disaster in israel regional
 

israel regional was a complete disaster.
there was a problem of communication with th router that they couldn't solove.
in the first day the problem was in low level and we played on the field 5 times.
int the second day the communication with some of the robots on the field stopped a lot of times. the judjes dind't know what to do because some matches workd aqnd other not. there was a lot of disappointment for all the teams. the final 20 seconds were not exist. the router didn't work at this period.
in the third day first organizers didn't know what to do so they cakk to a captain's meeting. in this meeting the captains decided to cancel all the games from day 2.
when we were at the third day on match 2 the clocked stopped at the middle od the game and all teams on this match were musgt to reset their robot and started again. match 2 was reseted 7 times.
at day 3 it we couldn't hang on the tower beause the final 20 seconds were shorter.
the finifh matches were after 3 rounds only. we got to the qurter by being selected by another rookie team. in the final we were 3 rookie teams in the same alliance.
my team robot was the only one who could hang at the all regional but we couldn't hang because of the communication problem. we won in the rookie all star award. it waqs a completely disapointment for us. the competition's ranks were not reliable.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I'm sorry to hear the field was riddled with so many problem. I'm sure being half a world away from FIRST HQ didn't help, I hope despite the field problems it was a fun event with some exciting matches!

Congratulations on winning the Rookie All-Star Award! With so many rookie teams at the event that is quite an accomplishment. Do you have any pictures or video from the event you could share with the CD community?

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

sorry I'm not the one who was whith camera. I belive I will uplod photoes this week.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I was keeping an eye on the FIRST website to see how this regional was going. and i noticed Qualification Matches the 2nd day were expected to run until 3am (Israel time). I was pretty curious as to find out what happened. Im glad that mystery is solved.

This field is a PAIN! Im sure a lot of people who are on the field crews (announcers to queuing) can agree with thsi statement. This is the second year something like this has happened (see qualification times for 2009 here... QM 63). I hope FIRST really takes a deep look into this and makes sure that problems like this don't arise.

just my $0.02

EDIT: TBA has the original match schedule up on their website. Also, congrats on the rookie all-star award. I hope to see your team compete in Atlanta for the World Championships

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

every match took half a hour to 3 hours. it was embarrassing and humiliate,
is that happenning in other regionals?

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

to a lesser extent, yes. I know at the Florida Regional (where i attended). the field malfunctioned halfway through the day friday. and both the awards ceremonies for both days ended an hour behind schedule.

Other regionals that i have been watching via webcast have also had similar issues.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

they need to change the system to radio control

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Arizona was atleast an hour behind during quals at one point, entire alliance lagged out running two cameras at 120x160

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

The Israel regional was a complete mess though. We were over four hours behind schedule on finishing the games, not only that each team got a chance to play only 3 games. the final matches were only single elimination instead of double and the semi-final was decided in a coin toss after it came to a tie and we had to evacuate the arena shortly. It was the most frustrating regional I've ever been to.

~Kenneth

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Now you're just overkilling it.
Yes the second was a disaster we had no comm at all, but on the third day the comm worked 98% of the games.
Now, I'm gonna surprise you and say that ALOT of the problems were becuase of the teams. Most of the teams in israel simply don't know how to program their robot correctly. And the proof of that is the fact that our robot worked perfectly. we a comm problem only once. PLUS when i looked at teams codes it was all rubbish, all messed up and not orginized correctly.
People were opening up comms with motors, sensors, cameras, and everything else, without closing them or using the WORST RefNums ever, thus calling the wrong RefNum in Teleop or Autonomous. I think that for next year we should, first of all, give some seminars about programming becuase the level of programmimng in Israel is the worst that you could ever have.

Now, I was in the field for entire three days, nearly no sleep breaks or anything, at the last day we figured out a way to make things work and we had to configure router at the beginning of each game. Believe me when I tell you these Israeli teams are the worst. we give the a configured, prefectly working router, and they have to change it's settings.

I hope that next year we will be able to use 5Gighz and that should solve most of the problems.

Hoping you'll understand,
Lior, #2630, Thunderbolts

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Hello
We are team 1946 from Israel and for the last three days at Israel regional we had our hearts crushed over and over again as we have been stolen the chance to equally and fairly compete in a fair and honest competition and what happened was a big shame and unfairness to many team got the first two days were a big miss and robots wouldn’t work due to communication problems but we still tried to make the best of it… tell the last day of the computation the announced that there will be two to four games on the chance to give everyone a fair chance under the circumstances everyone agreed and we star and we were bombed for we thought will get the chance to test our robot and ted playing the games went fairly okay tell the last and 3ed game none of the robots worked and they still counted it as a game this $@#$@#$@#$@# us out of the 8 finalist(after we were in first place) although we didn’t play at the finally we couldn’t believe the joke that happened the winners got picked by flipping a coin !! we feel that first sprit got lost in this big ordeal and any team’s biggest nightmare just happened the robots couldn’t perform due to technical problems of communication not because teams didn’t pure their hearts and lives into building designing a robot and spreading FIRST sprit .
We are just one example of the many victims of this shameful situation!!

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I have to agree - it was a disaster..
I'm from team 1578, also from israel.
I really don't know what the problem(s?) was, but everything was messed up...
Our team didn't have communication problems, even in the first day, but on every game, at least one of our alliance's bots didn't work, leaving us almost no chance to play a fair game, and I'm not even talking about winning the match.
It really sucks that our bot was judges by 3 matches - thats only 6 and a half minutes for a month and a half of super-hard work.

Also - i have to agree with Lior. I checked some of the codes of the robots which had comm problems - their codes were just messed up.

Hope that someone up there will do something to fix this in the next regional.
Yaar, Team 1578.

Edit :
For example, the event managers(?? i have no idea who is in chrage of this) can get a couple of pre-built bots or pre-programmed CRios with a simple code, which teams with comm problem can just change a minute or two before their game or at least to check if the problem is in the team's bot or the arena's communication center.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I would like to hear from some adults on this.
Clearly, some bitterly disappointed teams came out of it.
But one student (I guess) has already indicated that some of the problems may have been self-inflicted.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

so much drama, but I remember there where a lot of problems with the field last year as well as this year. But remember the whole field, OI, and robot hardware all changed and it will take another year or 2 to get all the bugs out.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I cannot disagree more. There is NOTHING a team should be able to do with code on its robot that should bring down the entire field.

If FIRST has not protected itself from this then they have failed.

Having competed in Baltimore last weekend and being an essentially rookie team with very limited programming skill on the team, I can say that the system this year is a big step back in terms of increased complexity and reduced reliability.

Having a Windows XP PC for display is okay, useful, etc. However, imho, building a real time control system with 6 to 10 Windows XP PCs in the loop without a professional grade, real time software overlord on each is like playing Russian Roulette -- someone is eventually going to get a bullet the brain.

Looks like the Israeli Regional took one for the team last weekend.

Many regrets.

Joe J.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Well, after being in the field 3 days (including nights) long, I can tell you that there was no one as the Event Manager. Chris, Shahar and I were fighting these comm problems al the time. eventually we figured out how to make things work. Also the match on the 3rd day that didn't work at all was self-inflicted by one of the robots, incorrect robot code can send loads of errors and since we couldn't use our strong router these errors made the system crash. we COULD'NT tell which robot was the one with the errors and we didn't have the time to run a full diagnostic scan.

Problem is that in Israel everyone thinks they know the best thing to do. Hint, THEY DON'T people should stop messing around with codes they don't know without help!!

All we can do now is hope that our plan to give some seminars will help.
I know people are disappointed but our main problem was that Israel's goshdarn goverment didn't let us use 5Gighz so the main server didnt work.

Just to give you guys a cclue about what happened, we ran an Off-Season Event for the robot controls using FMS Lite, and the scoring and sounds and everything else was done by the FMS Server which was not connected to the robots. we had to run them simultanously and manually. so I hope you understand,

Lior

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

from my point of view it looks like the orginizers didn't think about that there was not anyone from usfirst who know the field and it's accessories. It must to have anyone who know the field and it's elements like the router. One of our mentor built a lot of wireless networks in israel and he said that the router's place was wrong because the signals got to audience and not to the robots.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

The regional sure was disappointing,but the communication problems could be if you program your robot right (we tried to send as least data as possible and we didn't have any problems during the games,they just took so long to start...)
And about the hanging:

The picture speaks for itself.
(By the way-the battery onlt fell after the game ended so we didn't get a penelty!)

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I am so sorry to hear about all of the problems that were had at the Israeli regional. I know that if I had been there I would have been going out of my mind.

In NYC this past weekend they got pretty backed up with matches that they decided to have both of the awards ceremonies on Sunday night and then limit it to 2 people to pick up the awards when announced. Saturday night though the pits closed at 7 pm so we definitely had time to do awards. I would have preferred that rather than getting home at 11 pm Sunday night. :( :(

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

For those of us North Americans that don't know:

In Israel, the 5GHz frequency band that we use to run our robots is a restricted military frequency, and they're not allowed to use it. This is likely the source of much of the Israeli Regional's problems, as FIRST HQ and FIRST in Israel had to come up with an alternate solution using the 2.4GHz band. This solution was probably less than perfectly tested, and hasn't got nearly the mileage on it the our 5GHz based system does here in NA.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Sounds alot like some of the US regionals. Invalid results because of persistant field comm problems.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

That is really a saddening and disappointing experience. I hope that you stay with it, because FIRST is truly a wonderful program and regionals usually are something so rare and wonderful to behold. It's like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I wish you all the best, and I hope that you guys stay with it and hopefully they get these kind of problems fixed.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

This is not the programmers fault... yes some teams had "Watchdog Not Fed" on their DS but most of the teams had "No Robot Communication" when they had communication problems...
"No Robot Communication" can only happen by a field error that is related to the field router and robot access-point, and "Watchdog Not Fed" is programmers fault most of the time as far as i know.
As the driver of team 2230 i can assure you that during most of the games the communication problems were because there was no communication with the robot, and even in our semi-finals game, two robots in our alliance didn't have communication at all with the robot during most of the game (team 1690 and team 2214) which caused the game to be 3 robots against 1 robot, and since it is the elimination games the robots where good (we were against teams 2630 1657 and 2669 the regional champions) so we didn't stand a chance, and the field crew didn't even care about all the communication problems and continued the game normally like nothing happened. and we didn't even had a chance to fix it because of the stupid decision to make the elimination games 1 match and not the best out of 3 games.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

With all the fuss about the communication problems, everybody forgot to mention problems that were far more important. The Israel Regional showed a lack of understanding and commitment to the values of FIRST.

The comm problems created an incredibly stressful and difficult environment to compete in. Most teams managed to make the best of the situation and compete fairly. However, the regional had two major Gracious Professionalism incidents:

• I don't know the full details on what lead up to this incident, but after one of our matches, drive teams from team 1574 (MisCar) and team 3076 (Ort Arad) began yelling at our drive team and also throwing food at them. Following this incident, FIRST Israel administration talked to these teams. 3076's captain apologized, while MisCar's refused. At the end of the day, it was announced that MisCar was being disqualified from the tournament, and that they are requested to leave. Our team petitioned FIRST to reverse it's decision, as it harmed those on the team who were not involved. Most of the team later came by our pit and apologized. On the third day MisCar was allowed to play and their captain gave a public apology before their first match.
  
  In past years, MisCar has been an undefeated champion (until '09). They always managed to bring to the field an impressive and robust robot. Many teams, including ourselves considered them the best in the country. All of this makes the situation so much more unfortunate.
  
• As someone mentioned here earlier, all finals were a 1-match elimination, and not best-of-3. The first Semi-Final tied 5-5, and the winners decided by coin toss (FIRST announced beforehand they would do this in case of a tie). While this is an enormous injustice to the losing teams, their reaction is unacceptable. After losing the toss they quickly left the field. Right before the Final match was started, members of Team 2672 (Osfia), and others whose team number I do not recall, stormed the field, sat on the bumps, and demanded a rematch. The students were cheered on by adults, their teachers and mentors. Only after several embarrassing minutes were they removed from the field. Since the final match was several hours behind schedule (even the Head Referee had to leave before it was over) , team leaders for teams that live far away, who had moved mountains to arrange travel arrangements for their teams at that hour, were delayed even further.
  This incident was worsened by the fact that Osfia team members belong to a minority group in Israel, and during this ordeal some race-related provocation came from the audience.
  
  All teams and individuals involved should be ashamed, especially the adults.
  As a side note, FIRST definitely needs to hire better security at the entrance to the field.

As to the technical problems, 1075guy is absolutely right. I hope that in the future FIRST engineers give more effort to a suitable workaround in Israel. The use of 802.11g (2.4GHz) instead of 802.11n (5GHz) more than halved the bandwidth of wireless communications. Whenever too much data flooded the router, it would lose comm. This flood of data was caused mostly, from what the field crew told me, by error messages generated by the Watchdogs in some team's code. The problem lies with FIRST for not preparing for this situation, as well as with the teams who improperly coded their robot.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I have one question, and only one. Aside from the frequency:

Did all the teams log out of their Driver profile and log back in between matches (and/or make sure their Developer profile was logged out)? That backed up Arizona for a while, before teams started doing that in the queue line. Don't ask me why that screwed up communications (I was still trying to get teams inspected), but apparently it did.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

You aren't alone. Sounds a lot like Bayou.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

That's not all, some prizes was not given due to series time trouble. I don't recall seeing the Woodie Flowers Award, Industirial Design Award and Website Award being given.

All the points from the qualification rounds that was played on the second day were canceled within a democratic choice between all captains. The ranking was concluded from three games total for each team.

The video of the Chairman award winners wasn't presented along with the Imagry award animation (which was stopped in the middle!), again due to time trouble.

The Semi-final which my team was concluded in a toss of a coin, there was no time for best out of three matches in the finals.

In the final game two bots weren't working, one of our alliance robot (the striker) had communication problems which has nothing to do with the code (their robot worked perfectly well in the semi-final and the quarter finale with the same program). We end up losing the game (#3075).

With that said, and the rest of the problems that the guys mentioned in earlier posts, I can say it was a disaster.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

It is good that you have CD to discuss some of the issues that affected your regional. I'm not sure if it is ok to discuss the particulars of the teams but I leave that to your judgment. It sounds like there were tremendous pressures for everyone involved that were compounded by problems.

Perhaps those of you who have posted in this thread could work together to write a letter outlining the difficulties in the different areas and how they culminated into the end result that you are discussing here. It would be good to have as many of your facts straight as possible and to leave as much emotion out of it as you can. You've all done an excellent job in this thread even though you have been able to express the frustration you've dealt with. We can listen to you but we can't do anything to help you other than to offer suggestions such as the one I'm offering.

If you decide to write to FIRST and would like for me to help you with your letter, I would be more than happy to do that with you.

Jane

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I can't say that I agree with discussing incidents that occurred and naming names like you did, but what's done is done.

I think Jane made the best point in this entire thread - the spirit of first is to acknowledge that bad things happen, and decide you want to make them better.

Make a list of every single thing that went wrong at that regional. Work back to the root cause of each, and then write a letter to first and to the regional organizers suggesting solutions.

Some things I can come up with off the top of my head:

1. Have the teams come out a day in advance with their robots, take them to the field, and work through the communications issues with them.

2. Hold the event in a school gymnasium or other venue that will give you and extra day or two should you need it.

3. Annouce ahead of time that this is FIRST, and political / religious / other affiliations should be left at the door in the spirit of gracious professionalism.

I can't understand the call for more security at a FIRST event. What an incredibly different atmosphere you must be working in that what we have over here in the States.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I had thought about this some time ago. I wonder if its possible for FIRST HQ to go to the Israeli Government, and request special permission to use the 5GHz Military band (802.11n) for the purposes of the FIRST program, due to the immense benefits it provides to the involved students.

Its not the 802.11n is explicitly outlawed in Israel, merely that the 5GHz band it resides in is reserved for Military use. Whether or not its actually in active use remains open for discussion (I know theres lots of frequency bands reserved like that that sit unused) and I doubt that our 802.11n radios would have any appreciable level of interference with whatever Military equipment they might be running on that band.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Regarding the 5GHz band, it may also depend on whatever they're using in the area. For instance, if you're close to a base or outpost, then you may have a harder time trying to get it cleared.

Now I don't know the specifics of your government or the technology used, but that's my assumption.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

It doesn't sound like FIRST can succeed in Israel. If coaches are urging students to disrupt matches there is no hope....

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I disagree completely with that statement, there are many people in the world who do not respect others or their differences... including both adults and young people. :confused: That is not a reason to lose hope... that is part of what FIRST may be able to (and is trying to) teach the next generation. That we must work together even in the midst of competition (read as "coopertition").

This is not a reason to stop trying... If we give up then we will definitely not succeed.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Hello all,

Could I ask a few questions? Did Israel have a pre-ship competition? Are the teams in Israel helping each other?

Washington State, due to both Kevin and Deb, has gone through a huge growth spurt. We borrowed the idea of a kick off robot build from Oklahoma, (thanks Ed (476), Ken (476), and Ron (1750)), where we make sure, or at least try, every rookie team has the latest code on as well as know what to do to get the system going. This also opens up communication between our Rookies and Vet teams.

Both Oregon and Washington sends their Head Robot Inspector to pre-ship events just to see what the problems are going to be. Holding a pre-ship event, and trying to make it as close to the real event as possible, highlights problems that will show up at the regional.

I think if a little bit more of a support structure was put into place in Israel, the teams would not be getting to the regional with code that could cause the problems described here.

-Jim

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

You're right... this is easily the most disturbing portion of this entire thread. The coaches and mentors of those teams should be even more ashamed of themselves than the students ought to be. Those teams need to be taught the purpose of this competition.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

As a long time participant in FIRST competitions (student, volunteer and mentor) and an active volunteer in FIRST Israel, I'd like to chime in if I may (noting that any opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent those of FIRST, or FIRST Israel).

Right from the start, I think there is no question that this year's regional was quite simply a disaster and that the, the communication problem which plagued the regional was a crippling blow to teams competing at the Israeli regional (what the Turkish, Bosnian and two Californian teams must think of us now... :( ).

While a handful of teams exhibited extremely disappointing behavior, it has not been noted here (and so I will make the point myself) that the vast majority of teams were kind and understanding, keeping their head high throughout the competition and trying to make the most of a very unpleasant situation.

For this I would like to applaud the teams: the Israeli students have consistently shown true character in these past seasons, proving their understanding of, and commitment to, FIRST's core values.

I must agree with Jane's suggestion: Internet forums are nice and dandy (I'm writing this in a ChiefDelphi Forums T-Shirt!) but real world action is most definitely in order!

I think you all know how to contact me in the real world or online if you need any help.

To the Worldwide FIRST community:
Please understand that teams were placed under stresses and strains far beyond what they could ever be expected to withstand.
Thus these "incidents", while being very serious, are far from representative of the FIRST Israel community which is, as I stated above, a thriving and powerful community which is very committed to the core values of FIRST

-Leav Oz-Ari

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Leav - What the teams are probably thinking is, wow - what an experience! That would be what our team would think. It is amazing for me to even think we have a Bosnian team. How very very cool is that? And a Turkish team and they competed at the regional in Israel.

Sometimes - as hard as it is, we have to look at the bigger picture. When communications sputter or fail. When emotions gather into a potential storm. When teams have to find compromise in the midst of a fierce need and want to compete and compete well. The posts in this thread by the members of 7 different teams from the regional - so far - show that you all have held your heads high and that you want to compete and compete well. It also shows that more work needs to be done. Bayou had problems. We all watched as the teams and the volunteers struggled to make it work. My team is competing in Dallas this week and I hope for and wish for a smooth efficient competition. I do. But, what I know is that the FRC teams are tough and made up of people who understand what it takes to build a robot to compete in an FRC competition. They will deal with the situation just as all of you dealt with what happened at your regional. Where you may have lost in communications with the robots, you gained in communicating with Gracious Professionalism. All of you. You strove for it.

We can all learn from this.
Jane

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Fellow FIRSTers,

Thank you Leav for your comments. I was proud to present Leav with the Volunteer of the Year award. Leav represents the high quality we have seen amongst Israeli students, and now, alumni. In fact, there seems to be a strange illness which 'infects' those now in the IDF who were on FRC teams.....the only cure seems to be tireless efforts at the Israeli Regional.

As one of the volunteers (JA, Field Setup, etc) who has assisted every year in Israel, let me state the facts:

First of all, let me state that key volunteers (Israel & US) worked tirelessly around the clock with 0-2 hours/night sleep. Our FTA's worked 40 hours straight aided by Israeli coffee and hummus.

1. The FIRST Israel team had to make some very tough decisions because of the tight constraints and circumstances we faced. The team's interests were always in the forefront. We are all upset that we didn't have a perfect competition.
2. FIRST Israel did an exemplary job in communicating issues to the teams; they simply didn't like the facts.
3. In Israel, we use 2.4 GHz with 802.11n, NOT g.
4. We had the benefit finally of a secret Military Intell Comms unit (they guys who can make your cell phone explode) who worked around the clock to get the system working.
5. Working with Andrew from NI (who was fantastic!) and the IDF guys, we were able to ascertain that the issue was partially one of bandwidth, one of team software, and perhaps unknown hardware issues. Basically, we have seen what happens when a complex operating system meets limited bandwidth and hardware.
6. FIRST HQ support was always available by skype, but they hadn't had this
problem in the US.
7. We have been thanked by many teams, including the rookie Bosnian team who stated they want to come back next year.
8. There will be an audit with FIRST Israel and FIRST HQ to do a failure analysis; the results will be valuable to all of us.
9. At the end of the day, despite the field disaster, it was a great educational experience for the teams in Gracious Professionalism.
10. All awards were given out, with the exception of the Coopetition Award and the Highest Rookie Seed award. Due to the late hour, we needed to finish by 9 pm or the plug would be pulled by the stadium.
11. We had a great Event Manager, Faza. They do a fantastic job; but they don't do routers.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

In San Diego, intermittently a robot on the field would never come ready. A Field Tech would work on the control system, under the drivers' station, and sometimes it would be fixed, and sometimes not. I know this had to be frustrating to the teams and alliances affected.

Speaking as a hardware/software guy, sometimes this happens. I've had demos fail in front of real or potential customers. What can be learned from all this? When today's students become professonals and find themselves creating products, you'll remember what happened to you as students and take extra care to avoid it. And to those who end up in management, remember that quality takes time, resources, and money.

And when the crashes happen, you learn from it, and you go on.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Measure yourself by your best moments, not by your worst. We are too prone to judge ourselves by our moments of despondency and depression.
- Robert Johnson

Mr. Johnson has it right ;-)

I don't think we should judge the entire Israeli FIRST efforts by one event after one very long, tiring, and emotional day.

Joe J.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I have to agree, the regional may not have went smoothly but it does NOT mean it is impossible for FRC to succeed there. FIRST (and all involved) need to determine what went right, what went wrong, and what they can change.

This regional has shown us that there are still major problems with the way FRC runs international events and that we need to work harder.

We need to step back, admit that mistakes were made (by all parties) and figure out what we can do to fix them in the future. We don't need to blame people or groups, we need to find solutions.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I'm one of two team captain of team 3316, it was a big disappointment for my team that this year had so many issues because all of our team members but 2 are going to graduate this year and thus not experience this wonderful experience again.

There were many issues except the communication issues, my team had only one match working properly out of the 3 which we were supposed to compete in (aside the 1/4 finals). in the 2nd match the robot which we played with (3339) was supposed to hang and thus win the match but the communications failed in the last 15 seconds and cause the results to be the exact opposite.

We addressed the judges directly claiming that a re-match was a must and all they said was there is no time, i cannot understand why a competition that could have technical failures of this magnitude is being played in an arena that cannot allow any time extensions, it is a serious matter that has to be solved in the future in my opinion.

Besides that, before our 2nd game our modem cable was gone even tho we didn't move our robot at all, we suggested that other team took it after searching all over the place and the judges didn't even give us extra time causing other teams to suffer when each match is crucial..

It was truly heartbreaking to see the final being 3 teams against 2 for most of it while one robot is blocking a goal. I fell sorry for the teams that came from california, one of them was on top on the 1st day and ended ranked 43 in the second day despite a brilliant robot..

I hope the issues will be resolved next year, even though it was my first and final year in this project as a student.

David

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Except that in Bayou, all scheduled matches were played, the award ceremonies went as planned, and there were no racial slurs being tossed around. I feel sorry for the Israeli teams and hopefully conditions will be improved next year.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I completely agree. The blue box last year was a real-time system that did have its own problems. Hopefully FIRST can settle on a middle ground and test the equipment completely.

I believe this also stems from not allowing all the teams to test the Driver Station / cRio code until Kickoff. Out of the fifty Beta teams with access to the 2010 system only a handful posted documentation on the system. The Lunacy Beta test model was the best implementation of Beta testing so far.

At Bayou , we had major problems due to not updating the Driver Station firmware. Check to make sure your DS firmware is the latest.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

What do you mean teams couldn't test the cRio/Driver station until kickoff?

The REAL issue here is that FIRST continues to put amateurs in charge of developing the programming environment. Total disaster this year with C++, our code was blowing up for WEEKS into build season before the WPI guys fixed their library... absolutely inexcusable that these guys who cannot even compile their own library are given the task of providing the programming tools for hundreds/thousands of teams using C++... It is simply outrageous that after 2 years deployment FIRST had to scramble to put out a working cRio image/ robotics library in the final week or so...

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Feel free to blame whichever topical thing to dislike about FRC you want, but no beta test team tested or anticipated the need to test the system the way Israel had to run it due to government regulations.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Oh really? Amateurs? And I suppose you know these people personally?

Then I suppose any old ungrateful team could write their own fully functioning code from scratch?

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I'm curious to hear from 1662 and 1836 (the two Californian teams) about this issue. Their perspective would be interesting given their frame of reference to American regionals and their viewpoint as a competitor (and one from a foreign nation, at that).

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

What course of action do you propose, then? Instead of pointing fingers and blaming people for what's wrong, why not give some sort of constructive criticism on how to fix the current system? As evidenced by Team Update #16, FIRST does, at times, listen to the concerns of the greater FIRST community.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I don't want to totally derail this thread so I will be concise.

FIRST should use a simple AVR microcontroller with a basic library for abstraction. NO OS ON THE ROBOT. NO PRECOMPILED LIBRARY. NO MULTIPLE UPDATES IN A SINGLE WEEK. Keep it simple stupid. Despite all of FIRSTS efforts - almost no teams use vision tracking this year. There is no reason for teams needing a $1000 subsidized cRIO. C is better for students to learn than Labview.

Back on topic - SO why couldn't Israeli teams test their code?

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

If you really don't want to derail this thread, you better explain and have a good warrant and reason to every one of your claims.

FIRST just moved away from a simple microcontroller for a reason.. I am awestruck by the lag-less target detection and advanced driving systems that have risen from the ability for real time complex mathematical computations that the cRio was able to deliver. That 8 bit controller using interrupts would've been no where close enough.

That sounds nice. But then again, it's much easier said then done. If you want "simple stupid" maybe FRC isn't for you.

You are quite uninformed. I'll leave it at that.

Perhaps there's no reason... But that's not for us to decide. It's also not for us to decide whether or not C or LabView is more useful, as they aren't mutually exclusive skills or toolsets.


I think I can imagine the scope of the horrible event and letdown the Israel Regional may have been. But I think we don't need to keep complaining or whining or telling FIRST that they messed up. Like in a music concert, the performers are the FIRST to know if there was a mistake, even a minute one that goes unheard to the audience. I think that there's no reason for people to be bashing the Israel Regional, at this point. Just be patient with FIRST and FRC and eventually they will have it solved. I hope that the competition is more than just getting in to matches and winning. I had always thought and believed that FIRST was for something greater, the experience, the work ethic, the team work, the spirit, the connections and relationships, and the generosity (Gracious Professionalism) at the competitions. Let's show Dean, Woodie, and rest of FIRST that we can handle minor hiccups like those that went down in Israel.

Keehun
Team 2502

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Leav and Jon explained what happened pretty well, I'll try to give you the FTA's PoV once I get home

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Not sure of the feasibility, but perhaps FIRST should allow any of the teams participating in the Israeli regional who can swing it the opportunity to go to Atlanta.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

On the contrary, FIRST probably has a better chance of succeeding in Isreal than it does here in the US. I would be greatly surprised if any of the US Regionals would be able to carry on with their program if they experienced technical problems any where near what Isreal did, given the pressure any teams in the region are already under.

Compared to Isreal, the Bayou Regional had minor technical problems. They caused delays of up to several hours and forced several matches to be replayed. There were some communications problems throughout the regional but the majority seemed to always be with the same robots. Not sure how much of that you can blame on the field. Every team still got to play 10 qualifiers even though it ran late every night.

Just to make it clear, the following incidents happened at the BAYOU REGIONAL in the US, NOT in Isreal:

A timer problem caused one of the quarter-final matches to be replayed. 1912, the top seed and #1 alliance, lost the re-played match and was eliminated from the playoffs. This lead to an incident of one of the team members throwing things on the field which caused the announcer to stop the proceedings,which he stated was unprecedented in FIRST, and chastise the team for their behavior. Try to imagine what might have happened if a coin-toss had decided the match. This was NOT a low-funded rookie team, but one of the older powerhouse teams in the region who went on to win the Chairman's Award at the Bayou after this incident!

The field did not get any visibility of many of their problems on Thursday because there was never a full field of robots to test with. The practice schedule was totally abandoned and the announcers were begging for any team with a running robot to bring it to the field for practice matches so they could test the field. This is not a reflection on the field system, it is a result of the complex operating system on the robot which only a few teams have the mentors or students to fully understand.

Their were also difficulties with many teams passing inspection. At 5:00 Thursday afternoon 4 teams had passed inspection. There were several statements made by predominantly black teams that the white teams had an "easier" inspection. The last team did not make it through inspection until their last match, but still qualified 8th and were an alliance captain. This directly lead to some of the qualifying changes in Update 16.

Compared to Isreal, these were all EXTREMELY minor problems. Yet they still quickly lead to dissension and a loss of Gracious Professionalism among the teams. Given the same pressures, anyone who thinks that a United States regional would turn out any better than the Isreali regional is severely mistaken. I would commend the teams at the Isreali regional for carrying on despite the adverse conditions.

If FIRST is really serious about their mission, they will reconsider their use of a control system that is so complicated that only a relatively few strong teams are proficient with it, much less the bunch of volunteers trying to integrate it into a field system and run a regional. It is quickly leading to a situation where there are 2 distinct levels of teams. A small team that spends it's entire 6 week build time fighting with the control system instead of building an effective robot is quickly disappointed and won't be back once the "free" grants run out.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Umm... Wow, just wow. I can't believe what I have read here.

First off, field problems exist and always will. You cannot run a competition without a few hiccups. Of course, by what I've read, the whole regional was a big hiccup, but that's besides the point for the behavior exhibited here.

Why were their fights breaking out in a FIRST competition? I know it's a competitive competition, but there's no reason for violence or harsh language. Each and every team has their own enemies... but you should use that to your advantage and use the determination it gives you to make a better robot and to perform better on the team. I'm honestly ashamed that a FIRST team would behave this way, let alone more than just one team. It reflects bad on everyone. It makes me feel guilty that a fellow FIRST team would do this, yet I'm thousands of miles away and had nothing to do with the incident.

You should always leave race, religion, politics, etc... out the door at any competition or generally, any public event. I hate how all of those are such a deciding factor in everything we do today. The world would be such a better place if people kept all of this at home and not in the public. Of course, it doesn't work this way, and I see problems every day in America in the public and in the schools... even on our own team, but I don't let it get to me, and neither should anyone else. I think this is truly a problem that will fix itself if everyone just ignored it.

Anyway, I'm disappointed in all the teams that caused a fuss in the Israel Regional. I know the situation wasn't the best, but that's no excuse.

Remember, what you do reflects the image of every other FIRST team.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

There were no fights and no violence. as stated above a team did walk on the field and sat on the bumps as a protest of what they deemed unfair behavior on the side of FIRST.
While this behavior is by no means acceptable, it is a far cry from being violent.

Agreed.

Again, agreed. Though I'd like to point again that this was a tiny minority and that the vast majority of teams displayed exemplary coolheadedness (is that a word? :confused: ) throughout a very stressful and disappointing regional event.

-Leav

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I feel really bad for all of the teams and especially any first year teams member who were seniors, and therefore may never get to experience a good competition.

What about taking up the challenge of putting on the biggest and best off-season competition in the world? You could even call it IRI2 (Isreali Robotics Invitational). Get the bugs worked out and invite all of the teams back to do it right in the off season. No, it won't substitute for the real thing, but it will give teams the chance to compete at a high level. And who knows, it might turn out every bit as good as an official event (just look at the IRI).

Of course, that's easy for me to say sitting in my office 4000 miles away.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

As I read this thread I couldn't help but feeling a bit angry at what happened.

I'm not angry towards the actions of team members, the lack of professionalism shown by some, or the protest towards the result of a tie. After reading into what happened, I cannot say that I would've been anymore professional in that situation, and I feel that a lot of the tension between teams and people were indirectly caused by issues on the field. (Long days full of frustration will begin to tire even the best people to the point of snapping.)

What makes me angry is this: We, (FIRST in the USA & Canada), have event after event, both on and off season and I've never heard of a Regional running so far behind that teams only got three matches. I almost feel like the Israel FIRST community has gotten the short end of the stick by not having the proper time to test and debug their unique version of the control system. (Never knew about the difference in radios) I feel like next year FIRST should aid in the Hosting of a Pre-Ship Scrimmage for the Israeli teams so that this can be avoided.

And the idea of having a match decided by a coin toss is something I cannot wrap my head around. I understand that a replay of a match would delay the event substantially, but deciding a match by a coin toss just doesn't seem like the way to go. I know that I would've been livid if I were on the losing side of this coin toss, and I actually applaud the team that chose to sit on the bump peacefully before going off the handle on those in charge.

Regardless, I think we as a FIRST community should do everything in our power to make sure that this NEVER happens again.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Sorry, but you are wrong. there was a fight between 2672's crowd and security. Our mentor was at the field at the time and tried to take pictures for future reference and he got punched by someone for no reason.

My team (3088) was part of the alliance that lost by a coin toss. yes, we were frustrated but i'm proud of my teammates for not losing their calm and not joining the mess that want there. Moreover, we talked to the great FIRST Israel staff and asked for their apology (even though we did nothing) and thanked them for all they did for us on those 3 days.

I'm proud of my teammates for playing fair all along, no matter if we were 50th in the 2nd day or 2nd in the 3rd day. We didn't join the "Misgav Rebellion" and kept our cool all the time, although a lot of bad things happend to us.
- 3076 ate our food, stole our drink cans, put their stickers all over our belongings, even though we told them not to. they even had the courage to ask us to take them to our alliance. GOD!
- A detonator was thrown into our pit and exploded after the event and some of our students were hurt. I hope that FIRST Israel will find the responsible and punish them as needed. Who brings firecrackers to a robotics event?!
- Our medallions were taken by another team (probably). When we came to take our medallions we found out that somebody already took them. What the hell?!
- As Jon said, the Coopertition award was not handed out, and we understand why. I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be ours...

Other highlights:
- 44 penalty in one game(!) (not ours)
- Our bot failed at almost every system we built so we cut down the whole thing and were left only with an unworking kicker, brilliant autonomous and strategies. We finished 2nd and we didn't even try to lose. As i mentioned we got to the semi's with 2672 and 3065. We picked them for strategic reasons, knowing only their bots, we didn't care who were the crews. it's a shame it ended that way...
- We respected the request of 1690 and 2630 not to pick them so they could be with each other. we are humans after all and this game is not only strategy for us, even though that could have been the most dangerous alliance ever. it's a shame how many teams tried to convince us to break that partnership just to make the life of others easier. it's a shame imo that 2672 did break that alliance in the end...
- We cheered for almost every team that was on the field, no matter on which side it was.

I hope that FIRST will di their HW for next year...

BTW:
Michelle Graf <3 (best MC in the world :P)

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

...I don't even know what to say.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Wow... I'm not sure I've ever seen or heard of an FRC event (official, or offseason) with more problems and disregard for the values that make FRC what it is. I'm sure that there were many teams at the Israeli Regional that "get FIRST" and I'm sure they were appalled at some of what was going on.

Hopefully FIRST Israel gets the problems worked out for next year. It seems like from the sound of one of the earlier posts the Israeli Military is involved with FRC there. Perhaps they can give FIRST Israel clearance to use the system from US/Canada Regionals as is.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

just a comment about those things.

- Breaking a strong alliance is a tactic well known to FIRST and it has been used by very GP teams in previous years. It's a part of the competition, and just in the same way that you are "ashamed" someone didn't let them unite, i can say that there are people who are "ashamed" that teams decline invitations. If 1690 agreed, they might have won, who knows.

- Don't be so sure that this award should have been yours. It's not GP to say and even think so in my opinion. It's just an award and if you think you deserve it, it's far more important. If the Judges were so sure that this award belong to a team, that team would have received it.

- Call FIRST and ask for medallions. They will be provided, you fully deserve them.

- The firecracker issue has nothing to do with FIRST. You may go and tell the police about the incident. if you please.

- Who is 3076, and how the hell did they eat your food? and how are you sure it was them. The fact that they put some stickers around your pit and in it doesnt mean they ate your food. Do not be so quick to blame others.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

All this problems were caused by less than 5 teams, and it will be taken care of, be assured.

There is, however, no way that the army will let us use those systems.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

According to the results posted on FIRSTs website, team 3088 was the team that *should* have received the Coopertition(TM) Award. This award is to be awarded to the team that receives the most Coopertition Points.

I suspect that it was not awarded due to the abnormally low number of matches played.

I disagree that it is "un-GP" to claim that one deserved a merit based award such as this, when the person making that claim did GENUINELY meet the requirements for the award.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Hi all,

Yes, it was a disaster.
Yes, it was heart-braking for most (except for 2630, maybe...;) ).
Yes, it was extremely "unfair".
Yes, a few (way fewer than what the general impression is on this thread) lost their calm and did not behave up to the FIRST spirit.

B - U - T :

I watched the young students, parents and mentors, mainly on our team, and observed -

99.9% of the thousands of participants of the 55 teams (largest regional outside North America) had the fun of their lives - even when crying their hearts out (which my daughter did when we lost the semifinals).
The kids were true heroes, struggling to the very end (mostly - to the bitter end), never losing hope, never complaining, always striving to overcome the enormous difficulties (way beyond their ability to control), using the long breaks to keep improving their robot (!), demonstrating what Vince Lombardi really meant by: "...my teams never lose, it's just that sometimes they run out of time before they win...".
All this happened while really co-operating, giving a hand to each other: our own experiences - volunteers from our team worked for hours to help alleviate the comm problems - instead of sleeping or fixing their own robot, while on the receiving end, when our team's Classmate broke, one of the Californian teams (1836 - God bless them :o ) offered us their own computer until ours was fixed!
I felt very proud when, after a game that was reset numerous times, including the "food incident", then waiting for an hour and a half for decisions, hearing that another team had been eliminated by the judges, the young students of our team immediately petitioned to pardon the other team, although our team was the one hurt at this incident, and although the other team was one of the strongest of this regional - the kids saying: "we don't want to win this way - we want to beat them on the field, lose on the field or team with them - but fair and square".
And, finally - after losing the semifinals in the most heartbreaking way (apart for the other semifinal coin-toss:( ), when our team's robot remained the single active robot of the alliance, trying to stop 2630's fearsome scoring-machine single-handed (literally) from setting a new scoring record, the kids stood up and gave their field team a standing ovation...

Sorry - what was that again about "FIRST cannot succeed in Israel"? Guess I misread one of the posts here...;)

Thumbs up for e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e in the Israel regional, be very proud of what you achieved this year, tomorrow's another day - and we'll be back for 2011: next year we won't run out of time before winning...:D

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

In this case i have been wrong, and take my words back. They do deserve this award and should contact FIRST in order to receive it.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Also, to the person several posts back commenting on a Turkish team attending the Israeli Regional, this is not at all surprising. The Israel regional is geographically the closest regional to them by a factor of several thousand miles.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

i think he was referring tho the political incidents between those countries, and the fact that it didn't stop them from coming.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

And the fact that it didn't stop them from coming.

Sorry, I just wanted to repeat that because it is one of the most important things that this thread demonstrates. Despite regional tensions, despite everything, this event STILL helped to increase awareness of other cultures. I don't care if that isn't a stated goal of FIRST (I think it should be if it isn't) but that is a nobel accomplishment if I ever saw one.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I made a comment about a Turkish team competing at the regional and I wasn't making any political comments. I was commenting on the wonder of it.

(Not everything has to be about the politics, all the time. Sometimes, it can just be about the incredible opportunities presented.)

Jane

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Ah, yes, FRC joins the masses. I didnt realize there was political unrest between Turkey and Israel.

Reminds me of a statement I either heard, or made years ago.

FIRST is among the only places where you can find a GM and FORD logo on the SAME piece of machinery.

EDIT: It was me, in my 2nd year of FRC (2004). I was in Grade 10 (a Sophomore) at the time. Here's the link: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=26363

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

You've hit the nail directly on it's head, and there's more:

Even though surrounded by a hostile Arab region, the Israel regional boasts quite a few Arab-Israeli teams, some of which did very well and even won one of the trophies. In fact, a day earlier, an Arab-Israeli team won the FLL regional and is flying to Atlanta to represent the FLL Israel regional!

FIRST does bring people together:)

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Haha, same goes for Raytheon and BAE Systems.

I also agree with Jared that I don't know what to say. I'm mad that it happened and yet I can see it happening when you have those restrictions on you and the many races attending. I would recommend that you guys get together and have a huge off season tournament so you can compete against each other in a form of a regional format. You could possibly talk to teams about having them give back whatever awards were given out and get those that weren't so you can truly crown some Israeli champions. Like Jane said, lets get some positive action going after this and work to fix the problems so it won't happen again. Maybe several teams can get together with their robots to find a way to run a match using 2.4GHZ to start ironing out the comm problems and have programming workshops to help out with the daunting task of coding robots.

Good luck guys and whatever you do, do it with the principles of FIRST in mind!:) :)

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I know this would be a touchy issue- but does anyone know if FIRST is considering a refund/compensation?

It is an awful lot of money for up to 3 matches.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

All that I can really say is that I'm impressed. I'm impressed with some of the actions taken by some teams that CLEARLY did not fall under the umbrella of Gracious Professionalism. I'm impressed with the teams who handled the event with cool heads, and left the event still smiling. Next year, when the regional WILL run smoothly, you can bet that those teams will be the leaders and will be the ones to get the most out of it. Hopefully, the rookie teams who did not have an enjoyable event will be completely awed by the experience of a fully-functional, 8-to-10-matches-per-team regional. As for the teams who decided to ignore all of the values and ideals of FIRST, well, let's hope that they've realized that the competitions are ONLY what YOU make them to be. If you put out a bad attitude, you will receive a bad attitude.

Thank you to all of the mentors and students who attended the event for your views, accounts, and input, even the ones whose posts have been interpreted as either borderline or flat-out rude (I think that we all know how hard it is to be civil when we're upset, frustrated, and disappointed).

Also, I have a question that may have been asked (I read the first half of this thread last night while working on my homework), but I don't think it was: did the controls system work last year? Was the same radio frequency used? If both are true, how much of a drastic change has the field electronics system gone through?

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

You call countless communication issues, teams only being able to play three official qualifying matches, elimination rounds decided on a coin toss, food being thrown at competitors and the use of racial slurs to be a "minor hiccup"? I'm all for looking for the positive in situations, but at a certain point we need to be realistic. I'd hate to ever see what it would take for you to call something a major hiccup. Elephants stampeding the field?

Gracious Professionalism is a two way street. 55 teams participated at the Israel Regional and from most descriptions, most of these teams handled the extreme adversity that was thrown at them with a lot of class. Despite the best efforts of the FIRST staff and local volunteers, the event sounds like it was a relative disaster. I'm not assigning blame here, but I'm just calling a spade a spade. The gracious and professional thing for FIRST to do is offer some sort of compensation or registration credit for all teams attending the event. Say I went to a restaurant and a water main blew, soaking myself and all the other customers. The graciously professional way for me to handle the situation would be to politely express my displeasure to the management and offer some help. The graciously professional response from the restaurant would be to refund my meal and offer me some sort of discount in the future. It's not something I would demand, but I sure would appreciate the olive branch.

Teams spent six long and hard weeks preparing for this event. 31 teams at this event only played 3 official matches. That's six minutes and forty-five seconds of robot action. For some people, this will be the only experience of their FIRST careers. At the end of the day do you really think it's appropriate to pat them on the back and say "Sorry, there's nothing we can do. At least you learned something about dealing with adversity!".

One possible solution to reward these teams. Perhaps there could be an "unofficial, yet official" off-season event this summer, where teams would play Breakaway with all the pomp and circumstance of an official regional. To top things off, grant qualification spots to winners to attend the 2011 World Championship. We clearly can't replay the 2010 Israel Regional, but maybe something like this would provide an avenue for these teams to get some level of redemption.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I have to agree with everyone here, even though there are two opposite opinions about this regional.
I -MUST- say that even after the first two days destroyed every bit of optimism, most (but not all) of the teams still played a fair game with their head high.
We worked on our robot, like everyone did, on every available moment just for those six and a half minutes of glory.
We didn't let any problem to get us down - we just kept on playing.
This competition is much more than winning or playing - it's a life chaging event.
The fact that we had a fully-functional robot, after all we have been through, as a team of only 17 years old was enough to make us happy.We just knew that we did it, even if we didn't have the chance to "show off" our bot.

First have, and will allways have place in israel. I saw all the teams helping each other - if its giving away your classmate's battery even if you have a match 5 minutes later or fixing your opponents' bot 5 minutes before your game (both happened to me and i know it happened to many more).

It was my second year in First after re-opening our school , and im sure there will be a third year. A few communication problems won't take us down :)

A really big off-season event is a "must have" in this situation, and we will get there.

I hope to see all the teams next year, and of course many of the awesome rookie teams (12 of them!!) who made awesome bots for a first year!

Yaar,Team 1578.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

My heart goes out to Michelle Graf.....
She was our emcee in Oregon.... she is a terrific person and a joy to be around.
I can't even imagine trying to keep this Regional moving and fun but I would be willing to say that I bet she gave her best the entire time...

I also bet that she will be one of the first to step up and volunteer to do it again.

Thank you Michelle...

As a longtime member of FIRST I am saddened by all of this...but we all need to remember that it is easy to sit back and criticize...

Walk a weekend in their shoes...(or a lifetime...) and see what you would do...

I hope to see the teams from Israel at Atlanta...and I sincerely hope that none of them are disheartened by all of this.... remember its not about the robot...(easy for me to say...)

I really want to congratulate the teams from Israel.... sticking with this... through the pain and stress and disappointment....I don't know if I could have done it... You guys rock!! Please remember that it really doesn't matter who wins...you all won... you all should get trophies... You are all our brothers and sisters....

Again... thank you Michelle and thank you everyone from FIRST that worked so hard to try and fix this under unbelievable stress conditions.

Washington Teams and FIRST loves you Michelle!!!

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

This would be the best solution possible. FIRST stepped up to the plate with the unprecedented Team Update 16 that revised the broken qual system, here's another chance for them to show some Gracious Professionialism by reacting to the unfortunate circumstances these teams experienced.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

And send the FTA crew from NH Regional to run it. They seem to be the only regional that doesn't experience the field problems and delays. Maybe they can teach the local Isreali crew how to do it for future years.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

They have.
The problem isn't with the staff or the field, the problem is that those technologies don't feet Israel. Many changes have to be made and somewhere along the road something got loose.
We use 230V, different radios, different routers, different software, different language.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Liron,
I think he meant an FTA from FIRST HQ in Manchester, which you obviously know didn't happen in 2009 (Liron and I co FTA'd in 2009 :rolleyes:) and it is also obvious it didn't happen this year.

This is a fair suggestion which I'm sure will be implemented next year.

-Leav

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Liron, i'm very disappointed that a fellow Israeli FIRSTer decries our claims as if we invented them and as if it's our hobby to complain about "minor" stuff.

- About breaking alliances: we didn't want to break that alliance because we wanted the worse for others, it's because those teams bagged us not to, and we respected their request. There are things that are above winning in life. And who knows, maybe we wanted that alliance to be so that the Israel Regional will send the best bots to Atlanta and not the teams the scheme the best against others. from our POV, we did our best and got to the quarter's. Every match after that was a bonus. Call us naive, call us losers, but at least we have a clear conscience. If we did a mistake - that's our job as captains, to make the best and worst decisions for our team. If we did a mistake - next season our team gonna choose new captains that will shape 3088's ideals. It's the job of our youngsters to learn from our mistakes, but till then - that's the way we're gonna play. honest and clean.

- About the award: I checked the rules, i know what you need to do to achieve it. As far as i know, we were supposed to get it, check the game stats yourself. If I have a mistake - i'm deeply sorry and congrats to those who did won it. I mentioned the award just to emphasize what our team went through and still we didn't made a fuss about it in the event - that is GP.

- We sent an e-mail to Gal, i hope he'll answer soon. I know that our medallions are the last thing he is worried about these days...

- About the firecracker: like, HELLO?! didn't you read correctly when i said some of my friends got hurt?! of course everything that happens in FRC is under the responsibility of FIRST! What if someone would have gotten shot in the head and died? is that still fine by FIRST and only the police to investigate? I would really love to see team XXXX still in the competition in 2011 if it was found out, let's say, that one of the students was responsible for the death of someone else. Moreover, isn't it the job of security to verify that no ammo or dangerous equipment enters the competition area? i think that's at least the responsibility of FIRST...
(I know we signed something about they not responsible for our deaths but there's a limit ><)

- 3076 is Arad "Lynx". We know that they did what they did because we have EYES. Food: We were eating our pizza in our, right? than one of their teammates (their pit was next to our's) comes to our pit, in front of our eyes, grabs a slice and takes a bite out of it and leaves it where it was. we were in complete shock. it that a way to behave? is that GP?
I'm not so sure about the cans, though, but we did see a couple of their mates drink our limited edition Fanta cans in the pit and field (the cans were delivered directly and specially for our team from our sponsors). beats me how they got so rare cans while we lost ours...
Oh, and the stickers! when i say belongings, i don't mean "my bag that just lied there", oh no, i mean they come to my friends and just stick those on their shirts, pants, name tags, cellphones - while they still hold them!!! and again, while they undoubtedly refused to that! I'm seriously appalled by some of 3076 members' behavior. I thought that FIRST raises the elite of society. If that is our elite, we all should be very worried.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Michael,
About the award, i apologized and like i said it is fully deserved. I didn't know the requirements.
FIRST cant take responsibility of every team's actions, and blaming FIRST isn't even logical in the case of the events you mentioned.
The system can't keep an eye on each and every psycho out there willing to bring in firecrackes, be logical. If you knoww hat team did it, go ahead and tell that to FIRST and i'm sure they will take care of it and that this team will not be back. If you don't know who did it, don't expect FIRST to know, it's no FBI.]

There is nothing unhonest about offering a team to join you, it is your full right as a top seeded team. I don't think you can judge those teams and go as far as saying that this is a stain on FIRST Israel. It is their team's desicion and it is just as clean and fair as any other decision out there.

About team 3076. Did you talk to them yourself about the stickers, and did they still do that? If yes, did you complain to FIRST?

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

FIRST is hosting the event and is responsible for security. That is why robots are inspected for safety by FIRST.

These are incredibly serious issues. These issues would be an outrage at any public event - and FIRST has WAYYY higher standards then other public events.

-Explosive thrown in teams pit
-Brawl with security and teams
-Fight between teams
-Theft
-Vandalism
-Racial slurs
-Intentional Disruption of matches
-Coaches/Mentors encouraging some/all of these activities

If safety cannot be guaranteed there cannot be an event. FIRST will either have to cancel the event or employ security forces if the event will continue next year... Imagine that.. FIRST increasing security.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I believe Karthik is right here.

I very much hope that FIRST will extend a $4000 grant to ALL teams attending the Israel regional in 2010 to be applied to attending the 2011 Israel Regional.

FIRST should also invite ALL SIX of the Finalist/Champion teams to Atlanta in 2010. (That opportunity should not be decided on a coin toss!)

My greatest respect goes to those who worked so hard to make the event possible and as good as it could be. My sympathies to the students and mentors who worked so hard to prepare for an event that was so disappointing. I'm glad that apparently most people at the event were able to make the best of the situation.

-Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I was referring to the crew that actually worked at BAE. Every other event here in the US has reported delays. NH BAE did not. You look at their match results page, and you see lots of 6, 7 and 8 minute cycles; very few over 10 minutes. No other regional has managed to accomplish that. How does the crew at BAE manage it? Those people should give their methods of success to other regionals, especially Israel this year. And yes I realize the radio systems are different. But if the crew at BAE can run almost perfectly, they can probably debug the unique situation in Israel.

I would put this into perspective, though. As bad as the situation was, the disaster does not compare to what happened last year when someone dropped dead on the sidelines. That was a true disaster.

When I first saw this post headline, I had thoughts of a terrorist attack or the building collapsing.

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

I don't expect them to be FBI, just FIRST. with all respect, this issues shouldn't have happened and i hope it was the last time. I encourage the FIRST Israel staff to make all the right conclusions for next year so that we won't find ourselves in a similar thread next year.

I know, i didn't say it isn't legal or isn't fair, it's okay, but we prefer not to do stuff in that way. Maybe next year we'll understand that in the end it's just a game...

We asked them no to do it and they did. we didn't complain to FIRST but i did washed one of their representatives verbally (explaining why we won't take them to our alliance, not cursing or something). i know that not all 3076 teammates are like that and i hope that it was enough to change something there for the next season.

there is no doubt that we had a lot of problems this year but still this is a great regional to participate in. the majority of teams in israel are really good people with great mind and big hearts. a lot of teams help each other (we helped and were helped this year :]) and there's no real reason to eliminate this Regional. yes, we had some problems, but all regionals have some. I'm sure FIRST Israel already started preparations for a better next season. don't forget about all the logistics involved here that complicate things... I hope all the problems are going to be discussed with US FIRST too and proper solutions will be picked.
I think that all teams should go through a united seminar to remind what is exactly GP and that Award are for achievements and not the opposite. every team should also make greater efforts to explain those to its community. I said my team in the beginning of this year: "We're not gonna do charity for Chairman's, we'll enter Chairman's only if we'll do charity and community work, and it depends on people" and that's why we didn't enter Chairman's this year. I wanted my team to be rewarded for something they do, not because they do it for the award. Maybe if our crowds understood better what is GP and FIRST all about - maybe all that happed will not happen again. It's a process, it's a birth, and we have our own growing pain.

i believe that if our community will work together, everything's gonna be all right in the end :]

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Ah. Wow. I didn't know there was food being thrown and a lot of negative action going on. While I meant "minor hiccup" as in FIRST's issues (not people's behavior) I guess what went down was pretty bad at the Israel Regional. Forgive the ignorance.

You make a very good point. I will agree.

I guess I wouldn't know what it feels like until I went through it myself. Karthik, thanks for all your words, really... I sincerely mean that.

That seems like a VERY VERY good idea.


Again, forgive any ignorance. I hope that FIRST won't repeat the things that went down at Israel...

Re: disaster in israel regional
 

Is there an article or a thread on this somewhere? Not to challenge your validity, but so I can learn more.

Other than that question, I don't know what to say. I can't really put to words how frustrating that must be. Not just the field issues, but what happened in the stands and pit as well. I congratulate all the teams that kept their cool, and hope they can be a positive role model to other teams.

Also, I agree with Karthik. FIRST owes you guys some sort of compensation.

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.