Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Back to the original intent of this thread I've heard from alot of people who used to be active on CD say they are no longer active due to CD taking a very "Youtube" feel to it.
I think they are talking about Youtube's comments which get very nasty very quickly. I think that's a little extreme. I have not seen any profanity, racial slurs or endless amounts of spam. The only thing the "moderators" at Youtube ever police is if the content is copyrighted. Otherwise it's anything goes.
There has been alot of griping and whining on CD but I have to be honest and wonder how is this any different from the other years on CD. Look in the archives and you'll see threads where teams call each other out and where FIRST-a-holics complain vehemently about rules, rulings and results. Maybe folks tolerance level of all the noise has finally run out.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

What we need is instant replay from various angles...

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Good luck.
We can't even get webcast at various angles.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

There are times when we don't even have a webcast (or a working one at that).

I agree with these. It takes forever to find information about anything on the website and inside the Q&A. The encourage teams to have websites that present data in a way that is easy for the average joe to find some information. However, it takes a couple minutes to find some information on the FIRST site. The field drawings are really complicated for some people to understand. There were times we were still left guessing measurements.

On the topic of field cost vs attracting people: Shouldn't we bring in people by our word of mouth and our energy for FIRST? Do we really need EXPENSIVE regionals? I mean I got into FIRST, because the students who talked me into it made it sound like the best thing on the planet. I mean can't we cut some costs somewhere? Like someone mentioned using college sounds groups and lighting groups. That's a great idea! Or even reaching out to a local company to sponsor the event. You would be surprised at how many people would donate their time and equipment to an event that does a lot of good for the community. I'm all for big shows, but we all need to remember why we are in first place. We are here to help inspire kids to things that they didn't think they could do. It's for them we do FIRST, and they're the reason FIRST is around.


Just my 2cents.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

I want to clear up some misconceptions about the “official fields” used by FIRST in Michigan.

#1: We have 2 fields.

We have three fields. In the fall of 2008 U.S. Army TARDEC entered into a Cooperative Research and Development with FIRST in Michigan whereby we agreed to further the development of tomorrow’s engineering workforce by leveraging and expanding the FIRST Robotics Competition in Michigan. TARDEC converted the FIRST official field drawings (pdf) into machine-readable CAD and requested proposals from a number of contractors. We had the low bidder build three fields in anticipation of the desired expansion in the number of teams. The third field is in storage and will most likely come into service next year when we expect the necessity of having three events during at least one week of the competition season.

#2: Tardac (sic) generously arranges for construction of the mechanical components of these fields for the FiM organization (thanks Jack Jones!). They have contractors with government security clearances which meet the secrecy requirements set by FIRST in order to have access to the build plans.

TARDEC built the “basic” FIRST fields (side-walls, gate sections, gate ramps, alliance stations, polycarb, inspection sizing boxes, and ADA ramps). All the plans we used are available to anyone. Neither the contractors nor any TARDEC employee had knowledge of the “game” prior to kick-off; the game specific game pieces are provided to FiM by U.S.FIRST

#3: To do all this, unfortunately, you need a big sponsor or government money to support these efforts. Which will be a problem in many areas, especially for states that are cutting their education budgets.

The total cost of all three fields was under $50k. The cost of supervising the care and handling of the government owned equipment amounts to a few month’s salary plus travel, which is mostly local. The value returned to TARDEC has been, and will continue to be, priceless.

$50k is not big government money; $14T is big government money. It is not even big district/regional/state educational money – not when we see them spending $5-$10M on a swimming pool, or $1M to resurface a football field.