Re: disaster in israel regional
 

It is very unfortunate that you continue to bash FIRST volunteers, sponsors, beta testers and others who worked very hard to give a decent control system.

Instead of turning all that energy you seem to have into a postive force to help improve FIRST, you still insist on negativity and rude criticism.

The people working on that system are professionals, and excellent programmers. Indeed, you had many absolute TOP notch engineers working on the system. In fact, I think you'll find that hundreds of teams are utilizing C++ without the issues you seem to think are so earth-shattering.

Part of being in FIRST is find and dealing with issues in a professional way: maintaining a positive attitude and finding ways to solve the issue. I suggest you work on that method. It will certainly bear more fruit that your current course of routinely bashing FIRST and the people who work hard to try and make it a success.

I apologize for the highjack, but I couldn't in good conscience let brianelite's post go unanswered. This is the second time he's gone down the road of denegration and put-downs.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

It saddens me to hear the frustrations of so many participants of the Israeli regional, and in particular reported cases of extremely un-GP behavior on the parts of students and adults alike. I hope that they will be able to re-evalulate their behavior and realize their wrongdoing; we need to remember that this competition is more about the learning experience in build season than it is beating opponents on the field (Kudos to the team who petitioned to keep another team from being disqualified).

That said, I am extremely disheartened by the comments being directed at the staff and crew. As a long time volunteer, I've been through events that have run an hour ahead of schedule to three or four hours behind schedule. All I can say is in both cases, the effort put forward by the field crew is always the same, they are undoubtedly the hardest working volunteers that you will find.

I ask that teams that have faced frustrations and challenges this season to take a breather, collect their thoughts, and send messages to FIRST via your regional committee/regional director. It is important that your say be included in the event analysis. If FIRST is anything like the organization I have come to know in the past nine years, they will work hard to correct it, and I like many others here hope that FIRST will consider hosting a "repeat" event.

I applaud the FIRST Israel staff and volunteers for continuing to push through despite so many set backs. My sympathies go out to the students and mentors who worked so hard for an event that just did not seem to go in anyone's favor.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

There is a lot of wisdom in this. The more the community understands what the teams are doing and working towards, the more the community can support their efforts in positive and helpful ways. The more the teams work together to help the community develop a deeper understanding, the more opportunities will arise.

Great ideas, Mike. I also agree with and understand your statement about the process, the birth, and the growing pains.
--
Let's not bash, criticize, and pile on - especially if we were not at the regional. It does not help the situation in any way.

Jane

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

for the people who don't know, 2 days before the competition there was a pre season competition in Benyamina. the robots worked perfectly well. my team was the only rookie team in the pre season and it was a big honor for us. no one said it before on this thread but the first spirit in the competition was on it's best. teams were helping each other. for example when one of the volunteers said in the microphone that the turkish team was needed to some pneumatic items I was runnimg to the with the things they need to. when my team was needing something all the teams were hadful to help us.

FIRST Spirit was on it's best!

the field communication problems embarrassing and the reason to this problem was that the orginizers did not arrange the competition as it was needing to. my mum is an VP in Congress Operations company and she said the orginizers did not bring the right people to solve the problem and they were just testing the system in the days of the competition (even a week before the competitin is not enough). there was not any one from USFIRST who know the field systems. by the experience of the last year when FIRST were using the army frequency they could ask to get confirmation to use 5GH if I have know this problem earlier I would have use my connections to the army toget this confirmation. if my team was not the the winner of the rookie all star award. I promise you the only reason why my team would come apart is the frustration of the communication problems.


see the post of team 3316 on this thread who were in our alliance at the qr final.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

With real robots, or practice robots? And what field management system was running (the full competition FMS, or FMS Lite)?

Also, if that scrimmage was with real robots, and this was a sanctioned occurrence, FIRST should have stated publicly (perhaps in an update) that it was giving teams attending this regional a waiver from some of the fabrication schedule and shipping requirements.

If it wasn't sanctioned by FIRST, who let the robots out? (Access to robots outside of the approved periods is serious business.)

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Obviously this was with practice robots, with parts from the 65 pound withholding allowence (and held in a high-school gym)

despite yarden's comments I'd like to say that communication problems were present in the pre-season event because we were not running any FMS at all, but rather just enabling robots for ~10 min matches.

each DS had it's own router and wifi network, which caused alot of interference. we tried changing the channels, but this was both time consuming to do, and not a perfect solution since wifi channels overlap.

Hindsight being 20/20, It's obvious that the best solution would have been to get 6 demo robots and test the field system beforehand. I'm not sure this would have been obvious to anyone before the fiasco started.

-Leav

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Now it should be obvious to the next year.
Regretfully I have to say it that NOKIA ARENA-the best arena in Israel is not the best arena to FIRST competition although TEL AVIV municipality give it to FIRST for free to 3 days, we can't let the competition to be there, because is there is a delay the orginizers can't take more day to the competition.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Do you have any better FREE suggestions?

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I'm sure there is a school who won't have a problem to give its gym or something like that for 5 days (3 for the competition+one for building everything+one for taking away everything).
I must say that i rather have an organized, without any time pressure, regional in a gym than a regional like this in the biggest arena in israel :S

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Almost any US regional would have the same issue. There would be MASSIVE issues with deciding to extend a regional an additional day at the event, the way to solve this is to prevent the delay by thorough testing, not to plan for the delay to happen.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

If you know any school who has a gym with 3000 sits, and place for a pit, let me know.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

my school has place to 1000 people and place for the pits,
maybe thats the solution because I think next year or in the year after it we will need more one regional in israel then, every regional will have 40 teams and that is more sensetive to do in my school

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

[quote=yarden.saa;939900]my school has place to 1000 people and place for the pits,
maybe thats the solution because I think next year or in the year after it we will need more one regional in israel then, every regional will have 40 teams and that is more sensetive to do in my school[/Q

NOKIA is perfect for FIRST.
It's kind of a centered location for all teams, easy to get to for all, It's big and easy to set and take apart.
The only relevant solution is to be well prepared for the competition both from FIRST Israel's side and the teams side.
If Things go according to schedule there is plenty of time in the 3 days.
I don't know if you noticed, but games didn't go on as schedule and not always because comm problems. The first day was extended for teams who didn't pass inspections, out of FIRST's good will to see all teams play.
Many teams didn't get to the field on time, and once again they where waited for.
From my understanding, some of the problems in the comm came as a result of invalid code, If only teams were well prepared (not blaming teams, I just think next year we can pay more attention, I think we also had some kind of problem) code wise. We could of saved a lot of time trying to solve all the comm problems.

And don't look for a crooked floor where it doesn't exist.
FIRST Israel is to blame for the poor competition, very few teams for unsportsmanlike behavior. And many teams should be thanked for holding their head's up as high as it gets during such a hard experience.
Most team's were looking for any opportunity to help and show what they are worth.

I want people from outside to understand how stressful the situation was for teams. Every team worked really hard on their robot's for 6 official weeks and a few more until the competition.
This year was a hard year, really tough challenge, weird ranking system. And then when we get to the arena it's not according to sketches (legal tolerance, but annoying when they get the diameter of a pipe wrong =\).Communication doesn't work. Finishing the second day with a horrible feeling, when some teams have gotten on the field every single game but not played one due to comm problems. And at the final day where they finally do something fair and give everybody 3 games but they get it wrong and stay with the odd ranking system, which does not make much sense(especially with such little amounts of game). And finally the finals which you know all about.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I guess that all the teams will register to both regionals.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Unless they switch to a system like they have in Michigan. Have two district competitions culminating in an Israeli regional championship.