Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

Believe me this was a nightmare! Our team flew which meant what we could pack was limited or purchased when we arrived so there were some items that we didn't have. Whenever we did need something I just told them to start going outside our pit row to some smaller team numbers. Half of the teams in our row handed us a 1/8in rivet saying it would work with a 3/8in rivet. :o

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

Truthfully, the vet-rookie-vet side by side arrangement can get confusing, especially in a large area where pits are split all over the place, such as the Championship.

How about the following arrangement, where you "weave" veteran and younger team rows together, instead of individual teams? The highest numbered rookie teams would still be across the aisle from the lowest-numbered veteran teams, and I think this might make it easier for individuals to find a specific team:

--Aisle 1-------Aisle2-------Aisle3--
V01----R15-V10----R06-V11----R05
V02----R14-V09----R07-V12----R04
V03----R13-V08----R08-V13----R03
V04----R12-V07----R09-V14----R02
V05----R11-V06----R10-V15----R01

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

That's similar to what was used at MSC this year, and at the St. Louis regional in several previous years. Works well for getting help to the newer teams, and makes it relatively easy for volunteers to find teams in the pits.

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

Either way would be an improvement. In Galileo alone, there were 5 (now 6) Hall of Fame teams ready to lend a helping hand on one side of the convention center, and the rookies in the very same division were several hundred yards away. Didn't make a lot of sense.

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

While I do agree it can be confusing and some of the first years they did this it was very confusing at the regional level, this past year at GSR they did a phenomenal job at keeping the pits numerically sound and integrating the rookies with veteran teams.

Putting all of us rookies in one row just isn't a good idea. Too much BAD stuff happened this weekend.

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

I was using "fair" in a broader sense then offering a competitive advantage. It also includes working to the same set of rules and restrictions.
There were teams at Regionals who had installed Tetrix motors for high torque applications - clearly not a competitive advantage but still a problem which was identified by inspection and fixed.
If you see something on a robots which should not have passed inspection, please inform an inspectors or lead inspector. It may even have been a change installed after passing inspection.

I think it was the Connecticut Regional this year where the pits were ordered across rows, rather than along rows. So each row had a distribution of veteran to rookie teams.
Using Travis' notation, it was arranged something like this:

-Aisle 1----Aisle2----Aisle3--
01----02-03----04-05----06
07----08-09----10-11----12
13----14-15----16-17----18
19----20-21----22-23----24
25----26-27----28-29----30

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

VCU used a similar set up where the lowest number teams were closest to the back walls in the rows. The rookie teams were out the outside of the rows near the walkway. It allowed the rookies to have high visibility to foot traffic, it seemed to aid them in getting timely assistance.

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

Hmm. The interweaving of the rookie and veteran teams is an interesting concept. I didn't realize how much help vets could be at championships, but not everyone has two regionals to work things out like we did (especially as well as we did). FIRST seems rather incredible in how much teams helping each other is a part of the culture - there's a reason there are awards just for that!

Otherwise... the layout of the entire competition was extremely confusing. It took me a large portion of Friday to figure out how to get to the stands in the dome from the pits (and then the upstairs way was closed, for no reason at all.) The entrances were odd, too - for some obscure reason we were always entering at the far side of the pits. Yes, the shop (got a cool shirt, plus a signed copy of The New Cool!), FLL/FTC, and all those booths (I got to fly an F-18 sim. Awesome) were cool, but that doesn't mean I want to walk a quarter of a mile or better every morning and every evening.

The seating in the pits, as others have mentioned, was just entirely insufficient, and I really don't understand why someone thought having only two of the fields in the dome would work. The switching off I guess made it more fair, but Curie was still stuck in the pits for their elimination rounds. For the elimination rounds! It doesn't help that it was making room for the concert, considering I don't even like them. One odd thing about the bleachers was that I was forever dropping things under them. Dozens of glasses must have been lost down there!

I know the logistics of an event like this are just amazingly complex, but this is the Championships! The organization at Oklahoma City was quite a bit better than this. I'm sure they'll work out the kinks, but still. (I liked the emcees and the announcer better there, too.)

Most of these were things I could live with quite easily, but it's a little disappointing coming to an event as big as this one and finding things inferior to smaller-scale events. I figure I'm just helping to make it better next time! (And hoping, so hoping that I'm there to see it. It'll be a lot harder to make it next year.)

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

Def going can-bus free, or fixing out the kinks. (at least warning about the risks of can-bus)

Letting robots pressurize before the match starts

Having a driver station inspection that looks at if wifi was disabled since it caused so many problems this year.

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

I'm pretty sure the final driver station update shut down all network ports except the one used to communicate with the robot.

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

That was network ports

Wifi needs to be disabled completely, just letting Ethernet run. That solved our problem.

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

I am not sure what the problem is with letting the robots pressurize before they took the field. We were a team that did that so that we could hold the uber-tube. The rules stated that it was fine as long as you used the battery that you would going to be using for the competition, which we did.

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

Which rule(s) are you referring to? I don't remember reading anything in the 2011 game manual defining legal power sources for stored air pressure.

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

I do not have a rule book handy to look it up, but there was something about using the same battery, maybe it was in an update?

Re: 2011 Lesson Learned: The Negative
 

Nope, it was in CD discussion. AKA, highly unofficial.