Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

What happened this year that you thought deserved special recognition?

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

I met Koko Ed!

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and you got cool swag from IFI at the Webhug!

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thanks IFI! vex stuff for our summer camps...yeah!

Best part is I have nothing at all for the "negative" thread

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The WPA key setup procedure was nicely streamlined.

The match preparation sequence seems to have been worked out perfectly, with the DS and cRIO boot times not really causing a noticeable delay.

The pit layout wasn't quite as cramped as it looked like it was going to be.

The corner pit entrance by the escalators was an official and always open path to and from the Dome. (I recall uniformed people standing there in prior years letting people exit the pit, but sometimes making everyone go all the way around to the "main" pit entrance to get in.)

The pit announcements were unexpectedly easy to hear and understand.

The recorded welcome playing at the Dome entrance finally stopped saying "FIRST national championship". It said "international" this time.

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The fireworks at the end of the Wrap Party (smaller, yet synchronized to music) were much better than the larger ones used in previous years that were just fired off seemingly at random.

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This year Was the first year I actually had to go to the First Aid center. The dry air in the pits caused a nastiest bloody nose I ever had. The people were nice even though I was bleeding everywhere.

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funny how you cite that as a positive experience :yikes:

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well i guess it could have been worse without a first aid stand

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The combination of Nasa feeds and Twitter made the Championships a blast for all of us #NoATL people ;>

I have lots of ways to add features to the Regional Twitter Accounts for next year :D

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Since this was under general heading and asked about the year, i'm going to say that the Michigan districts were the most positive thing to me. Yes,they need some fine tuning but overall i feel it was successful. I hope we never have to go back to the old way and that in some form it could spread out across the country. Well ,atleast the money saving part of it.

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The webcast was excellent. Especially on Archimedes. :)

I didn't catch the name of the Game Announcer on Arch, but he is clearly among the best in FIRST. Having Tyler Olds beside him for color commentary really added to the entertainment value. As MC Mark Leon said, those two made FIRST sound like Monday Night Football.

I still missed being there with my team. :(

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-Lunacy forced everyone to take a step back and think about their drive systems. A lot of (but not all) of a team's dogma and secret sauce took a back seat this year. It was rather refreshing.
-Having human players all around the field made the game more interesting, particularly when players were smart about their usage of balls. Having nowhere to hide kept the match moving...usually.
-The cRIO switch went pretty well. There are definitely places to improve, but neither of my teams had any issues this season.
-Q&A was pretty straightforward after the normal first week tomfoolery. The battery-as-withholding-allowance ruling was a little rough, but I applaud FIRST for altering the call before it impacted a week of events. All told, I only recall one or two decisions that induced groans out of me. (More on that in the other thread.)
-The effects of G14 were expressed very clearly on-screen.
-I applaud FIRST for at least trying to select a game piece that could be found locally for many teams. They got burned on it this year, since Wal-Mart decided to discontinue the orbit ball just before Kickoff, but I can't fault FIRST for that.
-I liked the Chairman's video component. It seemed that the teams who won handled it well.
-It seemed that the nature of the game led to fewer breakages among robots. There was still a rash of no-show-itis among teams at Bayou in qualifying, but I can't think of any event where an alternate was called in (much to my personal chagrin, as Backup #2 on Curie).

I'm sure I'll think of more.

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1) The "district" model has proven to be quite successful and should expand in the upcoming years. We spent $10000 on reg fees to play 21 matches (17 Qualifiying, 4 elims). FiM teams spend $5000 for 24 qualifying matches ($5500 for 36). I know the experience of a regional is different from a district event, but it's a direction that could greatly help FIRST expand in areas where cost is a major factor. OK more of this in the FiM Threads

2) 40 lb allowance was great, THANK YOU!! However, 6 week build season now becomes an 8-10 week season for some and since some teams basically redesigned and rebuilt devices between events; we are treading into more sticky situations in future years if this continues. I attended 3 events (2 as a coach, and one as a spectator) and none of them enforced / checked the 40 lb allowances. I know GP was in place and can't think of any exceptions, but I know the GP boundaries will be pushed further in the future if this continues.

3) I loved how the GDC changed the playing surface this year and forced teams to be innovative. Overdrive would have been a hoot with this surface. Steps, ramps, different surfaces - BRING IT ON!!

4) The transition to the cRIO was a lot smoother than I thought and at all events I attended, robots were moving in autonomous which was important and I didn't think I'd see it.

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

-40 lb. withholding allowance was nice

-Control system roll out seemed smoother than I expected. I liked all of the different examples to help teams understand how to use the various function blocks in LabVIEW. Now if only they could get us the CAN bus stuff to play with over the summer....

-The game. Between the floor and that pesky trailer, it kept the build and game interesting. I'm sure it brought many teams out of their comfort zones.

Eric

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

I totally have to second this one. It was like watching Madden and Michaels do their thing. I knew Tyler was a great MC. But I didn't realize that he was just as great of an announcer. I can't name the guy on the other side of him either, but he sounded very familiar and did an excellent job as well. I'd love to see this kind of setup brought to every event. It really makes it a lot more interesting in between matches. Especially for someone who was stuck watching the webcast back at home.

That being said, the transition to the new control system was done so well this year. I was very sceptical about how they were going to subsitute the amazing work that IFI has done in the past and I'm pleased to say that they didn't leave me disappointed. The NI reps at the regionals were very knowledgeable and with the exception of the field static issues, there weren't too many problems at all this season.

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Lots of things went well this year.

1. The cRio beta, early ship and overall intro went REALLY well. OK, some issues with the DS and DSC but not bad at all.

2. The playing surface and wheels were a brilliant stroke. Many experienced teams had to actually design a drivetrain this year. As Doug G stated: 3-D and other devious playing surfaces, bring it on!

3. The match scoring, field control system* and reset process was very smooth, not much in the way of difficulties.

*OK, week one FCS issues notwithstanding. We had fewer replayed matches in 2 regionals & CMP than in the past several years.

4. Bills Blog. Good source of info, increasing transparency to FIRST.

5. Much improved breaker panel, DSC, the various breakouts, Jaguars, WAGOs, even the camera... overall better connector retention, easier to wire up, better performance.

6. Inspections seemed more consistent from venue to venue.

7. More webcasts than ever (I think). Thank You NASA.

8. Great idea to have the game pieces available through a large retailer, like WalMart. What actually happened couldn't have been predicted (I don't know if there was any communication to WalMart over the GDC's plans. Probably would not have changed things much)

(I'll think of more later)

Don

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

Your Galileo field team (FTA, FTAA, Scorekeepers/Field Power, field reset, queuers and others) worked very hard to make it this way. I won't clam it was perfect, but we were very focussed on not letting delays cascade and get out of hand. The schedule calls for us to start a match every six minutes. Given 30 secs to announce teams, 2:15 to run the match, 60 secs to count the balls, 15 secs to announce the score results, 30 secs to electronically set the field for the next team plus whatever time it takes for DS and radio links to sync, it's very hard to turn matches in less than 5 minutes. You can compute the match turns yourself by viewing the match results at the FIRST website. Hopefully all of this can be improved for next year.

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

I'm not in Michigan, but I think that system is very nice, except althought the cost is more efficient for match's played, you would still like to go to state tourny and Atlanta, however, that is more expensive. Maybe with a less expensive more light weight feild could cut transportation costs. Maybe reducing kit costs, I don't know but, I know for some teams, 2 districts a state champ and Atlanta would be way to much (e.g. us). On the bright side there would be less transportation costs for districts. And it seems amazing for teams to gain invaluble experience driving and strategy wise. Please bring districts to Forida, even if there's only 4 districts.

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Not to get off topic, but I would personally dislike the Michigan system.

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I thought this was one of the best run years of FIRST I've seen so far. All of the volunteers were awesome, and very rarely were matches running late. Field reset was quick and efficient, and except for some communication errors here and there it didn't seem like there were nearly as many field faults. The district setup was simply fantastic. So many matches for less money, and the point system made the State Championship really intense. Though I understand the complaint of culture changing awards not being given as much importance since they did not qualify your robot for competition, I think that is fine as long as we find a new way to elevate those awards up. I'd like to see the high level of competition maintained at States while also giving a great deal more recognition to the teams that win the culture changing awards.

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

40 lb witholding allowance

Referees couldn't influence the outcome of matches.

That's about it.

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

webcasts and twitter really made things like Gameday or keeping up with your team while they cmpeated on the oppisite end of the country much easier than in years past.

Having major field issues in the first few weeks of regionals to running ahead of scedule later on shows that the Volunteers did an amazing job at avoiding issues that had occured earlier in the season, All Volunteers deserve a star for making everything better and better on the field as the season went on

Districts: i know i listed them in the negitive section, but they also deserve some possitive rep. We now know that the system worked, at least in performance on the filed. having four teams from MI in the finals on Einstein was something to see. The Michigan State championship brought in the best Competition from around the state using the point merrit system, maybe FIRST can build on that for the Championship so that it can truly be a "World Championship Event"

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The varied surface was a nice change and gave many of us traction control that we can take forward into future games, and caused us to explore some changes we never considered making.

The give and take created in the trailers/goals was acutally better than I thought because it forced interaction for everyone and meant you had to risk getting scored on to score.

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- Twitter was one of the best decisions this year. It not only kept non-attenders updated on what was going on, but it also sets the stage for more live coverage of the events in the future.

- I'm pretty sure the GDC learned alot (not necessarily lessons) about cumbersome rules. Regardless of whether or not teams agree with a set of subsystem rules, the GDC knows how to make rules that are meant to work together more clear. I'm pretty sure they also realized that using bitmaps in the official rulebook may not be the best way to do demonstrate things since they can become a source of great confusion.

- The new control system is fantastic. The camera was easy to use. The DS data interface was great once we re-wrapped the data our own way, and the new driver's station allows for a myriad of controls in future years compared to previous. I'll also note that our team never had issues with static, etc, and meticulously read every control system tip, trick, and update. While our team probably will not switch to Labview for several years, we found ways to push the limits of some areas of the cRIO and look forward to what new features will allow us to do in the future.

- The FTC game was simple enough that teams perfected their robots by the time the championships hit. Our own FTC team was averaging 120 points per game (double what we did at regionals) yet we were still being beat by 5-10 points in our matches. This is great (no sarcasm, promise!)!. The FTC matches were exciting to watch, and I know our FTC kids had a blast in building the bot because they were beating down the school's doors to come in every day to work on the bot. Ok, so the excessive pricing scheme needs to be addressed, perhaps by introducing an alternate supplier that will induce competitive pricing. But other than that, I'm mostly happy with the current FTC setup.

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

I bet if they did it down your way they'd do it more like a Southeast (Georgia, Louisiana, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi) type deal to get more teams involved. Only states with high concentrations of teams (like New York or California) would probably be able to do it exactly like Michigan did.

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

Imagine a North East/New England District event thing! Get to go to a district event in Conn, or NJ, or Mass? Not just NY! Get to see some teams you normally wouldn't see in districts.

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

Definitely in the south it would have to be a regional district thing. There are simply not enough teams in Georgia to have multiple district events in georgia. I think some ideas could definitely be adapted. I love the idea of bagging the robot and not shipping it. Shipping is a completely unnecessary cost for events that are close by. Perhaps making shipping optional would work very well. I also love the idea of reduced entry fees and more matches. Right now FIRST is too expensive per regional. With the CRios being donated and probably many more pieces of the KOP being donated as well plus many regionals being held at colleges, what is all of the money per regional going toward? Especially with not getting a CRio every year, next years entry fee better not be $6000. I think there are lots of elements that can be adapted from the district format to make FIRST globally much more accessible and fun. There is no denying that the extra driving experience certainly contributed to the success of the MIchigan teams at the championship event.

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I met squirrel:ahh:
(and The Fro)

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

1) FTAs: At the events I attended, they checked every robot before the start of every match. If there was a problem, they told the team and showed the team how to fix it, so that they actually knew what was wrong and didn't repeat this mistake in future matches.

2) Robot and game rules that forced people to think outside of the box (even if they whined about it a lot).

3) Withholding allowance.

4) Lots of webcasts.

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

I think the HP fitted the theme of the game though and what FIRST is about: real life applications, humans interacting with robots to get a task done, etc.

In a way, this years game was understandable too, as our Lt. Governor put it during his speech at the Hawaii regional "the human element" made it more friendly.
Its understandable though why the HP was disliked, since it had a tremendous effect on the outcome of the game.
But it sort of allowed rookie teams to have an advantage and fighting chance against teams that have been doing this for the past decade. I thought it was interesting to see rookie teams beating vet teams since they had a good HP and at times a good Defensive bot. In this way rookie teams didnt have to contend with making something theyve never done before, especially if they didnt have the sponsors/mentors/engineers/motiviation/inspiration/funds/facilities etc.

I liked how there were multiple ways to tackle the challenge, and all of them would work depending on the circumstances.

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* Even though there were growing pains, the conversion to the CRIO went better than many expected

* Having match schedules for the second (or third?) year in a row on Thursdays is terrific for scouting teams. I give credit to all volunteers who were frantically stapling match schedules at 7:00pm on Thursday at the Championship

* It was obvious that, for most of the finals and awards on Einstein, that FIRST was trying to move things along at a brisk pace. I know that might mean that some of the "bling" is gone, but I would rather have the event done on time.

* The game allowed for significant strategy and analysis.

* The Wrap Party was one of the best I had seen since the Championship was help in Atlanta (could have used more plates, though).

* Good options for those viewing / following along back home.

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This year I volunteered at seven events. I am so amazed by the skill, dedication and unbreakable will that the people who so willingly give their time to FIRST to see these events run so smoothly.
They are some of the most amazing people I have ever met and I cannot think of anyone else I would rather work with then the pople who I worked with at these events.

I was truly in awe of the display of truest values of what FIRST is about at the DC regional by the teams there. The teams worked so hard to see that the event and the other teams were at their best at the event. Even when I have my doubts about FIRST I can recall the actions of the many teams who went out of there way for their fellow teams at this event and I can truly say how wonderful FIRST truly is. It's one of the best memories I will ever have of FIRST.

I was very impressed with the FiM pilot program from my initial glance (I'll admit I am not deeply involved with the program so I did not see the district events so I cannot form an opinion on them. But the format intrigues me and I truly hope FIRST adopts it for the rest of FIRST. I think it'll save alot of teams that are struggling to survive.

I am not a technical person (though many of you still insist on trying to explain your robot components to me and never notice the "nobody's home" look on my face. I must not be doing it right) but I had alot of experience witnessing the new control system at work having to que teams up. I think FIRST has hit a home run with this one.

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1) The new control system. It worked flawlessly for us, is very powerful, and the support from FIRST and NI was phenomenal.

2)The low friction floor and wheels. At first I thought it was a terrible idea, but after two regionals and the championships, I have to say that it added excitement and challenge to the game.

3) The volunteers. I watched people standing and working HARD for three solid days with very little time to catch their breath, expecting nothing in return. Thank you all for all you do.

4) The obvious hard work and effort put in by most teams. It was reflected in a crop of excellent robots this year.

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1) District Model - Not ready for prime-time everywhere. However, the FIRST experience cost per student could significantly decline !

2) New Technology - Introducing a new controller helps students & mentors learn about different technology. Keep adding new sensors, protocols and interfaces !

3) Out of the Box Game - Keep changing the game floors, keep changing the game objects, but try to keep the game more entertaining for spectators !

4) FIRST Community - Connecting FIRST alumni is off to a slow start but the idea is good. We need to email the http://firstcommunity.usfirst.org/ support to make the process easier for people to register. I can register on facebook or myspace much faster than firstcommunity

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

I'd like to give a shout out to all of the beta test teams that participated in helping with the control system earlier this season. The commitment to learning about and sharing the information with others as well as working with other teams is an example of community growth and development in FIRST.

The initiative wasn't perfect and received some criticism but I do feel that it showed the FRC community what we are capable of as a program and an organization. We are a community of mutual interests and goals that include and celebrate innovation and change. The beta test teams took this to heart.

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Once again I have only wonderful things to say about all my Galileo volunteers. As I told them, its tough when you get the list to visualize how its going to go all weekend, but once again they became a well-oiled machine and cranked out solid 6 minute turnarounds all weekend long.

I love them all and would love to work with any of them again! Thank you!

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

Here are some positives I can think of from this season:

1) The district system allows teams to play more matches for less money. It lets teams learn more and inspire their students more. Sure there are 1-2 bugs to work out, but i love to see how they will build on it for next year.

2) The new control system allowed teams do more impressive and interesting things. Over the next few years some of the things we will see being developed will blow everyone away.

3) Maybe it was the leveled playing field for this game, but some of the rookie teams this year were extremely impressive. Teams that stood out to me include, 2771, 2970, 2753, 2834, 3115 and 3091. I feel like all of these teams could grow into big members in FIRST.

4) I enjoy seeing games where there is little ref interaction. No offense to refs, but they can swing the outcome of a match to much over ticky-tack calls (However I would never want to be in their position, because then I would have to deal with people like me).

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This year's game was pretty exciting and allowed plenty of strategy discussion and variation. I loved the small opportunities to score, the fast-progressing game and the way that it got me to scream my lungs out yelling "Get out of there!" and "Dump, Dump, DUMP!!!!" even though I knew our drivers hadn't a chance of hearing me. :rolleyes:

We built our most effective and most polished robot to date this year, with 8th graders and freshmen just as involved as our seniors. The early release of the new control system was a great idea, to teach our new members as well as allow teams to familiarize themselves and others with such a different system.

The organization of the qualifying matches went quite smoothly and quickly, considering how many teams were there to play. It seems that every volunteer on Curie knew what they were doing and were smart. There seemed to be no complaints on the competition field!

I like the different color curtains for each division in the Pits, and the Pit layout. I much prefer the team number order rather than trying to place rookies and veteran teams together. There's merit in the idea, but as a scout/strategist, finding people is much simpler when the Pits are in numerical order. And groups of veteran team members tend to roam around checking to see if people need help anyway. Such is the incredibly good sportsmanship of FIRST. :)

The Pit announcements were much clearer than I expected them to be. I think this may have been mentioned before.

And... I got to see such legendary teams as Thunderchickens, Killer Bees, RUSH, Bomb Squad, Rocketeers, Holy Cows, Robowranglers, TechnoKats, Chief Delphi, Delphi ELITE, X-bots, MOE, the Pink Team, HOT, N.E.R.D.S., Wildstang, Children of the Swamp, X-Cats, Miss Daisy, Team Hammond, KRUNCH, Exploding Bacon and the Adambots! I even made some friends among these awesome people... :) I'm pretty sure I've missed some along the way. I saw The Fro and met Billfred (he probably thinks I'm nuts) and heard some truly inspiring team/robot stories. I would have loved to see everyone else, but I badly sprained my ankle right before Atlanta (my luck amazes me sometimes) and was confined to either limping badly or hauling myself about in a borrowed wheelchair. My arms were tired. :o

All in all, the Championships experience was phenomenal, especially to a senior who (idiotically) did not attend her freshman year and whose team didn't go 2007 and 2008. Everyone there was remarkably kind, polite and helpful, and things ran pretty smoothly in Curie after Thursday. "Like a regional, but four times bigger!" And fun!

Wow, long post. :o

Re: Lessons Learned - The Positive
 

1. The DC regional. This was by far the most well-run regional I've seen - and this is its first year! Everything was perfect, from the spacious pits and full-sized practice field to the knowledgeable volunteers and various VIP speakers. I thought scheduling a rookie regional for week one in the first year using the new control system was a terrible idea, but the teams and volunteers somehow pulled it off and ran a wonderful event.

2. The new control system. Yeah, it had some issues - espeically the drive stations - but things went much better than I expected. As the lead programmer on my team, it was so nice to not worry about memory management, interrupt routines, and floating point math.

3. The uniqueness of the game. I love how FIRST surprised us all by forcing us to design new drivetrains - something many teams haven't done since their second or even rookie years. My team had gotten to the point that "coding" the drive system was a one-day operation. This year, however, we spent the majority of our six weeks working on drive and traction control.

Traction control also gave us programmers a new challenge. In previous years, we spent most of our time working on field positioning - gyros, encoders, and geometry - for autonomous mode scoring. This year, we spent most of our time working on physical modeling - friciton, traction, and inertia - for teleop mode scoring. The shift from math to science provided for a very fun and challenging build season.

I hope next year they can do something unique with the surface yet again. Or maybe give us a few more years on the regolith, so we can tune our moon drive system just as we did our Earth drive systems.