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Lesson Learned: The Negative
What did FIRST do this season that could stand improvement or should not be done again?
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Providing teams with IR Board for this new "robocoach" thing and have a lap counter that has to be put on the robot. I think it was very discouraging to have a fully functioning autonomous mode at home, but on the field your robot just sits there... We should've been more aware of this lap counter deal.
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It probably should have been removed from every field after week 1 or 2 or when ever it appeared that it was not going to be a functional system. |
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FIRST rather than saying The Negative, I'd label this thread as room for improvement :cool:
My comment applies to the World competition in Atlanta to a large extent, but also to regional events as a whole. I would suggest that you create a more robust seminar program - targeted more at kids - that is not "for pay" above and beyond the entry fee, though you could limit the number attending from each team. Have the seminars be put on BY KIDS not by mentors, and have it concentrate on the various aspects of engineering a robot. Give the kids a chance to shine and show their engineering brilliance, while teaching others how they succeeded - without it having to go on in the pit. While there is a lot to do in the pits and for the drive team, many schools bring ALL their kids, and - beyond scouting and fetch and carry - it would be great if each FIRST event featured something for the kids to learn or do who are NOT part of the direct pitcrew/drive team. We found things, but having some of the kids present and/or attend conferences on the topics mentioned above might well have been a great experience for them. Most of the events that were educational were well attended when they applied to students (autodesk for instance). Perhaps as part of next year's "mission" shared educational material might well be a part of next year's event. Each team can compete for a slot to do their presentation at regionals, and the top presentations are given at nationals with a prize attached. Finally it might help if seminars were labeled as "FOR STUDENTS" or "FOR ADULTS" (not that you couldn't cross over if you were interested, just that it would be good to know who the target audience is before committing an hour to sit in on a seminar). |
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I would have to say the penalties for breaking the plane, I think the rule was a little excessive and a "your robot cannot fully cross the line in a clockwise direction" would been sufficient. Or maybe limit it to your robots main frame cannot fully cross the line in a clockwise direction, to take the appendage out of the equation.
That rule decided too many matches. |
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the real problem I had with the "breaking the plane rule" was that it made alot of rookie teams( and other teams that didn't have a fairly controllable robot) less than worthless. in years past for the most part a robot on the field was better than no robot, the worst you could do is sit there and make a 0 for your alliance. but with this rule( and the penalty that it occurred) caused many teams to have a consistently negative effect on their alliance, where it would be better( point wise) to their alliance for them to just not show up at all . . and this is just wrong.
2007 was the year of the defense 2008 was the year of the penalty |
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--------------------- That said, the amount and complexity of the penalty-based rules meant that you needed well trained and consistent refs available, which wasn't always the case at all regionals. Reducing the number of penalty-inducing rules would make for a more consistent game. Bumping to pass could probably have been removed without a massive change in the character of the game. --------------------- An improved implementation of G22 might be to put an RFID tag under the robot, and have sensor strips under the carpet that detect how far forward it has gone. If it crossed 'too far back' from its furthest-forward line, then the field scoring software could automatically add a G22. This would allow for real-time penalty-giving, and would allow for more forgiving zones* that you couldn't cross (i.e. nudging backwards after moving to a new quadrant wouldn't be an instant G22). *It would be difficult to implement more forgiving line-crossing with humans because of the logic required to track where a robot has been with 6 robots on field. |
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For the regional coordinators, sometimes the flow of information was less than effective, and less than timely.
I was in contact with a couple of teams this year, which attended a combined total of 5 different competitions including Atlanta, and there were striking differences in how and what information was conveyed. Some regionals were great about some things, and awful about others. Some event websites were very informative, others were borderline useless. I realize the information itself is always going to be variable due to different venues, but the organizers should at least give teams that information in an effective and timely manner. I'm talking about things like: - parking info, particularly with regard to buses and trailers - pit sizes allowed (I used to think 10x10 was standard, but clearly not) - entrances, where/when to unload equipment/people - food being allowed in or not (and if they frisk you like at VCU :mad: ) - machine shop availability and logistics - practice field availability - logistics of finals (some regionals trap you at the field, others have you go back to your pit) - early notice and schedule of any seminars/classes offered - other stuff that would just be very useful to know well in advance, so teams can plan their packing, vehicles, resources, etc Maybe there ought to be a standard packet of info that all regionals distribute at least 3 weeks prior, or something like that? Note: I'm not knocking the volunteers, they always do a great job and should be thanked for their time. I'm knocking the paid organizers who darn well ought to know better by now. :) |
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I agree with Stuart here though. A team should NEVER be more valuble to an alliance by not showing up ... Thats just wrong. Minimum score for each team in an alliance should be 0. JMHO |
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I don't know. It is really fairly simple to build the kit bot so that it could at least be controllable, thereby avoiding the dreaded G22. One thing that I always can;t quite understand is the seemingly large number of robots at championship that can do nothing more than drive around or some of which that can't even drive around effectively.
I did think that there was still a ton of defense including ramming. We were a very good shooter and at times we were being defended against by 2 robots at a time both of which were ramming us repeatedly without trying to keep the ball from us. One time in the match I'm talking about a team rammed us so hard that they compressed our ball enough that when it decompressed it flipped them leaving us still standing. The refs were also fairly inconsistent about calling interfering with a hurdle. I know there were a couple times when we were hit rather hardly while our shooter was raised in our home zone and we were driving toward the overpass to hurdle. Overall though I loved this game. It was probably one of the most fun times I've ever had. I thought they did an awesome job at the Georgia Dome keeping everything under control especially considering the tornado damage. |
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How about next time they have a g22 type rule they just use one of those things you find at the end of parking ramps. You go the right way and it drops down. You go the wrong way and you get spikes in your tire. Well, maybe we could leave the spikes off.:)
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I don't think there's much that has to be written here, but I do have a couple little things.
On this first one, I'll speak from personal experience to avoid getting details wrong with somebody else. Sometimes, Contact Inside of the Bumper Zone was called on our machine when it was being stuck against a wall by a defensive robot. I guess it looked like we were poking their robot because whenever their robot would move, ours would move... but we really couldn't go anywhere. Just seems like a hard rule to call/not call. Also, FIRST said at Atlanta that they will not be incresing the weight limit on machines to allow for the new control system, which, by the way, weighs about five pounds. As many of you know from having morbidly obese robots and lightening them in the past, five pounds is a LOT of material to lose. The control system's a whole nother story, but it will be interesting to see what part of the new control system programmers actually get to write software for. I'm really hoping that there are gates left over in the FPGA for teams to write crazy awesome software for (like, my personal favorite, an insanely fast quadrature encoder decoder to enable use of high count encoders). -q |
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The only thing I can complain about were the penalties. Many of the penalties called during our matches I can't complain about, but some things I just thought were rediculous. Here's an example of one of these penalties I thought was just wrong...
I was heading around the track and right when I made it past my alliance's quadrant (the one our robots begin in) our robot and another robot got locked together. We were going at the same speed and turning at the same rate and somehow we turned at the same rate, also. So when we turned the corner somehow a robot infront of us got tangled into some sort of sandwich where an apponent's robot was inbetween mine and a robot from my alliance. Unfortunately not one of us could escape. Our alliance partner had something clinging to our arm which herded the trackballs around the field. The robot inbetween us couldn't move because they were stuck inbetween us with no way of moving backwards or forwards. Anyways, the refs had never seen something like this and it took them like 10 minutes to discuess what had happend. I forgot what exactly were the calls, but I think one was for blocking and the other was for impeding the line. In this situation, a complete accident, where none of us can do anything, why should they call any penalties at all? Also, I always had trouble seeing the quadrant diagnal from the quadrant where my team's controller was located. The lane divider reflected the robots and blocked my vision. It really was a pain in the butt when we got called for something I had no knowledge of doing. |
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I don't think it was the amount of penalties called it was how much the penalties were worth. 10 points in this game was huge. The penalties should have been 2 or 5 points at the most. You have to think about how much you can score and how fast you can score it, and then asses how much a penalty should be worth. Penalties should not decide the match, and this year they decided just about every match. This is the first year out of the 7 years I've been in first where just about every match had penalties in it, and 9 times out of 10 they decided who won. I know the GDC probably didn't expect as much pile-ups near the quadrant lines but, again you should try and expect the worst so you can plan around it.
But on a plus note it was a rather exciting game this year. Did not expect that! |
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Plus as Tyler said: if there was the possibility where doing a G22 would actually net points, refs would have to keep track of FAR more G22s. And you'd have people like me complaining that teams are breaking the rules on purpose. It is possible that you'd have refs giving out yellow cards for teams that repeatedly and intentionally broke G22 on purpose to score points (see Galileo QF 1-2 and the result of purposely breaking the ball-possession rules). As an addendum: Penalties SHOULD decide matches. That's what they are there for. If one team scores more points but does it by breaking the rules, then they didn't win a match of FIRST Overdrive, they won a match of something similar to FIRST Overdrive, but not actually FIRST Overdrive. |
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Lessons Learned:
Even when booked a month ahead of time, the last available flight out of Atlanta to Dulles airport for a group of 30 is STILL not late enough to stay through the awards ceremony & Einstein. Offseason mechanical/build projects need to extend into all auxilliary support tasks more than they do into another robot. |
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I'd like to see seminars, lectures and idea-sharing opportunities/ icebreakers at competitions which would educate students as well as create more social opportunity integrating team members into other teams and create a greater feeling of unity within the national and international FIRST community. I love the idea of the free hugs campaign and such activities that create a warm feel of community, but would also like more organized intermixing for those who are shy and chances for students to learn more techniques to engineer their robots.
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In your situation, it would have been very difficult to judge. |
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I really see two things this year that stuck out in my mind. They are rather small issues. The FIRST is I agree more seminars would be good. It doesn't necessarily need to be at the Championships either. Many people don't go to the Championships so at the regional level would be really good. The second thing is I would like to see a slightly more diverse game. A larger variety of ways to score would be really cool. Over the last few years I've felt the games have been one dimensional or two dimensional. Last year we could only score with ramps or tubes. This year you really could only hurdle/place the balls or run laps. I also do understand that increasing the ways to score makes the game harder to ref and harder for an outsider to understand at first glance so this might be a pipe dream ;). On a plus note though, I really liked how hybrid/automode played such a large part in matches. It really gave teams that little extra incentive to perfect that this year.
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The other thing I noticed with that too is that you begin to see a lot of "prototypical" designs. I think back to when I was in high school and I would walk through the competition and all the robots were different. This year I walked through and it amazed me how many robots were remarkably the same. I guess the best example I have is team 121's robot. I saw a lot of robots that were quite similar to theres. Don't misunderstand me there robot was an awesome machine that is fully worthwhile to be similar to ;) but I feel that some of the ingenuity within the FIRST community has been let out a bit. Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to take away from teams that have very unique characteristics (217, 1114...etc.) but I see a lot of the machines variety disappearing. Just some food for thought :).
NOTE: This isn't designed to take away from anyone's achievements. I'm a firm believer in you get what you earn. If you won, you earned that win. You worked hard to be the best. |
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Forget I posted. I was wrong. >.< |
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Katie, I completely agree that defensive is super important. My point was that teams did not build defensive robots. Your team, like many many others, went through build season planning to score and built an arm, correct?. For whatever reason, these teams abandonded their scoring and then played defense. I don't think there are many teams that built robots specifically to play defene. If so, please correct me. Under this assumption, the only valuable robot design would be one that can hurdle. Compared to last year, where teams that built ramps or ring scorers were both valuable.
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Misunderstanding on my part; sorry.
You are right, no one intentionally built Defense-Bots, they built lap bots (or in our case; over-frictional arms that burn out motors/gear boxes (why we converted) and end up being lab/defense bots). So design-yes. I was in the strategy-section of thinking. |
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For grippers: Roller claws (see 121, 67, 148) Suction cups (1086, 1987) gripper that picked up from the inside (25, 1714) gippers that picked up the inside/outside of tube (111, 1732, 1114) grippers that picked up the outside of the tube (1038) For arms: Elevators (25, 1425) 4 bar-linkage (2056, 1114) For ramps: Lifters (1501) Ramps (71, 47) Combination of lifter/ramp (1816, 1114, 27) This was just a quick list, I'm positive others can go into much greater detail and list many different types of grippers, arms, and ramps. |
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I myself loved how different the robots were this year, although there were many that looked very similar (121's design mainly) there was always something different about them (our drive system was completely different than 121's :D) but really besides the fact that 121 showed a really simple design mid build season, and everyone saw how it worked and went "wow.. thats way better than how I would of done that" or "wow, our design is pretty close to that, but the way they did this and this, is much simplier" is the only reason there are so many roller claws, other than that, there are a billion different designs this year! Edit: 2002 also only had three ways to score! |
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Overall, I have to say that 2008 was a pretty impressive year for FIRST. The game was quite fun to watch most of the time, and it was perhaps even more fun being the one driving (it is, in my opinion). Sadly, I cannot really comment on the Championship in Atlanta, as our team did not qualify to attend, but I can comment on the game.
The first aspect of FIRST Overdrive that could have been improved is eliminating the need for referees to determine a match. This year, I saw a lot of stress being put on the refs, who had to make split-second judgment calls very frequently during a match. These can include: Did the robot pass over the line? Was the ball touching the robot as it rolled over the line? Did the ball touch the robot on its way down from a hurdle? Is the robot impeding traffic? Is the robot interfering with a hurdle? Did the team E-stop before they fell over? Did the robot intrude outside of the other robot's bumper zone? Etc. etc. etc. This year, the refs had an incredibly difficult and stressful job, in that they were usually the ones who decided the fate of the teams on the field. I would suggest that next year, FIRST make the game less stressful on the referees, such as having an automatic scoring system of some kind. One thing I liked about the 07 game is that everything was scored and calculated at the end of the game, giving the refs plenty of time to deliberate and make decisions on the outcome of the match. The 06 game also did this very well, with an automatic scoring system which worked pretty reliably (at least, much more reliably than a human forced to make so many decisions so quickly). Overall, this is my top suggestion for FIRST next year when designing a game. Obviously, the second major problem people had with FIRST Overdrive was the importance of penalties in deciding a match. And this was quite true. A ten point penalty can pretty much undo the work of a single lap-bot for the whole match. I believe that this year's game was the first game where teams could actually have an average negative score, suggesting that they would be more helpful if they didn't even show up for a match. This, plainly, is just not right. These kinds of situations where robots can actually hurt an alliance makes everybody feel bad, including the team that incurred the penalties. I won't elaborate any more than I (or others) already have, but I will say that penalties were an incredibly controversial subject this year. So, once again, I really did have a great time with this year's game. I hope that FIRST takes some of these suggestions into account, so that we can make it more enjoyable for everybody. |
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Just back from Atlanta - thankyou to all the mods that minded the store while Brandon and many other mods were away.
As to this thread - I will think a little bit more about how I want to say, what I want to say, BUT ... Please stay ON TOPIC, please keep arguments to a minimum when posting and DO NOT turn this thread into a you said, no I didn't thread. It is extremely difficult for many FIRST enthusiasts to NOT take ANY type of criticism personally - if you fall into this catagory, please do NOT turn this thread into one where you feel obligated to "protect" FIRST. They, and we, don't need that to happen either. Other than that - please, remember to stay within bounds, keep moving in a counter-clockwise direction, and don't get a penalty for breaking any rules. There's been enough of those, this year already! Mike A |
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We got a <G22> on Archimedes when we never actually finished crossing the line in the first place, therefore nullifying our ability to back over it. Something tells me that the refs in Atlanta didn't completely know the rules either- there were a lot of bad, inconsistent, unfair, and different calls.
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the seminars are recorded and available later for viewing / listening. that is done to help those who cannot attend atlanta (that is what most of the Rolls-Royce sponsorship covers). FIRST pays extra to the dome for the space, equipment, etc. for the conferences. Sponsorships hep, but the small fee charged to students and teams helps offset the expenses. FIRST makes a request for presenters to submit seminar topics early in the season. anyone can submit an idea. Maybe a student / mentor combination? - And, I will send an email to the conference coordinator and see if there is a way to create an option for students / teams to 'request' specific topics and then FIRST could recruit to find people to present those ideas. I will also ask aout including the 'Student' / 'mentor' focus in the descriptions. |
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Wow, okay I wasn't aware that those were available. I guess I just never caught on to that.
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The game should not be dependent on penalties. Instead of trying to fix the subjectivity of the refs, the game should be comprised in a way that makes penalties harder to come by and easier to point out.
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I'm not sure if anybody else had this problem, but whenever I was driving and a penalty would be assessed against us I would not know it because i would not be paying attention to the refs at that moment or not notice line crossings. This is the same with bumping to pass and impeding traffic and such. Maybe they could implement a system to better identify when penalties occur and such.
One way to do this would for each of the refs to have a buzzer and hit it whenever a robot causes a penalty and the buzzer would then alert the drivers you just caused a penalty. This could also be used for impeding if you made the buzzer blink on and off for the 6 second period. |
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Before I say anything about Overdrive let me state that I still found it to be enjoyable overall, especially when I was driving. I just don't like some of the specifics.
First, the on field restrictions and penalties. The G22, the impeding, and the protection while hurdling, mostly. I am personally a part of the camp that believes that there shouldn't be that many rules guiding how the robots interact on the field, other than rules regarding destructive behavior. I don't like the game for the simple fact that it forces you to just drive in circles. Yes, you hurdle while driving in circles but you are still just driving in circles. Though I see the benefit of racing style games, I just don't think that is where FIRST games should be going. It was nice having a simple and easy to explain game. We could explain the rules to someone who has never seen a robotics competition in just a few sentences. So for spectators it was certainly good, but I just didn't really like the restrictions that a race imposes. I'm also part of the camp that enjoys watching robot interaction. I've always felt defense like in 2006 and 2007 offered even more interesting matches, though I know others disagree. I always enjoyed seeing teams score over a tenacious defensive bot, or even pushing defending bots out of the way and scoring anyways. Some bots(Wildstang comes to mind) could simply scoot around a defending bot and put tubes up anyways. So I suppose I would simply say less field restrictions overall is better. The more freedom in the game the better. |
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One way to improve the situation is to add an award. This award could be related to the 'most instructive' or whatever presentation. Then you have to judge this somehow. |
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My biggest complaint is with the game itself.
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In 2004: You could score 50 points either by hanging on the bar, or by getting 10 balls in your goal, or by getting 5 balls and a cap in your goal. Teams could be competitive with just one method, or with a combination of them. In 2006: You could score 3 points by shooting high or 1 point by going low. There were a number of very good dumper robots that made significant point swings for their alliance. The ramps at the end were a nice touch, making it really worth a significant amount if you could get all 3, but not completely worthless if not all the robots could get up. In 2007: You could score points on the rack or with ramps, and you had a choice of the potential payoff of 256 point rings, or a mostly undefendable 60 points. Both scoring methods were extremely important and had very equal weight. If you look at games like 2005 and 2008, there is clearly one method of scoring that is much more effective than the others. 2005: Sure you could put tetras underneath, but that took almost as long, was worth 1/3 of the points, and was overshadowed when someone put one on top. The 10 point bonus at the end was typically worth too small a percentage of points compared to the effort it took to make sure all 3 robots were back behind the line. 2008: Even the best lap bots couldn't compete with an above-average hurdler, and while a few herder robots were clearly very good (58 and 173 come to mind), they also were overshadowed by high-power hurdlers. Looking at the alliances on Archimedes (which I watched) and on Einstein, none of the non-hurdling robots were running fast laps. Even 148, arguably the best lapper of the year played, defense. I also agree with Tom Bottiglieri that penalties this year were a little outrageous. There was not a single match on Einstein that did not have penalties. That shouldn't happen at world championships. Maybe in one or two matches, but not in every single one of them. |
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After three events this year and four years of FIRST, here's my two cents:
1. There was way too much subjectivity in this years game which we knew would create problems (ie was it interferring enough to affect a hurdle??) 2. There was no consistancy in the way it was called. How many bots fell over obviously over the 80-inch rule and were never called? 3. Even though ref's were supposed to be trained we still got three different definitions (one at each event) of what a robot had to do in order to be protected while hurdling. Most disturbing was an entire crew that didn't know how to score the game correctly as witnessed in the SVR finals that went to four matches. 4. The Finals this year went WAY too long in Atlanta...I know bots need time to get back in shape but we started with only 3 matches in one in a half hours! Half hour between matches....cmon...less talk please, please! 5. I agree on the harsh negative value placed on teams this year and the lack of notifying teams that a penalty had occured until after a match. I think I saw a team hit their partner's E-stop to shut them down before they could get more penalties and lose it for their alliance. We had one match where our partners accumulated 40 points in penalties to wipe out a convincing 70-50 win. 3 were on one team for driving backwards, barely, over a line. It seemed silly to make it worth so many negative points. We had many many positives this year but this thread is to comment on the negative so I'll end on that negative note.....:eek: |
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Back to the topic of the thread, here goes:
Okay, I have a whole list of positives from the event this year, too. Time to go to that thread. :) |
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Room for improvements::D
Since I am not on the GDC, its easier to criticize than to be on the committee trying to foresee how things will pan out. So just a few things: 1. We hated being in driver station 1 and 3. Our driver team had such a hard time seeing the opposite quadrant of the field. Driver stations should be located in a position that allows the drive team the best view or a field setup to allow them to see the whole field clearly. Practice is obviously a solution, but many teams dont have the capabilities to create a field conducive for practice, especially with hybrid. This was a common complaint of the rookie teams we talked to. 2. Teams should be allowed to stay near their controllers during hybrid. I witnessed so many controllers falling. How do you anticipate a controller falling during hybrid and stepping into the box in case you need to when robots are moving so fast and may just turn all of a sudden. Have refs instead watch if teams touch their control system controls instead. i.e. Teams stand really close so they dont fall to the ground. Obviously, velcro didnt work. 3. Andy Baker was the best corner referee! He explained to our alliance why there were penalties or the non-calls so we all knew why in every match we played. Many times, teams didnt know why penalties were called. Sometimes they announced it, sometimes they didnt during our regionals. If teams are to try and adjust and correct mistakes, they should be made aware of it instead of just moving on to the next match. 4. Parts of the pit areas at CMP were not lighted. Why? Having to use a flashlight to see inside your robot electronics area was frustrating. Other neighboring teams complained to pit admin about the same thing. Result: Nothing happened. |
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I like to focus on positives, but some minor areas for improvement -
Bumper Rules - after 2 regionals, ours were declared illegal during inspection. i was told we should have seen it in the Q+A. It was a big deal, and i think deserved an email blast if it was going to affect very many teams. Flag Rules - going onto the floor for our 2nd match, we were told our flag pole was too long. (Total less and 5 feet.) We had to cut it to 3 feet right there or not take it in. The rest of the day I saw flag poles longer than ours started, and ours had become very difficult to hold. Ranking screens in the Dome - I was told that there were no ranking screens in the dome. people had to go to the pits to see team rankings. seems this would be easy to fix. I agree with Amanda on the crowd. Last year, people left before the CA was announced, and many more were gone before MOE got to the field. This year, very few were there a few minutes after the last match. we need to find a way to keep people in their seats until the end. |
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Lessons learned?
How about a clear and published Team #### was penalized for G22 or whatever. Often after a score was shown we scrambled trying to figure out who broke what rule. I have no issues with how the scoring was assigned or penalty points values, actually I thought they worked well, but how does a team learn to change its play if it takes 4 games to understand what the penaltys were? and even then we were never quite sure who was getting the penalties or when in play. Loved the game. I recall some one from our team stating "Great we get to drive in circle" and saying it dripping with sarcasm, until someone else pointed out the normal drive back and forth in straight lines game we usually had. I think the game was fun to play and watch. One more way to score points would have been a bonus but over all it was a great game. |
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I don't really have too much to say against how it went this year. Only a few small points.
First, defense was a little under-valued. I think a game should balance defense and offense, much like '06, where a good defender could significantly hurt a good shooter, but a small little box-on-wheels cannot take out a top-of-the-line bot. I think FIRST learned that defense cannot be too important from last year, where anyone can take out a ringer-bot. Also, I feel that it would be more interesting if there were more tasks that teams could do. This year, the game was almost dictated to teams. Most of the teams that shone bright hurdled. There was (almost) no way to be the backbone of an alliance if you cannot hurdle. On top of that and the regulations on defense, many teams with lesser resources settled with either lapbots or hurdlers who could only hurdle once or twice in a match. When it came to championships, it was often difficult for many lower-caliber teams to keep up. Just my $.02 |
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My complaint was that the Finals matches overlapped with a lot of the FIRST Finale. Our team stayed at the dome for a few pictures then went back to the hotel to change, then went to the Finale, but it was after 8 when we got there! At that point, there were less than 2 hours to hang out there and we still had to eat. But the two hours we were there were a BLAST!!! |
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I agree but not everyone goes to the wrap party, It would be easier to limit the speeches that people give. I love hearing some of the most important business leaders and inventors speak at these events but sometimes they go one forever and cause loooooong delays that snowball to everything else. I did not like that the CA was given out first. It made it seem that winning the field competition was more important then the CA. And I was sitting right behind where 842 was sitting watching the matches before they were called up to the stage and they had amazing seats to watch everything until they were called down to the stage. |
Re: Lesson Learned: The Negative
This years game was a lot of fun and a really amazing idea. Unlike most I don't have any problem with the breaking the plane penalty, my team had an issue and I, as coach, told them to learn to drive. Complaining about a penalty concerned with robot control is not good, the only bit of that rule that was unfair was when the bumper (which they required this year) went over and you got the penalty for that.
The issue that my team is very upset about is the inconsistent or incompetent reffing. FIRST made a big deal this year about training refs and making them pass a test and yet the reffing was worse this year then any other. Next year the game either needs to be easier to ref, or the refs need to take an in depth course on training. Aside from inconsistency, there was a general lack of enforcement at a lot of events. This game was supposed to be non-impact and non-defensive; penalties were stressed on impact, pinning, impeding, etc. And we had refs who didn't call a robot getting hit while hurdling and then pinned up against the rack :mad: |
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Build anything that is preceded by the phrase, "Its basically the same" it won't be...
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SATURDAY AWARDS/FINALS/CELEBRATION
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Now, about the ref training--So you want last year's Curie-Einstein difference? At least they were pretty consistent. Pinning is legal for up to 6 seconds, so I don't see what's up there, unless it wasn't called after 6 seconds. Again, my negative is the CMP timing. I was timing the closing ceremonies/finals. 5 SF matches in 2.5 hours is NOT acceptable! Short and sweet is better, in this case. |
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I don't believe any of the three teams on our alliance went to the wrap party. I know one team had dinner reservations and our team literally grabbed the medals and hopped on the bus due to arrangements already made with the coach company months in advance. We certainly did not expect to be on Einstein, much less to win, so to spring this on next year's teams may prove to be just as unsuccessful as it was for us this year. I do think it's easy to fix, too - but I think the problem lies in the planning and length of the closing ceremonies/finals rather than in where the teams can be recognized. I hope this is something FIRST will consider. |
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This may not be possible for a lower-cost program like FTC, but having schedules and results online would make for a VAST improvement. I had a team I was trying to watch, but I had zero information about when they'd be on. I didn't even know approximately how long the gap would be between their matches. In fact, I didn't even know how many matches they'd be playing. It really hurts the spectator friendliness of the program if you can't find out basic info like that.
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-dave . |
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Regarding the wrap party: I think the idea of forcing everyone through a 5 foot wide hole as the only entrance to the park was both dangerous and silly. Of course thousands of people are going to show up - have at least a couple entrances for people into the olympic park so that you don't end up with a crush of people.
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I love Dean but he could have said what he came to say in about 1/2 the words. He definitely needs an editor on his speeches.... :) |
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One final thing. Again - THE SOUND WAS TOO LOUD (yes I'm shouting - probably because I'm still deaf). You had to have earplugs in to even survive the noise, the sound was SO LOUD that it drowned out the cheering - this just discourages team spirit - what's the point of cheering if no one can hear you. I have NO OBJECTION to cranking the occasional tune, but - like at the Philly Regional - the sound was loud enough that you could not hear people yelling to you 5 feet away - OSHA deems sustained volumes of that sort as dangerous. I didn't even TRY to talk to the FIRST crew about it - they should have gotten the message from previous postings on the subject.
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When I first saw this year game I was very underwhelmed. Since then it's grown on me some and i've come to appreciate it, however i'm not that bummed to see it go. Mostly becuase, even though there were many ways to score in the game there was much less stratagy involved then in previous games. For example in 07 there were alot of different approches to how you placed tubes on the rack, where to place them, where to put spoilers, when to play spoilers, it just seemed like it was much more of a thinking game.
The only rule that bothered me a little was R16.(the 80 inch rule) It just seemed like it was a very hard rule to call and alot of events I didn't notice any calls of it at all. It seemed to me that because of this the rule was overlooked. Please don't think I am mad or upset about this year, it's probably been one of my favorite years involved in FIRST. These are just some things I have been noticeing. |
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Once division finals were over for some reason all the lights in the dome were shut off. For the remaining 12 teams that went to Einstein we had to do all our repairs, system checks and match preparation in complete darkness. Fortunately we had a few people with headlights and flashlights but regardless it was still very unsafe and made it very difficult to fix any problems in a timely manor.
Another problem we had was by the time we got our pit cleaned up, tools packed and all the stuff back to our van our kids had about 40 min to enjoy the Finale (basically all they saw were the fireworks). This is the second time in the last two years that we have been to Championships that this has happened (both times we were on Einstein). I don't understand why we can't have the finale on Friday when all regionals have their parties. On Friday competition ends at 6pm which gives plenty of time and the students aren't exhausted from another day of competition especially the teams in finals. When people pay for something year after year and are not able to attend and enjoy it its kind of discouraging. As for the volume of the speakers, I noticed someone from one of the teams with a dB meter going around the event recording volume levels. I don't know if anything came of this but when we asked our drive team to have the FTA turn down the volume they promptly did the next time our team was on the field. I do however agree that there needs to be something done about setting up the sound system. They need to setup the speakers so that the people in the front do not have to go deaf to so that the people in the back can hear. |
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FIRST needs to modify the Championship schedule. There are a number of things that could be done. Ideas I think with the most possibility include moving wrap party to Fri. evening and running as late as needed on Saturday. or Uncrate Wed. Morning and move Practice Matches to Wed. afternoon and early Thurs. so division finals can begin earlier on Sat., which would move up Awards and Finals on Einstein and leave time for enjoying the wrap party Sat. night.These are just a couple of the other things I noticed this year that could use improvement...
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One interesting outcome is Dean Kamen's initial clap loudness is twice that of every other clap event, at 103 dbA some data is here: http://www.kellrobotics.org/files/Sound_2008.pdf |
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I also had a huge problem with the announcer saying "N robot assessed 2 penalties for outside the bumper zone contact and 2 G37 penalties". Aren't those the same rules? <G37> encompasses a alot of situations, isn't it possible to be more specific? Who in their right mind knows what a G37 penalty is? |
Re: Lesson Learned: The Negative
I think that the inspectors should have some sort of training like the refs do. I inspected at 3 regionals and all of them had slightly different rulings which was frustrating.
I would also like to see the game animation displayed at the competition more frequently. This is an easy way to explain the game to visitors and it might be nice to have to playing by the VIP/volunteer check-in table. I didn't like how some of the traditional FIRST songs, example "Thunderstruck", were no longer allowed to be played (even though they sometimes were). |
Re: Lesson Learned: The Negative
FIRST has always been safety concious. Requiring eye protection in the pits and on the fields for all students, visitors, and crew. More so in the last couple years with the addition of the Safety Captains, Safety Awards, and Safety Judges.
Why do they not enforce it with the official photographers then? It seems like they need safety glasses the most... (I don't know about you, but I've never met a blind photograher)... along with hard hats. There was one lady this year who stood closer to the field than the refs (nearly getting hit by a couple robots that she did not see because she was looking through her camera at the other end of the field). When some of us on crew mentioned that she should be wearing safety glasses that close to the field she blew us off rudely. She also kept going into the player stations during matches (which I know some of them were not expecting), and even onto the field after a match before the head ref. cleared anyone to enter the field. One of the robots was even still moving when she hopped the gate. The fact that FIRST did not enforce safety rules with people they actually pay to represent them makes me question what the message is that they are trying to send to the students... who were also out there with media passes taking pictures of their teams. |
Re: Lesson Learned: The Negative
I found that a disappointing aspect of the competition this year was the lack of enforcement of certain rules. In particular, the 80" rule, perhaps the biggest constraint this year in design was rarely enforced throughout the competition. Teams were occasionally penalized when they fell over and ended up being far out of the limit, however some designs were, when functioning normally, outside this limit. The fact that a yellow sticker was placed on the inspection tag, alerting the refs to the fact that the robot was capable of extending past the 80" was not enough. Rules like this, which are designed to specifically create a difficult design constraint (and thus make the game more complex and challenging) should be enforced on the highest order, as they are in essences why we play the game. No one expects to get away with a 140 pound robot that has a 40"X50" base. However, once the match starts, it seems that this concern for playing the game the way it was designed is lost. A team whose robot was ~87" long by diagonal measurement during normal (not fallen-over) game play, was never once penalized during a match. This leads to a more general disappointment in FIRST.
If/when such things happen, teams who are aware of this are put in a strange situation. Is it GP to report a rule violation by another team? Is there a way to do so that is GP, as well as officially acceptable? Can it be done efficiently? How will it affect the other team? Such questions are raised which have no real answer in the FIRST community/competition. An exception, Team 190 (Team 190 Legality Thread). Their robot had a unique hurdling technique which eventually was determined to be illegal after 2 regionals of acceptable play. There was a discussion on CD about their design and legality and it was all handled with care and professionalism. However, this is not usually the case, and a fear often arises that silences teams because they may be 'black-listed', if you will, for reporting these types of things. I feel it is FIRST's responsibility to design a system where a team can raise a legitimate concern about another team's robot without fear of any tarnish on their reputation. Centrally, it calls the question, "Is it alright to not report cheating?" No one wants to be the team that is always telling on other teams, but it is simply not fair to teams who took into consideration all of the rules when designing their robot. On that note, those are my 2 cents, take them as you will. The season was otherwise great! I look forward to next year's game, and to a time when such situations will be resolved in a gracious and professional manner. |
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I don't blame the refs, they were way to busy doing other things to pay attention to this rule. |
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The sports model for FIRST fails when the ultimate outcome of the Championship is so trivialized because its "not about the points". For the students, schools, sponsors and family members who couldn't make the trip to Atlanta, watching their team perform on Einstein is incredibly important. To know your team is reaching for the pinnacle of the competition only to be left in the dark is SO frustrating. If FRC wants to "make it" as a televised spectator sport, covering the event through the Championship finals is imperative. Last year, I made an analogy to a network TV faux pas that occurred 40 years ago that led to changes in broadcast practices for live sporting events. I blamed the wrong party for the problem: it's not NASA's fault. Woodie's statement makes it clear that FIRST doesn't have a grasp on its own schedule and, worse yet, fails to understand the importance to the FIRST community and the general public of watching the competition to the end. That event supposed to determine who is the best in the world, seeing the celebration by the teams that was so hard fought that day, that season is an essential part of sports. This situation can still be salvaged: create an hour-long highlight show that describes FIRST, explains Overdrive, summarizes the division qualification/elimination matches, then show all of the Einstein matches. Include slow-motion replays of critical plays with expert commentary, showcase the Chairman's Award winners. Then tell people how they can participate or support the program. A well-produced program on ESPN, Fox Sports Network would attract viewership and increased interest in FIRST. Ending the program with: "FIRST is the only high-school sport where everyone can become a pro" would send a powerful message to the public. Isn't this something that FIRST should pursue?? |
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One thing missing throughout the season was the announcement of robot names throughout the matches. The printouts the game announcers had for each match unfortunately never listed them, so from the three events I witnessed, none were ever used. We came up with a name we liked and hoped it would be used in the play-by-play, but it didn't happen.
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In our case the listing is empty, there is no robot name. The announcer, at least for us, uses the team nickname - longhorns. Which is the outcome we wanted. |
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Oh wait, this is a negative thread. *drums fingers on desk* - hm... needed: bigger boxes of popcorn for the front row seats. With diet coke. |
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Here are a few things I can remember off the top of my head:
1. The awards/finals were way too long!!! (Enough said) 2. It would be nice if the volunteers checking the teams in during load in were actually provided with the proper requirements. We were almost not let in on Wednesday night because we didn't have the "required" student with us. Did I miss something? 3. There was one very rude GWCC employee who yelled at everyone entering the pit each morning. Something about all of us having to stay to the left or she would report our team numbers and get us in trouble. I'm not even sure why we had to walk to the left.... 4. There were several stair cases to the club level that were closed prior to the start of the awards/finals. The employees at each all had different information. One told us they would open up the staircase in ten minutes, then didn't. One told us that no one was allowed up in the club level at all. Can everyone have the right information please? 5. At one point the dome employees decided that no one was allowed to bring flag poles onto the dome floor. Where did that rule come from? 6. The walking paths for the drive teams were different than the one released on the map a week prior to the championship. That made for much confusion on Thursday morning. 7. Late inspection start. From what we were told, no inspection sheet had been printed before Thursday morning. It would help the inspectors if teams that are ready could get inspected first thing in the morning. Would reduce the back log on Thursday afternoon. 8. Too many people on the field. I've said this many times before. It looks extremely unprofessional and chaotic to have that many people on the dome floor. There are many people down there who shouldn't be especially during the finals/awards. The dome floor should get cleared prior to the start of the ceremony. |
Re: Lesson Learned: The Negative
My only real gripe with this season is the insane load that was put on the refs and that they clearly weren't completely capable of shouldering. I think the GDC needs to accept the fact that the majority of our refs are mere humans volunteering a small amount of time to officiate these events. Expecting them to learn the nuances of when a robot is "impeding" or when they are interfering with a hurdle is simply unrealistic. Professional sports refs get to deal with the same rules year in and year out over much more total game play. They still miss calls, and the most often miss judgment calls. The fact that every major league umpire has a different conception of the strike zone, and that it often changes from game to game even for the same umpire, should clue us in to the fact that subjective penalties are pretty much doomed to inconsistency. I'm not saying that all subjective penalties should go. The non-violence penalties should obviously stay, but these should be finalized at this point and set in stone so they are the same from year to year and the refs can at least depend on developing a consistent standard for them. But the GDC should minimize game-specific judgment calls as much as possible. Especially if these calls need to be made on the fly in highly dynamic situations.
Basically, if during the course of the game design process, the GDC feels the need to suggest that Woodie is going to need to warn teams to be patients with the refs because they have even more responsibilities than ever before.... Then they should just stop working on that concept and pick a simpler one with less reliance on fallible humans to penalize teams into playing the game the way the GDC wants it played. |
Re: Lesson Learned: The Negative
When the call for conference proposals was sent out, we tried to encourage a variety of presentation topics, and to also encourage student-presented topics. (see this thread: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=59812) But there were very few students who applied. I know we need to do more to publicize the possibility for students to present.
Keep the conference suggestions coming.... all of 'em will be listened to... Ken |
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umm is this about us or the people who design the game. Becuase they work really hard, have you even tried to make a game with rules planed for every single possible event, and do this once every year, for going on 17 years...
I believe that we should be looking more at what we as teams and people can improve on for next season or life then what other people can do |
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After the final score was announced, a rack of medals was placed nearby our alliance, and we were told to pick up our medals and pack up. Trophies and banners were dropped off as well. To make matters worse, our entire team who was up in the stands were told they weren't allowed on the dome floor. It was only after significant arguing by one of our parents (go Supermom!) that they opened the gate, allowing the rest of the team to join in on the celebration. I understand the time constraints involved, but it just seemed strange that the winning alliance didn't have a chance to go up on stage to shake hands with Dean and Woodie, and receive our medals and trophy. Hopefully the medal and trophy presentation for the winners will return next year, allowing the 2009 Champions the proper level of recognition that they deserve. Does anyone have some insight into why this ceremony was removed from the program? |
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I will say this. We were disappointed also. After having some time to think about winning the EI award, we were never told that we were supposed to receive CMP EI award medals. I researched former EI award winners and asked them about it. In the end, FIRST eventually agreed to send us the medals. I cannot say enough how unexpected it was for us to receive the award and since we've never won before, we didn't know what to expect. After your folks 1st deserving CMP win, I was expecting that you folks would be celebrated also. Why do it at the division level, but not the Einstein stage? It shouldn't be because of a time constraint. Once again, well deserved! |
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I would hate to think this is true, but what if the association between IFI and the winning alliance caused the ceremony to be canceled. |
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If you recall, the Chairman's Award presentation was done first and in doing so, Dean said that "FIRST isn't about the points".
In essence, the winners of the game are not the focus or emphasis in FIRST (unlike sports). Maybe FIRST has swung too far in the direction of "we really don't care who wins". It seems they made that clear by not formally recognizing the Champions of this year's game. This approach flies in the face of how the public perceives competition, especially in sports. Whether this impacts the growth and future viewership of FIRST remains to be seen. |
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I don't think so. We experienced the same thing in 2005. Our partners, Team 67 who won the Chairman's award, were allowed down on the field to celebrate. But the rest of the alliance was kept in the stands. This has galled us somewhat ever since, because previous Championship Winners were allowed to take the field for pictures etc. We didn't say much at the time about our disappointment because it is Team Policy not to complain about such things, at least not publicly. But I am allowed to sympathize with others experiencing similar things. In a way, these posts make me feel a little better because now I know it wasn't just us. We thought it was because we are just a small private school located far away from Mecca, I mean Manchester. But then those of us on the West Coast often feel ignored by HQ. If it was west of the Mississippi, it didn't happen.... |
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