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Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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I suppose it does no good for a mere spectator like me to complain, but when we're in the stands trying to take pictures of the matches, the Georgia Dome sans black tarps is the ONLY venue with enough light to get decent pictures. I was thrilled to be there in 2004 with a new digital camera, got lots of wonderful pictures from the stands--and was really upset the next year to find the whole roof blackened, and my pictures were just as dark and blurry as at the dingy old venues where the regionals are held. I think we had all assumed the tarps were up in 2005 for the new CMU cams. It would sure be nice if FIRST could persuade the Dome officials to hold off on the tarps till after our competition. **Off topic: Despite the many wonderful design features of the Georgia Dome, with its easy accessibility for spectators and that amazing roof fabric (I never can believe the whole thing weighs less than I do)--didn't it occur to the designers that a thin roof would make it into a summer bake oven?** |
Re: FIRST Finale scheduling, water, and media troubles
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And for the security guards at the Dome, give them a break. With so many of them there will be different interpretations at different gates. They are human after all. It is not a high paying job and I bet they could easily lose their job if they allow exceptions. So be gracious and accommodate them even if you disagree. Gracious professionalism isn't just for behavior on the field. And don't forget, next time, that judges do watch your team's behavior off the field. How would you feel if your team lost an award because a judge observed your fit of temper at the gate? |
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This is not an alternative that I or most people would like, but it is an alternative. |
Re: FIRST Finale scheduling, water, and media troubles
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Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
Overall I thought this year's Championship was a rousing success on the organizational side. Considering the damage from the tornado, I was not expecting things to run so smoothly. This a testament to all the amazing people who work to put this event together for us.
Also, the dome and GWCC staff were amazing. They were all incredibly kind, saying hello and good luck to me each morning. Southern hospitality is alive and strong. It made the event that much more enjoyable. Some things I loved: - The confetti and streamers after the final match on Einstein, accompanied by we are the champions. This is a moment I'll never forget for the rest of my life, it gave the competition a true sense of importance and legitimacy. It felt like we had just won the Super Bowl or World Series. This needs to stay. - Giving the Chairman's Award winners the proper level of respect. The award may have been too early in the ceremony, but it did ensure that no one left before the announcement. Also, the seating on the main stage was a nice touch. - The concessions in the pits. This was a great idea, and made life easier for all teams. A few things that I'd like to see changed: - The seat saving rules need to be enforced. We saw a single student walk into the dome and put tape around 30 seats. That's just ridiculous. If your team wants 30 seats together, have 30 people show up at the dome and sit in those seats. Blocking off groups of seats like that is incredibly frustrating for all teams. - It would be nice if there was someone to clear the aisles in the seating at the dome. Too often there would be people sitting in the aisle, blocking the entire stairway. This is not only an inconvenience, but a major safety hazard. - Keep a few of the staircases between the stands and the field open. It allows driveteam members to pop into the stands after a match, without having to go all the way around. They did this by the Vex fields, but nowhere else. - Better signage between the pits and the fields. Maybe I'm just a moron, but I was completely lost the first few times I tried making the trek between the dome and the various pit buildings. - Thursday morning load-in. It was chaotic and borderline dangerous. I saw numerous incidents of batteries and other heavy objects falling off of carts, pushing and shoving to get in the doors, and many other unsafe practices. We need to either let teams bring in more stuff on Wednesday night, or find a way to open another set of doors on Thursday morning to help alleviate the bottleneck. I can't wait for 2009 to see how they manage to top the amazing show that was the 2008 World Championship. |
Re: FIRST Finale scheduling, water, and media troubles
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Mr. Kamen's water system is sounding pretty cool. It will be awesome to see it develop. We know Georgia and other areas of the south have been dealing with a severe drought - Kell Robotics, FRC 1311, is an awesome resource with all their information regarding water and conservation. I was able to stay hydrated for several days with minimal cost. We also provided water for the pit crew/drive team - it was up to them to drink it. I think it was the 'lead the horse to water' thing. |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
I understand why FIRST changed the CA to the first award on Sat. If you were there last or the year before by the time the elimination rounds were over, most of the people in the stands were leaving or already gone. A lot of people were catching buses (have to get the students home to go to school on Monday) or going to the "party" that started an hour or so earlier. Maybe FIRST needs to look at starting a half-day or day earlier and adding another round or two for qualifying then finish qualifying earlier on Sat. Just my thoughts. As always, it's exhausting, challenging and mind-numbing but we wouldn't miss it for anything.
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Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
My only issue is the location.
A place where some guy was pestering us because he wanted to give us the tour of the "underground", doesn't seem to be a good place to have a bunch of highschoolers and Lego League kids. The Atlanta dome is amazing and all, but Atlanta itself... |
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The homeless in the area of the Dome are more of a minor annoyance than anything else. Ignore them and move on is the typical tactic. (Or just say no.) |
Re: FIRST Finale scheduling, water, and media troubles
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Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
<SOAPBOX>
Long story - We had been looking for ways to help people understand why engineering is relevant to life. After Dean made his comments at 2007 kickoff about water games we decided to build a program about water. After all it is relevant and familiar. Water it turns out is a very complicated and touchy subject and is going to a lot more so. Fast forward- We were going to do public events to promote robotics and while we were there sell water to fund our humanitarian well effort. Good idea. Right !! WRONG !!! It was nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find a venue that would allow us to sell water. It’s a free country but when it comes to public events vendors pretty much have things locked down, even water. Eventually we found a great venue that allowed us to sell water at our robotics booth. That is why another high school is listed as a team sponsor, because they had the lock on water sales and gave up revenue for our robotics booth and water effort. Vendor protection - I understand their right to do so at town festivals and other venues and such. But as to how that extends to other permanent standing venues…. More on that in a minute. Later, I was at a football game in a very old and historic stadium very near the Dome on a hot day. People were lined up 10 deep at water fountains trying to refill water bottles. Only some water fountains worked and the working ones were extremely NOT ergonomic for filling bottles but designed to give a sip of water in the 1930s. It was the definition of non-service. About that same time that institution announced a conference where they would tell the public about all the sustainability efforts they were doing. Which is fine but they were clueless about the fountains and the issues there. Here is my observation – permanent facilities, sports arenas, office buildings, malls, universities, etc, etc have water fountains because of building code only. The code describes the frequency of occurrence of fountains, not functionality. Installing these facilities costs money. Putting in vending machines makes money. This isn’t rocket science. The code makes facilities install water fountains because of public and health safety. It doesn’t matter that it takes 15 or 20 minutes to get to a fountain. So last fall we took a picture of a standard non-refrigerated water fountain and edited it to look like this: ![]() We even came up with a version that is drinkable like a fountain and refills bottles without bumping your head but I can't find the picture right now. I am told (but don’t know for fact) that bottle refilling fountains are now mandated in Western Europe. As stated before there is not economic incentive here to do that, just public outcry. This is the intersection of engineering, facilities management, public policy, safety and health, and economics. It is an interesting study. Prohibiting bottled water and water bottles in public venues is intolerable except where it is a health and safety issue – rest areas must be provided, with sufficient refilling stations. From a sustainability issue – I would much prefer our group use individual water bottles and refill them at filling stations. However since we are still in the dark ages, we travel with water. Our booth was equipped initially with 200 bottles of water for members to consume in the non-pit areas. This is one of the things we learned after Dean suggested ‘water game’ ! </SOAPBOX> |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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EDITED TO ADD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Canada |
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I'm not sure how the public would take to that. How about FIRST Ice Bowl 2009? |
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Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
The security at the doors were pretty nice people. If you didn't make it blatantly clear that you were bringing food or drinks in, then they wouldn't do anything. After all they are just following orders.
One thing I did not enjoy were the numerous awards given out in between matches on Einstein. I think that the excitement from the matches was kind of lost. And i don't really think that it's that fair to give the einstein teams that much time in between matches to work on their robots. Its like a 20 minute time out. |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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I personally like the awards between matches although I think they should do 1 or 2 less between each match and save some for the finals, if they run out of breaks just tack them on the end. |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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I also liked the switch this year, at both regionals and the Championship, to running all of the elimination matches in succession, then cycling through them all again, rather than trying to do all QF-1 matches, then QF-2, etc. (anyway, that's how I remember it being done in previous years). Especially for those of us sitting in the stands a long time, streamlining the competition makes it more interesting, and we're less likely to fall asleep or cause trouble. (Paper airplanes, anyone?) |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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-dave . |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
I agree with those who felt the CA got downplayed by putting it first. I also understand that we want everyone to stay until it is announced. So my solution would be to tie the CA and the final match together either just before or just after the final match.
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Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
Originally Posted by Bcliff358 View Post
And i don't really think that it's that fair to give the einstein teams that much time in between matches to work on their robots. Its like a 20 minute time out. And they still called time outs. I agree to the point that they will never really need to use an alternate team with all that time between matches. |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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Even with the speeches, award presentations, and alternating division matches, the time between consecutive matches for any of the alliances that make it to the Einstein field is still considerably less than that experienced by every other team during the qualification matches. They have a shorter period between their matches to affect repairs, they can not return to their pits for parts or supplies, and (new this year) they are forced to work on their robots via flashlight in a darkened arena. So can someone please explain where they are getting an advantage? Given the situation, if we have to choose between granting an extra three minutes to an Einstein-bound team to repair their damaged robot and then let them participate as a full competitor, or have the International FRC Championship be decided by having a damaged robot fail to make it to the field because we could not wait for them to complete a repair, I will always choose the former option. -dave . |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
Announce the Woodie Flowers Award winner on Saturday. It is one of the top honors in FIRST, and deserves to be with the other top honors during the Saturday awards. Yes, it will add more time, but only what, 10 minutes?
Also, a better alternation between awards and matches would be nice. This year, the first 2 hours of awards only had 2 matches played, with the remaining matches all in the last hour. Some of those matches probably could have been earlier, helping to add some more excitement by not having 50 minutes of awards/ speeches. |
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Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
One that Kathie Kentfield reminded me of: media badges.
Now, I've had a media badge for the past two years, and they are quite necessary for many things. However, I see many media-badged people who don't seem to be in the act of creating media. My solution: people badged as media should have to show some kind of equipment in addition to their badge in order to gain access to controlled areas (queueing and the Dome floor come to mind). Exactly what kind of equipment is not important--point-and-shoot cameras are just as welcome as bajillion-dollar HD video cameras--but you'd have a hard time convincing me that you need to be on the floor as a media rep when you have no method of recording that which is around you. |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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I suppose a reporter's notebook would fall under the domain of equipment as well. |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
Hmmmm no one has mentioned the pairings for the seeding...strange not like the regionals?
It looked like teams were grouped.....then matched... or do I need to buy a lotto ticket? We never played or were with a team higher than 111.... what are the odds against that in seven matches. |
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Friday makes it more personal. |
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Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67108 |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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I thought the people of Atlanta were wonderful! Every one of them was pleasant. The amount of damage to the area was unexpected; I didn't realize so many buildings had lost so much glass. Kudos to the city for cleaning up and welcoming us so graciously! I loved checking in the FTC teams in Bldg. C on Wednesday; the FLL teams had to walk by us to get to their check-in table so we got to see teams from both programs. I love the excitement of being on the Dome floor for competition. I wouldn't want FLL or FTC competing in another building, even if it meant that we didn't have schedules and AV systems competing with FRC. I wish more of the 800 FTC teams could have qualified to attend. I wish more people would come by and cheer for the teams. I wish more people would volunteer to help on the FTC fields. The volunteer pool is starting to grow, but it isn't quite there yet. I can't say enough Thank You's to the folks who did volunteer; we had an awesome group! I disliked having to share the AV system between Franklin and Edison. I hope FIRST can resolve that in future years. And add a DJ so we have some music on the floor. I respect that we needed to hold off on starting our matches Friday morning until the FRC Opening Ceremonies were complete, but it would have been nice to be able to see what was happening. Someone said we had a former President there??? :yikes: We couldn't see nor hear anything of the ceremonies on daVinci. I understand wanting FRC teams to sit near Einstein to fill the stands, but FTC HAD to be ready to go as soon as they ended, so we couldn't go watch. I apologize to the volunteers and teams who were so late leaving on Friday night - I know many of you had people waiting for you for dinner and team social plans. I love that so many mentors attended our NEMO meeting on Friday and wish that I could have spent more time with you all (Thank you Jenny!), and am sorry that I missed the CD Web Hug and most of the FIRST Senior Mentor meeting - I need to be cloned. For those of you who kept checking with me, my final pedometer reading for The World Championships was 36.6 miles! :ahh: Next year I encourage everyone to wear one to each competition they attend, and let's keep an ongoing log - can you imagine how many miles we'd log over the course of a competition season?! |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
i have only one suggestion for improvement- im sure this probably came up before but maybe it should come up one more time to make a difference:
didnt you find the uncrating day a bit unneccecary? Maybe the first day should be uncrating in the morning and then beggining with practice matches (after a couple of hours to work on the robots).. then the second day could be part practice part qualifications, the third and the fourth day will remain the same. what you have gained by this cange is about 2-3 more qualification games for each team which i think is neccesary for determaning the seedings. What do you think? |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
The uncrating is important because it gives the staff time to move all the crates out of the way without risking injury. It is a logistical and safety issue.
It is also important that the teams respect the planning decisions made by FIRST regarding who and what goes in on Wednesday. Whether 1000% of us agree with it or not is irrelevant. I don't want to start that argument again. I know there were people lawyering and breaking the rules again, not GP. I hope we can all agree to have a nice streamlined Wednesday night unpacking. |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
On a somewhat random (and more positive note), the city of Atlanta is definitely one of the most Segway friendly cities I've been to yet. Especially at the hotels, where the people working there encouraged me to ride it.
And while on the topic of environmental sustainability issues, here is something that I believe needs to be addressed for next year's Championship Event: recycle bins. Maybe it's because I've grown up my entire life in the Northeast, where our deposit programs and other recycling measures usually ensure stuff gets recycled anyway, but I found the lack of recycle bins in Atlanta to be annoying. A few strategically placed can/bottle recycle bins, along with some paper recycling ones in the pits would be a good idea. Even a scrap metal bin in the pits for all those bits and pieces of broken robot parts might be a good idea. |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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So there's homeless people. So there is crime. Name me one place in America. In the world where there is not crime, poverty and homeless people. And don't give me the "we can all go back to Disney thing because contrary to popular belief not every team could afford to stay on the Disney campus and had to actually stay out in the "real world". The bashing reeks of elitism and worse things that I thought smart people like us would be above. |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
I know this may seem somewhat readical, but FIRST considers the opening ceremonies on Friday to be the "FIRST Championship Welcome". If that is true, they should give some consideration to doing them at like noon on Thurs. By Friday morning FLL and FTC are half over. It's no longer a welcome.
It's just a thought. At the same time I have to congratulate FIRST on integrating the other programs into what has historically been an FRC focused event. |
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FLL had it's own opening ceremonies Thursday morning before their practice and judging sessions started. I presume FTC had one as well, or could have one if they wanted. |
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They have earned the right to be there ... and though it may seem selfish.... I want them ALL to be at their best so I can watch the play. As long as it fits within the constraints of the awards ceremony...giving them this time is a really GOOD thing. |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
Other thoughts!
Einstein yearly proves how the game should be played. I saw the rationale now of only having 2 trackballs. The key to winning in my opinion was what the 3rd robot did/didnt do. Awesome defense by the 3rd bot could predict an outcome. Had there been 3 trackballs, it would have only been an offensive showing which may not have been as fun to watch. In both semifinals matches #1, defense by team 60 and 348 proved very pivotal. It's what allowed their teams to win the first match. I was so proud of our team even though we lost to 968, 233, and 60 in Newton. As the 3rd robot that played defense, we did not allow PINK to hurdle at all for BOTH matches once we took "control" of that trackball. We love the PINK team, and wished we could be teammates in the elim matches then playing against them. That's twice this season we played against them in elim matches. But, they are a great team and we love them a lot!!!!!:D |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
While I completely agree that 7 qualification matches is just not enough, one thing to remember is that if we increase the number of fields, this will inevitably lessen the time between matches. While this is less of an issue at a Regional, there isn't a 10-minute-plus hike from the pits to the fields and another one coming back at any Regional, plus the additional time this year getting through some very crowded pits. This means less time to make repairs, less time to run through check lists. Putting alternate fields at the GWCC is a solution, but that brings up issues with scouting, additional camera crews, etc. There are pros and cons to every idea...
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Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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These matches could count for RS and MS, but not QS, which would mean that good performance in such a match would only slightly raise a team's rank, and bad performance wouldn't hurt their rank at all. There would be a limited number of exhibition matches; if demand for participation in these matches was found to exceed supply, a lottery system would have to be instituted to ensure fairness. Such a lottery would also ensure fair distribution across all four divisions. Self-policing by the FIRST community would ensure that teams honor their exhibition field time slots. The exhibition matches would be played in a very visible location within the Dome, and they would serve as a focus point for all FRC competition during qualifying rounds. The exhibition field would be seen as an elite battleground; consistent winners on the exhibition field would be viewed favorably in the consideration of performance and design awards. As written, this idea has a million problems with it, but it's interesting to think about at any rate. |
Re: Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please
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I would like the option to send select pit crew out on the dome floor at times. They rarely see any matches and being on the dome floor can be pretty inspiring. |
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