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-   -   Lessons Learned - The Negative (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76863)

Koko Ed 21-04-2009 10:53
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jared341 (Post 852923)
Thank you for mentioning this. I feel the exact same way. Getting a 22 minute address (yep, timed it) after three days of intense competition and little sleep completely derails the adrenaline-fueled enthusiasm of the crowd.

There has to be a better compromise between getting the message across, and remembering that Atlanta is a celebration of all of our hard work. Yes, even engineers get to celebrate.
I've given up hope of this getting fixed because every year it's brought up it seems the response is "Oh you guys don't like the speeches? OK we'll do more!":rolleyes:

Jared Russell 21-04-2009 10:59
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Koko Ed (Post 852880)
This brings me back to a discussion me, Chuck Glick, Jessi Kaestle and Brian Stempin had at the Spaghetti Warehouse after the Philadelphia Regional.
We were talking all things FIRST (as us FIRST-aholics always do) and Brian made a very interesting observation. Every one of us just brought up negative aspects about FIRST from people we've dealt with, teams we put up with and the way FIRST is run in general. Not one positive thought was said. We didn't even realize it.
As Brain pointed out that why he no longer bothers with CD because it's become a negative bitter place. I notice that FIRST in general has that element. There's an ugly undercurrent of anger and resentment in FIRST. Towards people, towards teams, towards FIRST itself and no one team is above the behavior or immune to it. We are all guilty of it. That's why I personally dislike the term Gracious Professionalism because it's being used as a measuring tool when no one has shown they have the right to pass judgment on other around here (me included). It reminds me of a term from the bible "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." We should all be dropping those stones right now.
One reason is people expect quality and therefore see no reason to compliment it but will complain bitterly when they feel wronged in any way shape or form. It's real easy to say we should check ourselves, behave better and so and so forth but complaints also change whatever flaws are out there (acting like it's not happening will not solve the problem) and if you keep what's bothering you inside it's not good for you physically and you'll just leave FIRST out of frustration anyways due to your overall dissatisfaction with the program. So not complaining is not an answer either.
I just think we need to step back and take a little perspective that's all.
Maybe everyone who has posted here should take a moment and post something in the positive thread too. There had to be something you liked about FIRST this year or else you all would have left a long time ago.
The plight of the engineer is that he is never satisfied with what is, and he is always thinking of what could be. He applies this to his work, and also to other aspects of his life. But where metal, wires, and electrons don't complain when perfection is demanded of them, people do.

This is unfortunately a distinction that not all engineers can recognize, and I think it's at least one of the factors at play here.

Steve_Alaniz 21-04-2009 11:16
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandon Holley (Post 852847)
Eric, can you explain to me what you guys are arguing about?

I'm just confused as to what the point of establishing exactly when a team "starts" ?

I know we've been involved in the creation of dozens of FRC teams. All of them start a little differently, some get a grant and register and start a season right away.

Others gradually build up sponsors, mentors, interested students, and it may take them a year or more to finally "register".

If a team is proactive during this year or more time period, and reaches out to the community, or builds a relationship with a school, why would it not "count" towards an award? Honestly, if a "team" has been around for a while trying to get going and finally register to become an FRC team, why would what they do not count, or be considered?


Please let me know if this is what you guys are talking about or if I missed it completely.

-Brando
Brandon,
I'm not arguing with Eric, he has made quite a few points that have made me think about what I've been saying so I'd say we are discussing or perhaps, at worse, debating... (oops... that thing I have about wording again! Could be a programming thing... you have to get the syntax right or else.)
In the presentation of the All Star Rookie Award, Woodie mentioned 3091's fantastic work in supporting FLL and FTC over the summer. My point is that they were not yet a rookie team and that that work should place them in contention for a judges award. Not that they don't deserve the rookie award too but that Woodie cited the wrong criteria for the award. So the question was at what point in time do you become a rookie and shouldn't it be that time frame that counts towards a rookie award?
FIRST defines the season as starting at kickoff. If Woodie had cited 3091's work over the last 3 months I would never have mentioned this. Clearly, FIRST can define it anyway they want to, but they probably should tell someone.
Bottom line for me is that I think FIRST need to clearly define this period or Woodie needs to get a better speech writer.

artdutra04 21-04-2009 11:48
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jared341 (Post 852923)
Thank you for mentioning this. I feel the exact same way. Getting a 22 minute address (yep, timed it) after three days of intense competition and little sleep completely derails the adrenaline-fueled enthusiasm of the crowd.

There has to be a better compromise between getting the message across, and remembering that Atlanta is a celebration of all of our hard work. Yes, even engineers get to celebrate.
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was three minutes long.

And yet is has become one of the most memorable speeches of all time.

There's no reason why Dean can't do the same.

Or at the very least, talk at a faster amount of words per minute.

// On a side note, most of the students on our team started to fall asleep during Dean's speech (and judging from the amount of head bobs in the audience, so were most other teams). So I decided to wake them up by softly playing a theme song for Dean's speech from my iPod. As he went on about the three little pigs and brick houses, Brick House by the Commodores seemed the obvious choice. It worked, and they stayed awake for the rest of the speech.

Brandon Holley 21-04-2009 12:12
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve_Alaniz (Post 852950)
Brandon,
I'm not arguing with Eric, he has made quite a few points that have made me think about what I've been saying so I'd say we are discussing or perhaps, at worse, debating... (oops... that thing I have about wording again! Could be a programming thing... you have to get the syntax right or else.)
In the presentation of the All Star Rookie Award, Woodie mentioned 3091's fantastic work in supporting FLL and FTC over the summer. My point is that they were not yet a rookie team and that that work should place them in contention for a judges award. Not that they don't deserve the rookie award too but that Woodie cited the wrong criteria for the award. So the question was at what point in time do you become a rookie and shouldn't it be that time frame that counts towards a rookie award?
FIRST defines the season as starting at kickoff. If Woodie had cited 3091's work over the last 3 months I would never have mentioned this. Clearly, FIRST can define it anyway they want to, but they probably should tell someone.
Bottom line for me is that I think FIRST need to clearly define this period or Woodie needs to get a better speech writer.
I disagree with your argument. Why should when the support of this team was given, matter in the giving of an award? Teams are not judged on chairman's awards and etc from just the previous year.

The argument I was trying to make in my earlier post was that some teams take a considerable amount of time to come to fruition. They are a team, maybe just without a team number yet, or without a sponsor yet, but theyre still a team. If they are reaching out and supporting the community before they have even competed, that stuff should definitely count....regardless of when it was, summer, winter, months, or even years before they became a "team".

JackN 21-04-2009 12:37
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Issues I had this year:

1) Dear FIRST can you please post the order by which teams were picked on the website so someone who didnt attend the event can figure out how picking went. Which of these is the correct order and how am I supposed to know, 1279 834 1391, 1391 1279 834, 1391 834 1279, or 834 1279 1391. I remember in 05 and 06 the location of teams in driver stations didn't change during eliminations, I would love to see this return.

2) Please don't ever again have a rule like G14 that punishes a team for winning matches. When stopping scoring and instead scoring on yourself is a valid and legitimate strategy i think you have a problem.

3) I would like to see webcasts being broadcast from event to event, so no matter where you were there would be some place in the event that is playing other events.

JaneYoung 21-04-2009 13:41
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by artdutra04 (Post 852962)
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was three minutes long.

And yet is has become one of the most memorable speeches of all time.

There's no reason why Dean can't do the same.

Or at the very least, talk at a faster amount of words per minute.
We are living in a time that is a result of nations, cultures, and leaders building houses of straw and sticks. It takes a little more time to build a house of brick.

Agreed that the competition energy is a completely different energy than the focus that is required to pay attention to the speeches. It makes it difficult following the end of a long 3 days but the time spent is no less valuable. This is one of those, there are no easy answers or solutions, aspects of celebrating the culmination of a great FIRST season.

Zholl 21-04-2009 14:00
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
This is more of a lesson I learned personally while I was in Atlanta. Definitely shouldn't try to take on multiple jobs for your team. I ended up being in charge of photography and scouting in Atlanta, and spent WAY more time than I would have liked just running around trying to get stuff done. Plus, when you can't sit with your scouts because you're on the field with the drive team, it's hard to actually get scouting done. I noticed that the scout sheets never returned....

With the number of people on my team doing nothing, there's not really a good reason for me having had to cover both and do a mediocre job instead of delegating someone else for one of those jobs and letting both of us do well. But I guess this is what rookie years are for, eh?

I also learned from some of the other guys that you really shouldn't care so much about how you're doing in the matches. If you're winning, that's great, but I saw a lot of guys on my team really upset about our losses when we knew going out there that we weren't really even a dominant force at regionals, and that we would do worse when the average ability of the rest of the competition jumps up a couple notches.

Karthik 21-04-2009 14:19
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr MOE (Post 852838)
* No opening ceremonies video on the DaVinci Field side of the dome. I know why it was done (to get everyone to come to the other side). However, for those teams that got up early to secure seats, team members needed to stay in the seats and could not see the opening ceremonies.
This is a big one for me. Our team was on Archimedes this year, and elected to stay in our seats for opening ceremonies, to ensure we would be able to keep them. There was no audio or video being broadcast to our side of dome. Our team was actually completely unaware that we had won the website award. I found out from a congratulations email that was sent to me on my Blackberry by someone who was watching at home!

Quote:
Originally Posted by JackN (Post 852988)
1) Dear FIRST can you please post the order by which teams were picked on the website so someone who didnt attend the event can figure out how picking went. Which of these is the correct order and how am I supposed to know, 1279 834 1391, 1391 1279 834, 1391 834 1279, or 834 1279 1391. I remember in 05 and 06 the location of teams in driver stations didn't change during eliminations, I would love to see this return.
This is a huge pet peeve of mine. For the purposes of accurate record keeping, please list the alliances in the order that they were picked.

Vikesrock 21-04-2009 14:55
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Karthik (Post 853031)
This is a huge pet peeve of mine. For the purposes of accurate record keeping, please list the alliances in the order that they were picked.
I agree. They should either go with what Jack said and set an order and keep it through all the eliminations or at least have the way the teams are arranged in the first match follow some set order.

Brandon Holley 21-04-2009 15:24
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Karthik (Post 853031)
This is a huge pet peeve of mine. For the purposes of accurate record keeping, please list the alliances in the order that they were picked.
To go along with this...I find it weird that for eliminations, in the first match, the #1 bot on the alliance (aka the captain) starts in the #2 driver station....it just seems odd to me.

Chris is me 21-04-2009 15:32
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by artdutra04 (Post 852962)
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was three minutes long.

And yet is has become one of the most memorable speeches of all time.

There's no reason why Dean can't do the same.

Or at the very least, talk at a faster amount of words per minute.
I don't think Dean plans to do 22 minute speeches. I was reading some article the other day where someone close to him joked that if you asked him the time, he'd go on a 10 minute explanation of the theory of relativity first. I think it's just in his nature to keep going on and on.

craigcd 21-04-2009 15:44
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
I guess this is just about as good of thread to place this. Kind of goes under category of a list of thing that need improvement.

I was the Field Supervisor for the Archimedes Division this year. After helping move 85 robots on and off the field I have the following suggestions.

FIRST should make gloves mandatory. This is a requirement that’s time is past due.
FIRST should make lifting handles mandatory on all robots. I saw several robots that were lifted at awkward and un-balanced locations.
FIRST should make all robots have a mandatory decal or sign pointing to the location of the main power switch.

I really enjoyed working with the teams on Archimedes this year. You guys were awesome.

Ryan Dognaux 21-04-2009 15:46
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Was it just me, or did it seem like Woodie and Dean's speeches contradicted each other? Woodie's theme was to keep FRC strong, keep the current teams from folding and to expand FTC if possible. His was very realistic and probably was the best speech I've heard from him in quite some time. It was quite a sobering speech that really made me think about FIRST's current position in this economy.

Then on Saturday, Dean came out and said that FIRST needs to expand faster than ever because it's the only way to truly fix our current situation.

I just thought that their messages should have aligned more and I think Dean's speech sort of took away from what Woodie said on Friday.

sdcantrell56 21-04-2009 15:48
Re: Lessons Learned - The Negative
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux (Post 853101)
Was it just me, or did it seem like Woodie and Dean's speeches contradicted each other? Woodie's theme was to keep FRC strong, keep the current teams from folding and to expand FTC if possible. His was very realistic and probably was the best speech I've heard from him in quite some time. It was quite a sobering speech that really made me think about FIRST's current position in this economy.

Then on Saturday, Dean came out and said that FIRST needs to expand faster than ever because it's the only way to truly fix our current situation.

I just thought that their messages should have aligned more and I think Dean's speech sort of took away from what Woodie said on Friday.
I guess I am a little weary of expanding FIRST too rapidly. It is already increasingly difficult to raise money and find sponsors, and adding more and more teams per area will saturate the area and decrease the amount of funding per team.


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