursday, and all seemed to run well once we got the flow of things (you should have seen our giant 11x17 matrix we had to use to determine who was supposed to be where when!), but on Friday coming out of the pits to the stands I was greeted by a bunch of very confused teammembers who said the rooms or the conferences got changed, they didnt know where to go, etc. Several of the afternoon Vex rooms got cancelled, forcing some of our members to all try to cram into one or two of them. The Chairmans one got moved to a different timeslot causing me to miss it, etc. I cant say I directly saw the new schedule, or what the conflict was, but that is what my teammembers said. I had to assume since we got it all right on thursday, that the friday issues were due to a change like they said.


I guess we read this wrong:
I assumed that the water bottles were empty ones, and still wouldnt be allowed in the pits. The regionals seemed to be more strict about ingraining it in our heads though. And the giant signs that always say no food or drinks in the pits also made us think that.

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

I saw a team that had a lightbar on their cart..definitely cool. I'm gonna throw one of those flashing amber lights on our cart next year I think to warn people...maybe even a buzzer or something. Some people don't seem to understand "Excuse us, robot coming through" very easily :( Our pit was nice, but it was right by the projector screens so there were about 100 people always standing there :-/

As for the escalators, yes they should be fixed to atleast 2 of the 3, if not all 3 exiting (those who wish to go down can use the elevators).

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

Although I agree, that there is too little time to finalize lists, and sell your team after the matches conclude saturday, I'd still rather have strategy time than selection time. Having worked both as a scout and a coach at official FIRST events, and scout, coach, base driver, human player, and arm operator at off-seasons, I can guarantee you that strategy time is more important than selection time.
Each and every team has different scouting notes on the other teams, and having strategy time gives you time to compare notes, especially regarding what strategic trends your upcoming opponents like to use.

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

well no it was a multi tool i used in the pits , it just has a blade on it.. and as nice as they may be im not taking my chances

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

OK first of all I enjoyed every thing about championships, my only regret is not being able to attend opening ceremonies either day, I suppose that comes with being on the Pit Crew and Drive team.

While I understand many teams frustrations with the 10 foot pit rule I believe the best solution may be to do something like team ** did, they have columns (about 7 or 8 ft tall) that allow them to display anything they want and not run into problems of having a low ceiling. I would be tempted to guess that the 10 ft rule was at least suggested by FIRSTs insurance company as well as the UL safety advisor's.

The thing that is really striking a nerve in this thread is the comments about the homeless. I will definitely not give out bad rep because of comments about it but I would like to say that I am offended.

I have spent nearly all of my life in or around good size cities (Boston and Providence) and have seen my fair share of homeless people. I understand that there are thousands of people who have grown up in smaller towns and cities and haven't grown accustomed to such things. I must say that many of the post on this topic have been very narrow minded. A hobo round up as one person called it would not only be ridiculous but illegal and unconstitutional, to suggest such a thing in my eyes demonstrates extreme narrow mindedness, something that I believe FIRST is trying to do away with. These people maybe homeless but they all live in Atlanta, we are visiting where they live and you need to respect that. If a person asks you for money simply say sorry I can't help you and continue walking, 99% of the time they will not bother you any more. In this case they have caused you no more in convenience that if I had asked you for the time. I would venture to guess that the majority of people on this forum would be more than willing to stop and take a picture for members of another team. This takes more time and is more of an inconvenience than simply telling a homeless person you can't give them any thing.

To take this one step further them asking you for money is no different than when some one like you stops someone like Dean or Woody or any of your favorite celebrities and asking for an autograph. (OR asking Andy for a t-shirt) these people have something you want and you have something other people want. In the future try to be open minded and don't feel superior to others until you know there story, they are not hurting you, why would any one care to suggest hurting or hindering them.

(note any negative perspective one this please take it up in my pm box rather than this thread or my rep, I would be more than happy to discuss my opinions on anything with any one.)

James

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

I have to agree. Must people have never been exposed to life in a big city and had to deal with things such as homeless citizens asking for money. If they bug you that much, talk with asecurity or a police officer, it's not that hard to find an Atlanta Police Officer in the area of the dome...I walked past one every block when I was outside at night.

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

I wish the playing fields were pushed back away from the stands a little bit. I found it hard to see the playing field at times, especially when teams in front of us stood up.

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

OHHH and I almost forgot my number one pet peeve!! While I love that they got some great speakers, some big important people that will get FIRST recognized, I was absolutely embarrassed at ALL of the people that kept saying "lets make this the greatest nation!" I was HORRIFIED!! This is an international competition... its not NATIONALS anymore... I was thoroughly embarrassed to be from the US with them saying things like that in front of an international audience... they even had all of the flags up there to remind everyone! What about Canada, Brazil, Israel, Germany, etc??? The list goes on!!! Shouldn't we be promoting cooperation over US Supremacy?!?! Do they not tell the speakers this is an international audience? Do they not know countries from all around the world can be watching this??? SOMEONE Please fix this!! Year after Year this happens, and every year it gets more prominent. If they want to do a different international competition do that... but dint invite all of these teams to travel thousands of miles to hear the US ROCKS speeches!!

*gets off soapbox*

I thought it was my fault that my team kept calling it Nationals... with them being a rookie team, and me having been in it since 96, I figured I had rubbed off on them, but now I realize that even the event organizers, people on CD, no-one (not just me) can get it right... lets give these other countries the respect and recognition that they deserve.

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

I was especially amused by the "special" MARTA deal the FIRST teams received. A 5-day, Wednesday through Sunday pass cost $13 bucks, while the standard MARTA 7-day (Monday through Sunday) pass ALSO cost $13 bucks! One great deal there. I seem to remember the passes costing $10 last year.

BEN

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

I hate to bump up a negative thread, but I finally have time to comment. I agree with most of the comments here, but I still had a great time and think they fixed a lot of things from last year. I've only got two issues that haven't been mentioned.

The pits should be available, at least for storage, until after the closing ceremonies. We had a fair amount of stuff to go on the bus, but were told that the pits had to be empty at 4:00 or something. Of course, this is impossible for teams competing, and a real concern for others.

I like the store selling FIRST items, but it was incredibly small. It was crowded every time I visited, and absolutely packed on Saturday afternoon. More space and staff would have helped this venture.

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

We left our stuff in the pits until after the closing cermonies, as did a few other teams that I saw. They had started tearing down the pit dividers and the practice fields, which I would imagine is why they told you to be out by 4:00. That being said, they never gave us trouble for just leaving our stuff there.

Re: Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative
 

After we had hauled our stuff out where they first told us, they relented and recommended that we return it to the pits. I just think the schedule and plans should be clear up front.