Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The clock is ticking


Good Afternoon Teams,

Now that week 6 is behind us, my staff and I are able to turn our attention to Championship. I still can’t tell you anything about Friday or Saturday night (watch for an official announcement from FIRST, most likely on April 20th), but there are a few more details about FRC that I can share.

On April 15th I told you there will be two qualification/elimination fields in the dome and two in the pits. That is still true. I also told you teams would switch fields at noon on Friday (move from a dome field to a pit field or vice versa). That has changed. After discussions with Staff, FTAs and support organizations, teams will switch fields at the end of the day on both Thursday and Friday.

Newton and Curie will spend all day Thursday on the fields in the pits while Archimedes and Galileo will spend the day on the fields in the dome. When competition concludes for the day on Thursday, teams and field volunteers will move to the new field. This gives my staff and the volunteers all night to ensure the switch goes smoothly. Archimedes and Galileo will spend all day Friday on the fields in the pits while Newton and Curie will spend the day in the dome. When competition concludes for the day on Friday, teams and field staff will move back. Newton and Curie will run Saturday’s qualification and division matches on the fields in the pits while Archimedes and Galileo will run qualification and division matches on the fields in the dome.

Note:

• Divisions will change fields twice, once at the end of the day on Thursday, and again at the end of the day on Friday.
• There will be two driver’s meetings. One Thursday, April 28th from 8:15-8:45AM and one Friday, April 29th from 7:45-8:00AM.
• Teams are invited to calibrate their sensors on BOTH fields Thursday 8:00-8:45AM
• All field volunteers – with the exception of queuers -will switch fields with the division
• Curie will switch fields with Archimedes; Newton will switch fields with Galileo
• Practice fields will not be open Wednesday night.

We’re working now on signage to direct teams and the public to each field each day and we’ve spoken with Sargent Productions about ensuring the live feeds of division play are labeled with the division name, not the field location.

The fields from MN 10,000 Lakes, Dallas Regional, Colorado Regional, Buckeye, Utah, Silicon Valley, and North Carolina are already on their way to St Louis. Two more trucks, loaded with Championship specific supplies (banners, trophies, program books, FLL and FTC fields, etc.) will leave Bedford next week.

In other news:

The May edition of Popular Mechanics has a special pull out supplement all about FRC. The author Eric Sofge followed the GDC this year and shares his insights on the process. If you can, track down a copy, it’s a good article.

The highest score during the FRC Regionals was 150 points. It was scored by teams 1114, 3756, and 2056 during Semifinal match 1-1 at the Waterloo Regional. The highest possible score in LOGO MOTION is 158. I wonder if we’ll see that at Championship.

If Dean didn’t visit your Regional/District event, you can see what he has to say about the FIRST Green e-watt saver program here: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr....aspx?id=18445

You can vote for Dean Kamen in the STEM Superhero Sweeps (and register to win an iPad2).
The last time I checked Dean was in first place.

This Saturday, April 16th, FIRST president Jon Dudas and a FIRST student will be speaking at the
National Robotics Week event at the Boston Museum of Science in Boston, MA

13 Days until Championship
See you then!

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

Still waiting on the explanation for the layout, but this is at least a step in the right direction.

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

The provision of more details is good, and moving at the end of the day is logistically far more preferable to a mid-day move.

Not sure how relevant this is to the "why" but in the volunteer information packet I received today explicitly mentions Aerial Robotics pit area and may imply a field area on the Dome floor.

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I have to spend the whole championships in the pits!
WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

I'm sorry to hear this, sir. It's a shame, really, that a small few are going to be restricted. We'll see how this works out, though, and maybe things will be different next year :(

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

We'll all come visit you. :)

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, don't give away all of the secrets.

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

The actual words in the volunteer document:

o Safety glasses must be worn at all times in the FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST Tech Challenge and Aerial Robotics pit areas and the field areas on the Dome floor.

I would interpret this to only mean that their are FRC, FTC, and Aerial Robotics pit areas.... and there are field areas on the Dome floor.

I don't think you can infer that the Aerial Robotics pit areas are in the field areas...

This is only a reference to the requirement for Safety Glasses in ALL of the pit areas and in the field areas...

No secrets (other than having Aerial Robotics pits...) are exposed here..

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

So...Archimedes and Galileo get to have their division elims in the grandeur of the dome. I know which divisions our team wants to be in!;)

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

One of the many sources of ambiguity in English is the domain of conjunctions, leading to multiple parses of the sentence you quote above.
For example, is it:
[[Safety glasses must be worn at all times in] [the FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST Tech Challenge and Aerial Robotics] [[pit areas] and [the field areas on the Dome floor.]]]
or
[[Safety glasses must be worn at all times in] [[the FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST Tech Challenge and Aerial Robotics] [pit areas]] and [the field areas on the Dome floor.]]

But I agree "implies" is a little too strong in my earlier post, so I'm editing it to say "may imply"

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

I hope my aerial pit isn't too high up, I don't want to get hurt.

Wait...

You mean?..

Darn conjunctions!:mad:

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

Meh.
IRI is played in a high school gym and it's still awesome.
I'm sure I'll get over it real fast. I got a job to do anyways.

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

You may be right... Upon further review.... I think the better interpretation is that any OTHER field areas on the Dome floor don't need safety glasses... which would be FLL... I don't think that the FLL game tables at CMP have ever required safety glasses...

This would certainly imply that Aerial Robotics has field space on the Dome floor...

I think you may be correct in your original implication....

Of course I am just implying that from your original post...

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

Ed,
You are very good at telling people where to go...:p

We do appreciate your support.

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

Not having to switch fields in the middle of the day is a big relief to scouting... :p Thanks for the update!

(I also can't wait to see the aerial events)

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

Well considering that according to this thread that half the events I qued at were below average including the lowest rated event my skills could leave much to be desired.

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

i wonder if the teams will have enough time to calibrate their sensors..45 minutes for 349 teams (although i know everyone won't have an autonomous) to calibrate 2 different fields..it should be interesting

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

FTC Fields will be in the Dome.

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

SOO glad we don't have to switch at lunch! That'll help make things easier for getting seats, and moving scouting equipment.

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

Darn, I was looking forward to watching the chaos in the pits at noon! :rolleyes:

I don't care if I'm in the pits for 2/3 of the competition, just get er done!

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

I thought the same thing.

No way!

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

I'm..... annoyed. Given the option of switching twice, switching once at noon, or never switching, i'd much prefer the last option. Not switching simplifies soooooooo many things. Now we're trading the complication of a midday switch for twice the complication of an end of the day switch.

It's far, far too late now, but I think an truly equitable solution would be switching Friday evening. Teams either get a majority of matches in the dome with elims in the pits, or vice versa. Seems a little more even and a little less complicated to boot.

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

Ed, you gotta crack the whip a bit more. The people at DC weren't mean, from most perspectives, but man were they persistent.

This update is in the positive direction for most. So long as we get our morning coffee, this will be a bit better.

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

yay! I'm so glad we're not going to deal with the midday switch. I'll adjust and deal with the nightly switch, I don't think it'll be that bad and hopefully FIRST is only doing this for one year and switching all four fields back into the dome for next year.

Re: Bills Blog - Champs info 04/14/11
 

I think when they talk about calibrating, they mean the line sensors only, and possibly vision, and many teams can do it in parallel. I don't think that they will let teams run autonomous or measure distances, or anything that takes a long time.