Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Where I have not been overly active in the CD community in past games, I see more and more threads popping up with people griping about this game. I understand that this happens to an extent every year, but I've never felt this sense of frustration among the FIRST community. Many of the concerns and frustrations are some of the most valid in years. Whether it be drastically inconsistent rule calling or horribly insufficient suppliers, the concerns are not unfounded.

FIRST charges a premium to host a superior high school robotics competition, running regionals that cost upwards of $300,000, but seems to be slipping on some of the more important things.

Again it is just my perception, but this year seems like the community is reaching a near tipping point. The politics within FIRST are getting pretty dicy. I didn't want to formulate a long argument, but more start a discussion with regards to what is happening within FIRST and the potential ramifications.

after flipping through the financial's for FIRST (http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...bsite_Copy.pdf) i see nothing regarding salaries.

Again, I just wanted to start a discussion...

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Please elaborate...

Are you saying something is wrong with the game, or how FIRST is financed

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

In Michigan, we produce our own events locally for as low as $10,000 each. We now run all 10 of our Michingan events for less than the cost of a single traditional FRC regional. FRC Events don't need to be expensive, but they will be if you use the standard model.
If you have an issue with event and program costs, follow our lead. These things can be changed.
The key to sustainable growth in FRC depends on 2 things:
1. reducing the price of entry.
2. increasing return on investment for participation.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

I think there are several different things that are riling people up a little bit.

1) Leftover politics from FTC's kit change. Short version, a lot of people went with what they already had when FIRST changed the FTC kit suddenly. Now FRC says that we need to support FTC and their kit (I can show you where FRC said that), which some people really aren't happy with. So you get a lot of negativity from that that's been simmering for a while. 3-4 years is a long time to let something simmer...

2) Red/Yellow cards. There's quite a few--you could get it for something as simple as your partner showing up without passing inspection, or for something as nasty as intentional tipping. Problem is, a lot of them can be judgment calls. In most cases, I don't question the ref's judgment. In a couple others... Well, let's just say that I've seen some matches on webcast that could easily have been flag-fests, or had the potential to have impeding called, that had zero penalties called, and leave whether they actually should have been flag-fests or impeding penalties to the refs who called it and the armchair refs with infinite instant replay who will try to call it "right" (and whose opinion matters about as much as that of a random CD member when your robot is failing inspection).

3) Amount/type of penalties. There's a lot of 3-point penalties when someone's just trying to do what they need to do, and are barely to the point where it's a violation. LOTS of penalties--anyone remember <G22> from 2008? Just makes the ref's job harder.

4) You know it's bad when not one, but two members of the GDC resign mid-build. Only one has chosen to share his reasoning--a personal choice between principles and being a member of the GDC--and I'm not going to ask any farther of either.

What are the ramifications? I really don't know. Most of it will just drive Logomotion's popularity down a bit with respect to some other games. Some of it can really hurt FIRST later, if it's allowed to, in the form of decreased participation.

Most important: What do we do about it? Do we walk around pretending everything's OK? NO. Bill and the FRC staff responded to a request for a bit more transparency with just that. Now, we need to return the favor. We need to be open and honest with them about what we're seeing within the community. I'm certain they check CD, but it doesn't hurt to talk to them if someone gets the chance. Something on the order of, "I'm seeing X, and it kind of disturbs me because Y. I might suggest Z as a solution if it's feasible." If enough people are seeing something and bringing it to their attention, they will pay attention! If it's serious, they'll deal with it right away if they can.

In short: I think a lot of the negativity and frustration is a function of the amount of penalties and some past politics that were not forgotten. I am reasonably certain we can get over that. But if there's stuff that is serious, we should probably let FRC HQ know that there is something that may need dealing with on the horizon.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Well both, I didn't want to say too much, but it seems this year has seemed less professional than previous years.

At kickoff the initial crio updates first didn't exist and then were corrupted once I got them.

Then we had the banebots issues.

Now there's having CAN issues.

Only a chunk of the events are participating in the Twitter feed, which I was told my FIRST staff would be formally supported, and made many decisions based on that.

Inconsistencies across the board with regionals and rules.

Again if they focused less on throwing huge 300k events and focused on the actual business side to the organization, we may see a better result. If FIRST formally handled the distribution of KOP-related items (specifically transmissions) rather than letting some young tiny company do it, we may have seen a better result. rather than outsourcing the code development to a few people at NI and WPI, actually have a full-time team responsible for producing industry-standard software, with professional releases.
I would actually prefer to see FIRST invest in the staff to formally support it, rather than rely on volunteer work.

FRC costs 24 million dollars to pull off, however my fear is that too little of that money is spent on a formal staff and training. FRC is getting huge but it still loses 10% of its every year for many reasons, money being a huge one. There are other models (note Jim's comments) for having great regionals at a fraction of the cost and WPI is working on a model to reflect this for other areas. However none of this is done via investments by FIRST, its volunteer based. Actually FIRST to an extent has opposed this agenda to make it more affordable.


The Michigan model is awesome. It seems like the obvious choice.
I think FIRSTs ego is getting in the way of formally adopting this
(IMO they view it as a step back)

Its a shame that many of the actions to better FIRST and make FIRST more affordable, scalable, and achievable are not actually a product of the FIRST organization, but rather states and universities who realize the model has a lot of room for improvement.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Actually... It is and it isn't.

Their event model, sure. It's low-cost, solves the volunteer problem a bit, and seems like it's just a little more relaxed and low-key, like an offseason.

Their district system model, just try and implement it in non-team-dense areas. MI, the Northeast, and maybe the Toronto area, I can see it working and working fairly well. But come out to, say, the Utah/Colorado/Wyoming/Montana area, and the district system won't be sustainable for more than a year. There just isn't enough density to do it. Even in, say, CA/AZ/NV, it's a stretch--and then HI has to go even farther to compete on the mainland.

I don't think it's FIRST's ego--they've stated that any area that wants to can go to that model. It's just that nobody's got the volunteer infrastructure and team density to do it in place yet outside of MI.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

It is also incredibly taxing on the volunteers.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

You're right, sorry I should choose my words more carefully. However, by incorporating the model into high dense areas, and then holding bigger evens for the less dense areas, i think it would reach a happy medium.

Personally I'd pick 3 smaller events over one big event any day, but I know this feeling is not shared by many.

good call eric...

does anyone know the whole story behind the michigan model?

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Have you ever been to one of our MI events? In many ways, they are better than a regional. The biggest noticable difference is that we play with the lights on. Ask anyone at AnnArbor this weekend if they think it was second rate.....Ask anyone at Troy next weekend. These are top notch events at <1/10th the price.

I don't understand why people think that running low cost events have anything to do with where you live or how many teams are in your area. You have it exactly backwards. The BEST place for a low cost event model is in areas with low team density. Which is easier: starting a $150,000 event in the middle of nowhere, or starting a $7,000 event in the middle of nowhere?

While we may require a bit more help from volunteers, since we don't rely on any high priced staff from the East coast, we have not trouble getting people to come out and support us. Volunteers are exactly that: voluntary.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Mike,

I'm going to sidestep the MI discussion and try to throw out a few ideas toward your initial query about frustration.

A lot of the issues we are having are due to how FIRST is growing. There are over 2000 teams this year (an increase of over 14% from last year). There are over 400 new (rookie) teams and some 48 regional competitions (not counting Michigan).

1. With an increase in regionals, there is inevitably going to be an increase in the "non-uniformity" of those regionals. As FIRST continues to grow, it will take some dramatic changes to maintain a semblance of uniformity. I'm not sure that FIRST has a plan as to how to do that...

2. With more teams comes more people posting. This website has "crashed" a few times this season just due to the large number of people using the site. The FIRST website has had similar bandwidth issues.

3. Along with #2 and a "normal" distribution of online personalities, you will have more "fringe" posters. These fringe posters can be more antagonistic, less knowledgeable and/or just more verbose. Note that not all of this fringe are students...

4. Along with #2 and #3, you have a greater number of pseudo "experts". These are folks who post their opinions as factual without citing the rules or demonstrating good, practical, common sense. Along with this, many hide behind the cloak of the anonymity that an internet persona can provide. Once again (and quite unbelievably), not all are students...

5. Now let's look at the rookies, second and third year teams and members of veteran teams who are new to FIRST... Their numbers are swelling as well... Yes, they sometimes ask questions that have been asked before or seem naive but that does not negate the fact that they need assistance. Yes, there is a bounty of material and websites to help them but that shear volume of material that they have to digest is overwhelming.

6. Lastly, the number of "veterans" seems to be slipping. Add to that the number of posts has increased to the point that we can not keep up (at least I can't).

These are some of the reasons I see why frustration is seemingly growing and, unfortunately, will continue to grow into the future as FIRST continues to grow.

However, I'd like to end this 4AM digression on an upbeat... The squeaky wheel gets greased. The righteous indignation and angst will continue to grow as FIRST grows but so will the number of people who take away a positive experience. Maybe they don't post as often or, when they do, their posts are overshadowed by the frustration in others but I believe their numbers are also growing.

Otherwise, what are we doing this for?

JMHO,

Mike

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

I guess you didn't read what I actually wrote.

I said the "district system model". Not the "district event". They are two different things that I am saying here.

The district event, or what I referred to as the "district event model" in my earlier post, is the event itself. I merely stated that it seemed more low-key, like an offseason. IRI is an offseason--but it's got some of the best competition. That's the part that is fairly easily scalable--you just need to change the event site to an appropriate venue, figure out your favorite A/V solution if you think you need it, settle the details of having a Bag & Tag instead of shipped event, and grab a few extra volunteers for crowd control (and other jobs that would need more volunteers than a normal event), and you should be good to go. I've never been to an MI event, partially due to never having been to MI. I've seen the webcasts, though.

The district system model is where your entry fee gets you two events, and all the rest of that stuff that can be expanded into later, as I understand the plan is/was. That's the part that is going to be really hard to scale. That's the part that a lot of places currently won't be able to handle. That's the part that you need a high team density for.

That's where the regionals should come in. As a given area gets a bunch of districts/district systems, have one or two regionals close to the border area between them. Suppose that Indiana (Boilermaker), Illinois (Midwest), and Ohio (no regional, but some teams) form a district "zone" like MI has. Place a regional somewhere around Chicago that is open to any team. That's your mixing area and a place for teams from, say, Wisconsin or Iowa, which have somewhat lower team densities, to come and play against teams from the district zones. Then when, say, WI and MN form a district area, keep that regional open to continue to serve as a mixing point for the various districts.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Eric, Ohio has the Cleveland regional and Pittsburgh is right on the border with Ohio.

Jim, does 10k include the cost of fields? I think your number is a bit low. But I do agree that MI had shown the way for the rest of us and it's where FIRST should head.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Every year / game / rules / logistics - brings some level of frustration. Haven't been involved in that past few years, but I have always believed that as the # of events increase, the only way to reduce the frustration due to inconsistancy, is to design the rules to reduce the possibiity of that occuring as much as possible.

Games can be designed to be challenging, fun, complicated, audience friendly, viewable, less frustrating, and understandable (even by you grandmother that only watches it once) - and most importantly - without a ton of rules.

The #1 rule of the game design is that it must have strict and unwavering overall experience goals, that tie directly back to what I indicated above. Anything that does not allow the overall experience goal to be met - is NOT allowed. The game MUST pass the test of meeting those overall experience goals, by an independent 3rd party (preferably a small group of people that understand how the game impacts a team - and not by the same people that designd it).

The rules, which are the result of the game itself, document what is allowed and what isn't. One of the best games we ever developed for our Chief Delphi Invitational, was the game we had all the rules on a single 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of paper. Too many rules make it more difficult to determine which rules over rule each other, and even worse - you even have to determine a way to consistantly interpret them. Then, you have to succussfully communicate that interpretation method to everyone involved in deciding how it is administered (depending on the rule, it could include the inspectors just as much as the referees).

Based on other responses, it appears as though some of the same frustrations from the past are still being felt. Some are more difficult to address than others, but after implimenting the year end meetings to gather the input from team leaders and mentors - some of the key things should have been taken care of, or at least had a plan implemented - and maybe that is happening.

Too bad about the politics issue creeping in - although some would argue it isn't politically motivated - so call it what you will. I will say that back in a day, a smaller organization, dealing with a completely different set of growth management circumstances, chose to limit how much of that sort of thing was allowed in. It was easier in part, because it was smaller and more easily managed. Over the years, certain decisions to do things one way or another, could have been the result of relationships "within" changing. Relationships with people always muddy things up - and often, those outside of knowing what really is going on - just have to deal with the changes as best we can. Difficult relationships, and decisions impacting the stuff in the kit - sometimes can't be avoided. Unfortunately, sometimes we get frustrated because we don't fully understand why (thus one reason for the call for more transparency).

The best you can do as a participant, is to learn that you must be able to adapt. Look at it this way, every year in FIRST is a new year. Don't expect that any aspect of it HAS to be the same as before - it doesn't. The things that remain the same year after year, are strictly a bonus to those teams returning. I think some veteran teams forget that, and when something does change, it adds to the frustration because it is one more thing that they are required to do something differently from what they have done in the past. In reality it shouldn't - no one should have preconcieved notions of what was done in the past HAS to be included in the future.

I've typed enough for now - so I'll pass on the discssion related to the growth model - both have some advantages an disadvantages depending on what your frustration is.

My main point here, is that you can have a great game with fewer and less complicated rules - that could reduce some of the frustration, but just be prepared for a new and different type of frustration - because no matter what the GDC comes up with - it can be a bit frustrating at times.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

WPI has a model that costs $25k to host a regional at a university. I was shocked to hear it could be pulled off for this price. Also they were able to give travel stipends to teams who applied. I believe one teams got as much as 2k for travel (its a need-based thing).

One interesting number I got talk to the folk at WPI, FIRST charges $50k just for their lighting people to light an event. Many universities already have lighting and sound groups who will do that for pennies, and sometimes will do a better job.

What's interesting is that the cost of these events are completely unrelated to the cost of FIRST, as fields are reused I group them under a FIRST related cost, but I think with all the electronics they value the field at around 75k but even if it was the responsibility of regionals to pay this, that would come out to 10 or 15k per regional. But again, we pay a huge budget, some events cost 25k to pull off, other cost 300k. However we are all paying the same. Some regionals have found ways around FIRSTs ridiculous rules.

If you want to keep pulling off huge events, you will keep losing 10% of your teams. Maybe that's the price FIRST is willing to pay, to keep their events at the state their at.

That being said, I think if you are going to host $300k huge events, they should work closely to up the actual production value of these events. Namely stop having awful streams and awful taping of events. If your gonna pay 300k do it right.

What will make us not be the new battle bots in the publics eye?

again it comes down to emotional connections. same reason you connect with a sports team, or even a car(nascar) you have a human element and an emotional connection. I've already brought one other discussion, so I won't start talking about it here again, but I think for FIRST to be sustainable and still maintain their growth rate (there's no reason they can't) it comes down to money.

If school boards go through a budget and see a 5k expenditure for a robotics club with 6-12 people actively involved theres a good chance it will be cut. That being said I have also wanted FIRST to emphasize entrepreneurship and business more on an organizational level. If they were to do this, and step away from STEM, but more focus on technology based solutions, many more students would be interested in joining, and thus increase the perceived value of the organization to schools, and help to justify that 5k expense.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Sam, $10K is on the low end, but we just did the AnnArbor event this weekend for about this amount, and it was very professional. Dean said so himself during his visit on Saturday. The biggest variable on the event cost is whether or not we must rent the venue, or if we can get it donated. Our "older" events at GVSU and WSU are our most expensive because we must rent the field houses from the Universities. Most of the newer events like Troy, AnnAbor, Niles, and Traverse City have a much lower price point.

The Fields are not part of the this cost. Michigan commissions the construction of 2 complete playing fields each year. This is part of our upfront overhead operating cost. We use at each of our 10 events, as well as numerous post season activities.

Contrary to earlier comments "District System" is scalable down to very small numbers of teams. It really depends what your goals are. Some people think that to run robot tourmanments you need a big population of teams, but this is not the case. If you want your local teams to play more, the real question becomes "do we actually need different teams at different events?" Many people think the answer is yes, but we know that while this would be preferred, it is not actually an operational requirement. Teams want to play more. Who they play with is secondary to how often they get to play.

We run the OCCRA league here in Michigan with a population of 24 to 30 teams each year with 4 events and a championship. It can be done with very small numbers......think about it.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Jim,
Thanks so much for sharing this. There have been rumors this year about Texas going to the district model, which has prompted a lot of the noise you mentioned - "Not enough teams", "expensive", "time off school", "team density", blah blah blah. I like small events, I like lots and lots of matches. I think FIRST events are better than school. This is great.



This

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

I also heard from someone involved with the FRC in Michigan, that for the MI State Championship FIRST is tied to a union who provides all the sound and lighting. At first, I didn't believe it, but after going to Atlanta last year and seeing that the t-shirt making company who was running the gift shop was from New Hampshire, I started to believe it.

Can anyone confirm this? And if this is true, then U.S. FIRST needs to be re-branded as "US" FIRST.

Also, I'd like to point out that smaller district events are not lame AT ALL. Instead they foster a kind of localism which allows teams to get to know each other better. The result is actually an even more intense competition where participants feel more involved.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

I'd pick smaller ones too. This year, with the new Lake Superior Regional, we had 40 teams compete, compared to the 60+ at the Twin Cities ones. I gotta say, it was NICE, for all parts of the team. There was a lot less crowding going on, so it wasn't as much of a hassle to get around the place, there were more matches going on for each team, and each team seemed to be making some better relations with other teams than I've seen down in Minneapolis.

Does anyone know how many Michigan teams there are? Last I've heard, Minnesota is approaching 130-140 and growing.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

I hate hijacking this thread to talk about the Michigan system, but...

Jim post here is what I've been thinking as to why the District system would be great for a place like Hawaii. As long as they can generate 24 or more teams, they can play multiple events with lots of matches, and not need to worry about airfare to the mainland. The district system is practically made for an isolated area of teams.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

I think the district model also makes it possible for states to support FIRST rather than towns. Given Michigan is still at the same price point, but you get a better ROI. I think if FIRST adopted the model, the registration cost could be significantly decreased beyond the present FIRST cost in Michigan. By attending events in Michigan you are actually paying for teams to attend events like the BAE regional. Adopt a smaller model everywhere, and everyone's costs go down. Also you pay 1k for all the rookie teams, maybe rather than focusing on growth, we should focus on minimizing that 10% loss of teams every year. Once again driving operating costs down.

Returning customers are always less expensive than new ones :).

I'm not saying cut the stipend for rookie teams, but I think the focus is on bringing in rookies, not sustaining the veterans.

I love hijacked threads. We have a good conversation going here, where ever it goes... awesome :)

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

My frustration is the relentless money raising.

It's incredibly frustrating to spend 6.5 weeks, plus all the fall season hours, plus the time leading up to the regional to play 9 matches (or maybe a few more if you make the eliminations). This is even more frustrating if you have robot problems that prevent fulfilling matches (not a FIRST problem, a team problem).

Last year my team played 11 matches (9 quals, 2 elims). We only made one practice match during the practice day. We went to a pre-ship and played (being generous in that term) several matches. We went to a fall competition and and did pretty well, got in a bunch of matches and the team felt good.

Last year the ThunderChickens played 99 matches (according to TBA). In other words, if we keep going at the same pace, it would take us 9 years to play the same number of matches. The comparison in learning for the students is similarly skewed. Students learn by playing matches and anything that prevents more matches is a problem. When it costs $400 to play a match ($4000/avg 10 matches), it's hard to see the payback.

A big inhibitor to this is the field. It takes many people a day to set up and take down a field. That makes a setting up for a quick weekend event difficult. It would be nice to have a permanent field location to simply go and play a series of matches against a bunch of teams (school conference teams, regional teams, etc). So when I win the lottery I can make that happen.

That's why I am interested in the MI district model.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Jim is pretty close to the cost. At Kettering we do have to spend a bit more due to having to rent bleachers. They are our biggest cost. I think we spend $23,000 but about $12,000 of that is the rental.

There is absolutely no feel of a offseason event to a district. I personally love the district. In the past my team played 7-8 rounds and went home for a season whereas now we play 26-30 rounds. It has made our team stronger. Many times the pits are 2/3 empty because everybody is in queing or on the field!!

BTW Great job this weekend Jim!

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

This brings up a very good point. There is a fine balance between too few and too many teams. The MI districts are set up at 40 teams, which approaches the maximum most events can handle (perhaps slightly exceeding in a venue or two).

But if you drop too far below that number, the match separation on the schedule drops to only 3 or 4 matches, sometimes 2. You get off the field and go right back into the queue line.

(The lower numbers work in OCCRA because they play 2v2 games.)

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Exactly. 18 months ago, I actually had a long conversation with Ashley, the Hawaii Regional Coordiantor about exactly this. I don't know if anything has been done, but it seems to me that this would be prefect there. Most of the 32 teams in Hawaii do not go to the mainland to play, so most can only do one event. If you could double the amount of playing time, for the same price, does it really matter the same teams would be there both weekends? While a greater population with more mixing would be better, doubling the teams' ROI is still a huge step in the right direction. In time, the mixing issue will solve itself. Look at us, in 2008 we had 3 events with huge population overlap at all 3; now we have 10!

If you want to grow your team population, the #1 thing you can do is to put an event in their backyard. It is easier to get teams to join if you can show them a FIRST competition. The less they have to travel, the more people will see it, and faster it will grow.
If you look at the FRC map, this is obvious. The teams are all clustered geographically around the events. It is a chicken and egg thing.....the teams create the events, but the events also help to create the teams. The more events we have, the more growth we will have.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

According to the FIRST website there are 131 MN teams and 171 Michigan teams.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

In 2009, we launched our district system of 7 District Events snd a State Championship with a population of 132 teams. It sounds like MN is in a position where this is certainly possible in your state.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

I'd be interested in hearing about some of these conversations. If I knew that everyone was on the same page in Texas and working in the same direction, together, that would be awesome. Totally.

Jane

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

I wish I could tape this on the door and show it to every Texas FIRST team.

But sadly, everything is bigger in Texas, including our regionals.

If you want the district model of return in Texas, your team should do VEX.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

What is the minimum number of volunteers you need to run an MI event?

You said in an earlier message that MI commissioned their own fields. So you didn't buy 2 fields from FIRST? Do you have an FMS system or a different system? Where do you store the fields?

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

We have 2 fields. Tardac 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. We see nothing until after kickoff. We get 2 sets of certified field controls from FIRST which are identical to those used everywhere else. We purchased two 24' long tandem axle trailers and have a complete field assembly in each one. We store the trailers at the GM proving grounds in Milford (Thanks to Tom Nader!). We move the trailers with Ram Diesel Heavy Duty trucks loaned to us by Chrysler (Thanks to Pam Williamson!). Volunteers transport the fields to and from the various Events (thanks Tom, Dave, Cindy....). Load, Unload, set-up, and tear-down are all managed by volunteers from the teams, many of whom are students. No roadies to pay, and it is a great way to get your team involved in the event management side of the FRC, which traditionally has been somewhat taken for granted (yet rather costly to outsource).

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

It seems like the Michigan system is counter-productive to making FIRST a mainstream "sport" (remember Deans' homework last year?). If you are the average guy walking down a street, would you rather go to a hugely awesome event in a big stadium, or to a low key affair in a highschool gym.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Most high school sports have regional or district level events before moving on to a State Championship.

I would suggest it is far easier to pull in the "average guy" to an event in a high school gym in their town than it is to pull them in to a "hugely awesome event" 2+ hours away.

I can't really address whether the "low key" vs "hugely awesome" comparison is fair as I haven't been to a Michigan District, however I will point out that feedback from many who have is available on this forum and suggests that the differences are not as large as you seem to think.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

To alleviate the frustrations of fewer matches and low ROI per dollar/match, we simply need more offseason events (ok, and to fix the issue with $300k regionals..). A $200-$300 registration is relatively easy to come by. I'm pretty sure FIRST will get the message when teams start attending more offseason events than official events. It's why my team just went to get approved for our own offseason event.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

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.

Plus volunteers. Unless the event is very near to your team, and you have a large enough team, you won't get that many. Especially in the middle of competition season when teams are still meeting several times a week.


And who pays for the travel to all these separate events? Do they involve overnight trips? Does your school provide the transportation or do the students pay (which is very common, especially for non-school teams).


Michigan is very fortunate to have the infrastructure, the corporate and government support, and the density of teams, to support this. Other areas are looking into this, with encouragement from FIRST, but there are many obstacles to overcome.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Thats actually a good point, vikesrock. I just realized that we are kinda hijacking the thread for a district discussion, so I'll try to bring it back on topic!

There is always this kind of frustration. Every year, there is some sort of problem people have with something. However, this year it seems a bit more than last.

Much of the frustration stems from two areas:

Unbeatable teams: Teams like 2056, 217, 1114 are all something that we should strive for, but with them becoming a sort of "landed elite", it ends up with the same team winning the same regional every single year. It isn't fun for the veteran teams who come back every year, do OK (quarters, maybe semis every year), but they never win. Thats where all this silly "student built vs mentor designed" business comes in. It is demoralizing to see undefeated teams.

The other area of problems are the somewhat wishywashy nature of the GDC. They have a minibot race, but they restrict it to FTC parts. Why? So we can support other FIRST programs. A noble goal, but the fact is, we arent in FTC. Also, late game rule changes always make me mad: This year with the "no blockading game flow" rule. They should have thought of that before teams built wall bots. We can't expect them to make a perfect game, but completely denying a team of it's strategy really isn't in good fun. It has also seemed like Red Card has lost it's value: You can get one for just about everything, such as a zone intrusion. They used to be just for actually egregious behavior; not any more. I could nit-pick more, but what good would that do?

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

There may be additional pressure put on high school students to step up and volunteer when they may still be needed on their team. The high school students have enough pressures without the added pressure of volunteering throughout the season. If they want to, cool. If they are feeling pressured via conscience or other reasons, that may be something to look at. Hopefully, districting allows for the adults to the volunteer and they step forward in ways that don't place a lot of pressure on the high school students in order to get the events off the ground.

One thing that we are seeing is the strength of young alumni in the FIRST programs gaining momentum. With the district events, the high school students that are involved at the level that Jim is talking about will become super powers before they graduate college. Hopefully, within this gain of power and strength in our students and alumni, we'll see some upcoming Dr. Woodie Flowers beginning to bloom. Then all the effort will be worth it.

Jane

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

To answer the original question, yes, I think there is this much frustration every year. If there is more, I suggest that's simply because there are more people in FIRST. I'm not saying there haven't been frustrating events or actions or rulings this year, but they don't dwarf previous years.

We have the same problem in Oklahoma, and I've felt exactly the same way. Why, after pouring countless hours, blood, sweat, and tears into a robot do we only get to use it for 25 minutes of match time? But as someone who grew up doing FIRST in New England, I think off-season events are a solution as viable as the district model (not that the two are mutually exclusive). My point is that small groups of volunteers or individual teams can run an off-season event, and we don't have to wait for someone to let us play more matches: the power is in our hands.

Aren't most high school sports played in high school gyms, or on the fields outside the schools? FIRST is a high-school sport, so why wouldn't high schools host the games?

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

You don't make a sport 'mainstream' by putting up huge barriers to entry. Sports in the US grow because they're inexpensive, (bat and a ball for baseball, etc) and easy to play nearly anywhere.

FIRST's goal, and it has been thus for a very long time, is to get a team in EVERY high school and be as ubiquitous as any other sport. To do that, you need to make it as affordable and accessible as you can.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

A couple things:

Michigan district events are in NO way less stressful or lower key. We play 33-40% more matches than you do in a normal district. We play 12 matches, at a minimum.

In addition the days are much much longer. Pits open at 7 or 8am on Friday. Matches on Friday at West Michigan ran until 8 o'clock PM. Then you go to your hotel or home, eat dinner, have a team meeting, and start scouting. We weren't able to hit the sack until 1 AM, and we did not socialize much, or swim, or do any of the other things that the older more laid-back regional system allowed.

Match turn around time is FAR faster - on three separate occasions at Waterford we were being qued in for our next match as we came off the field. It's almost, but not quite, like being in a permanent elimination round.

No. More laid-back is definitely NOT a good description of a district event.

With regards to the original post, I think we're finally hitting 'the good old days' in FIRST. It's a tendency that a lot of people have to look back in time and gloss over the bad points of something. Remember how great the 50's were? The 60's music? etc. etc. People don't think back about FIRST and remember what is like: no kit bot chassis, very limited parts, many robots completely unable to move. Long-term field downtimes, poor volunteer work due to lack of training. Fewer teams, fewer matches, fewer events. Less media hype.

I could go on all day.

Sure, FIRST can improve. At the same time I don't know another sport that completely rewrites their ruleset each year with a new game. Frankly FIRST does an incredible job. After all, look at all the problems in the NHL, NBA, and NFL with what are essentially static rules sets. There are still regular bad calls made by extremely high paid refs, missed calls, misinterpreted rules, and the like.

Now, if you have suggestions to improve FIRST, I'd hope they listen with ears open. For instances:

1. FIRST - your field prints are horrible. Please please please get a professional that follows normal drafting standards to do your next drawings. I've been making this please for 3 years.

2. FIRST - please give us lit field targets back for vision, and make it worthwhile.

3. FIRST - please REDUCE the number of places I have to go for information, and improve your webpage so it's organized more intuitively!

4. FIRST - please modify the Q&A. Make it indexed by topic, easily searchable by keyword, and downloadable as a single PDF (the entire Q&A).

I'm sure that folks can come up with more suggestions. Let's be proactive and move the bar forward.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

I just want to say that as a part of Monroe Trojan Robotics I was able to have the opportunity to experience both district and regional events this year because we chose to attend the Finger Lakes Regional. After getting the opportunity to attend FLR I have to say that although it was a excellent event, I prefer the district system much, much more.

As some people have said above, why spend countless hours on build, business, scouting, sponsorship hunting, and many other things to potentially only get to play 10 matches. If I was in an area with the Regional system I would not be a part of FRC. I enjoy the opportunity to attend two appropriately professional and priced events a year with more seeding matches in each one. With the district system I am able to play a minimum of 24 matches assuming we only attended two events and never made elims and a maximum of roughly 84 matches if we attend three districts plus championships and played the maximum number of elim matches in each one. This does not even count the M.A.R.C off-season event my team puts on every year.

The Rochester Institute of Technology is an excellent facility, but would I say it is any better than that of any Michigan high school I have attended for an event, never. Aside from a smaller pit area in Michigan I don't notice a difference. The lighting system they hauled in specifically for the event is ridiculous, and the arena was no more than a pricier version of a high school gym. The fact that to get to the machine shop you had to ride a shuttle was so frustrating we decided to make due with the stuff we had in the pits. We also had to park practically a mile from the competition each day. I'm not complaining I'm just trying to point out the superiority of the high schools the Michigan system utilizes to the universities used for regional events. I enjoyed the Niles District Event more than I did FLR because of this. Both were excellent and professional events which would exemplify FIRST to an outsider looking in, but Niles was better because of everything's close proximity and their ability to give each team a greater number of matches.

EDIT: To respond to someone above, the districts are in no way "low key." The local paper had a full page story on the front page with a title along the lines of "Robots Converge on Local High School." The hotel we stayed at had "Welcome to Robotics Tournament Participants" on the sign. The events in Michigan are in no way "low key."

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Tom hit on a good point. Let's see what the good old days brought us:

1. You could only use items found in the Small Parts Catalogue ... yuck!
2. No Autonomous mode
3. No CIM motors
4. Globe motors (OK, I want those back)
5. Door Motors (OK, I want those back too)
6. Did I mention no CIM motors?
7. 1 v. 1, then 1 v. 1v. 1, then 2 v. 2
8. No real kitbot chassis. This was the single biggest one year improvement in robot quality / Regional experience. 2005 brought us 4 CIM motors, 3 v. 3 and the kit chassis.
9. No bag and tag. This has saved many teams a lot of money in shipping and not just the Michigan teams.

Many of these changes were brought about because we asked for them. We asked for more matches in 2004 and got the 3 v. 3 in 2005 instantly adding matches. We asked for more reliable motors and the CIM motor was custom modified and put into the kit of parts.

Now, with regards to districts and low key. That is like saying jumbo shrimp. It is an oxymoron. The districts are fast paced and there is almost no turn around time. I personally have played in several Regional and District Events and the experience from my perspective is the same. Don't even get me started about the Michigan State Championship ...

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

For the third time:

1) That was the impression I got from the webcasts--it seemed a lot like on offseason, slightly relaxed. Admittedly, the offseason that they most resemble is IRI, which as we all know is two days of craziness.

2) I have never been inside the state of MI. As such, I haven't actually been to an MI event, other than to see them on the webcast. So maybe I haven't experienced the intensity. So shoot me.

3) IN SHORT, maybe I got the wrong impression from the webcast. So why does everybody seem to want to correct me?

Tom, you've got the same post twice--might be nice to remove one as it's rather long.

Jim, it's quite possible that you could have multiple events in the same area. But you've got to make sure that you can do that--maybe there's only one suitable venue within a full day's drive, and it's booked for all but one weekend, now what? Cut the team registration cost? Go into "beyond the season" or have a midweek event? And how have the UP teams dealt with their travel to the non-UP districts? What about the areas with less than 24 teams? If the West Coast goes to a district-type model with non-district teams excluded, including HI, what are the Alaska and Australia and Chile teams going to do? For them, the West Coast is the easiest to get to. (Same for the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic area and the European teams. Texas, AZ, NM, and CA all going to district could affect the Mexican teams--until they get enough to have their own events.) If you can't answer those questions effectively for your area, then you really need to before going to a district model.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Actually I was speaking to GrimTuesday. I guess I should have been less lazy before. Sorry for any confusion.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

For our team, the extra travel to attend two regionals is difficult. We would really like California to switch to district-style events. However, we don't have to adopt everything Michigan has done. Perhaps we can compromise and get some of the benefits of district while keeping the strengths we have.

I think California can support both district and regional competitions simultaneous. Teams in California could sign up for a regional and have the option to sign up for a reduce cost district event. We could leave the regionals open to out of district teams. This way, California teams can get more game time per dollar then what we currently have. We won't be as efficient as Michigan but it would be an improvement. Plus we get some visiting teams at our regionals.

I am not sure if California could pull together a Sate Championship. It would cool if we could but its not as important as adding district events.

To return to the original topic. The most frustrating things teams experience are probably:
1. not having a working robot
2. excessive red tape (poorly written rules and regulations)
3. not enough opportunities to run the robot in competition.

District events would help with number 3. But teams are only concerned with that if they have a working robot. The only way to fix 1 and 2 is to communicate better with FIRST and other teams. I know that my team is terrible with this. We never give feedback to FIRST (if more teams give feedback, more likely FIRST will try to correct issues) and never bother to properly network with teams in our area. The teams I know that left FIRST, usually left because of not having a working robot at competition. 766 has been there, we know have horrible it can be to not have a robot working at all. I feel we could network better, help out other teams have a working robot at competition and network with better teams than ourselves so that we too can avoid pitfalls that cause a non-functioning robot. We certainly have made it difficult for ourselves by not posting any contact info. We will be definitely correcting that soon.

I think the key to improving FIRST is minimizing really frustrating experiences and maximizing positive experiences. Having more working robots and more matches are the ways to do it.

Re: Is there usually this much frustration?
 

Frustrations:

I'll start by stating that I really like the LogoMotion game. It has fairly intuitive scoring, the right balance of subtlety and mania, and the minibot race (despite all of the FTC/VEX political brouhaha) is a great climax to each match.

However I really have a problem with the excessive use of red cards this season, both as a sanction in the rules and in practice. In other sports the red card is used for egregious conduct or repetitive infraction of the rules. It really is devalued when a non-functioning robot can incur a red card, causing a team/alliance disqualification merely because of where it gets pushed to.

Tom, while I agree with your other points this one I have to disagree with. The retroreflective targets are a huge step forward in my opinion. Assuming the robot provides it's own illumination, there is much more control over hue and illumination timing so a robust solution to image tracking is far easier. As to making it worthwhile, at least this season there is a bonus to autonomous scoring - each top row ubertube is worth 6-12 points, so up to 36 points for each alliance in the match. While that's less than the 50 max points for minibots, it is still a strong incentive.

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.