[BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

My God there are so many sentences with "special" sounding words! :yikes:

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

I got about 30% through the survey and quit. There's way too many questions.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

There's a question on every award but the Safety Award, and then one summary page at the end. I think they're trying to simulate the length of the awards ceremony.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

<sigh>

It took me 14 minutes to: start answering the questions, and then decide to scroll through the entire survey before deciding it wasn't worth the effort vs the amount of time it would take vs information collected.

I think I know what they are trying to do here, but this is a lazy survey.
The answer choices are all the same, regardless of whether it is an individual award or a team award. There is no acknowledgment that "winning" is a group effort. The questions about Finalist are the same as Champion (do teams really "try" to win Finalist trophy?) Why are some awards defined but most not? No questions about how some awards earn a slot at the CMP.

I have been a judge. I have been on a team as a mentor. I understand FIRST wants to take a look at revamping the awards. I just don't know what they are going to glean from this poorly worded, way too long survey that will really help them. There are other ways to do this that could provide valuable feedback. FIRST uses test teams and selected input for some areas of the program. IMHO they should be doing the same for this topic.

I will be interested to see the response rate. I have feedback. I just can't give it in this format.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

The survey goes a bit quicker when you get halfway into it and then realize that answering everything is not required. Still rather repetitious. I think asking the person taking the survey what their "Top 3" and "Bottom 3" with regards to each question would be a better way of finding out what's important.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

The survey was way to long. I did it, motivated only by the fact that as I was doing it, I came up with a better way to ask the same question.

I encourage all FIRST girls to apply for the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing. I found out about it through Bill's Blog last year, applied, and was the only sophomore to win the National Award. Of the thirty five national winners, over twenty of us were affiliated with FIRST, including a National Deans List Finalist. It was truly a great experience. In fact, Im typing this on the computer they gave me. It can really open young women to more opportunities, global organizations, more women like them, and free stuff!

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

My favorite was, "Has your team ever won an official FRC event?"

Answer: yes

"Do you feel winning this award was worth the effort?"
"How much effort did you put in to winning this award?"
"Does your team hope to win this award?"
"Does your team make a special attempt to win this award?"

Answer: Not at all. :p

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

I just finished the survey and it is no less than brutal. Mindlessly going through it took me about 30 minutes. I am sorry, but it really was a horrible survey. I don't think FIRST will get the volume they were hoping for, nor the insight they were looking for.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Here's a better format: Pick the 3 awards you think promote and agree with the vision of FIRST the most, and give us one detail from a dropdown of why you think they do that. Also pick the 3 you think don't accomplish this, with similar details.

Sometimes less is more.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

That was painful.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Agreed. The format is just brutal.

I gave up 5 minutes after I realized I was only 11% done

-RC

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

If they are looking at new technology stuff for potential use in 2015, good luck with that. A lot of development can happen between 2011 and 2015. It will be old technology by 2015. How long do you guys keep your Smart Phones before you're ready for the newest edition? 4 years?

Survey - I filled it out. Glad I had a couple of cups of coffee to keep me company. If we ask our team members (students and parents) to fill this survey out, they won't know a lot of the awards we've won or when. They also won't know what the awards are and what their purpose is. I would imagine that in September of the new year with the new season a few months away, that the members of many of the teams will not know all of the information needed to fill out the survey. But - it seems opinion-based anyway and everyone has one of those.

Jane

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Two years for me...but I assume that Apple has a long, long time invested in making sure my iPhone runs like a champ. I'd much rather FIRST ship us a control system that is less-than-cutting-edge but with superior performance in certain key areas (cost, field sync speed, robust construction and operation, and packaging with regard to the robot, not necessarily in that order).

And yes, long survey is long. I think they'll get more value from my comments than from the checkboxes.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

I had to see what everyone was talking about...and yes, the survey UI is dreadful.

They should probably have just put it all on a minimal number of pages, and employed a Likert scale.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

The survey is poorly laid out. Some questions should have just been yes/no. The repitition of questions & answers was cumbersome. I did finish the survey in under 1/2 hour.

On another note, "monumental elements" really stands out in my mind.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

And some of the answers seemed to be on the wrong scale. Paraphrasing: "sort of" is not an appropriate response to "How much work would you put in?"
The sentence "The GDC...rocked the workshop" seems to mesh with the "monumental" idea. Is anyone else thinking of giant carved stone faces of Dean, Woodie, Bill, and John?

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Between a rock and a hard place... ROCK LOBSTER!

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

The title of the post was 'up, up and away'.

Maybe we'll be lifting heavy objects?

It's too early for game hints.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Yes, the survey was terribly constructed. Uggh.

As for technology, I agree with BillFred - we don't need cutting edge, we need simplicity, reliability and ease of use. I'd much rather that [i]FIRST[i] work to solidify what we use now than making efforts to find new technology.

Since Bill mentioned "supporting our mission and values", I'd really rather that FIRST were working to make it so that every team could participate in at least 2 events. ($6,000 is a heck of a lot for 25 minutes of game time in a single regional!) Remember that 3/4 of teams do not attend the Championship and a huge number (nearly half?) attend only one regional.

-Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

i think they need to stick to hints for the 2012 game. I can't be excited for 2013 yet, 2012 is so far away!

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

I sense Track Balls will return.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

There's a time and a place for hints/games/jokes. There's a time and a place for providing pertinent information regarding the current season and upcoming seasons. Mixing information/hints/seasons up creates confusion in a disorganized fashion. It's nice that they want to work towards the future regarding the robot game challenge but the money we will be paying very soon will be for this season's competition only and it is the one that matters to the teams that will be competing. If teams were investing in 2 - 4 seasons down the road, I might be more keen to know what is going to transpire but, at this point, it simply doesn't matter. It has too much of the feel of a romper room effect right now to be considered any sincere form of transparency.

I miss Dave.

Jane

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Wow. That survey was FAR too long, and even more so repetitive. I almost regret taking it. What do other CDers feel about the award system now. I sort of like it. I appreciate the judges and feel that they are doing a great job with both pit interviews and award choices.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

Which particular section of Bill's Blog do you feel was confusing? I'm no English major, but he has an interesting hook with regards to game design and goes on to provide important information for this season with no overt references to game hints that affect the flow of the piece. People talking about game hints for the most part are people reading game hints into everything like they always do.

He also gets bonus points for mentioning airplanes. :cool:

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

I think Jane is saying that Bill's Blog is being too cute, simply for the sake of being cute, and that dilutes the message. BB is an official source of information from FIRST. It's as if an email from the COO of a company would have to be examined word by word for hidden clues. (I know corporate announcements do have to be examined to find out what they say and what they don't say; they just don't do it by wordplay.)

That was not the case when Dave Lavery was on the GDC. Everything Dave posted was unofficial, and he could select words just to exasperate everyone.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

I'd much rather see Poof Balls.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

If he (or his ghost writer) is going to discuss multiple years in one blog post, break them down chronologically:

2012

2013

2014

2015

If he (or his ghost writer) wants the blog to convey meaningful information such as 2012 updates on venue status, costs, game manual readiness, teams enrollment, etc., then cut out the cutesy. If the blog is just meant to be cutesy, why? What is in this blog post regarding the seasons' game challenges that is useful?

Dave's skills at communicating accurate information that was useful and his timely and cunningly crafted hints were not meshed together in a crazy manner. It was genius - year after year, post after post however informal. If you felt the romper room effect, it was because he had planned that effect very carefully. This blog is not that controlled or skillfully managed although it is a formal means of communication.

Jane

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

I'd like that.


The survey took me maybe half an hour, at the least. Most of that time was spent trying to remember what, out of all the things we said to the judges, could be applied to each award. That's the best metric I could come up with to answer the questions. I wonder why they had drop down menus instead of checkboxes (or similar). Clicking once instead of twice would have cut down a lot of time. Also, as someone said earlier, the UL Safety Award was left out.

Regarding game hints...I don't they're talking about 2013. If they don't feel like there is anything new on 2012 to report, and if 2013 is what the GDC is working on right now, that's great. It's cool to see how quickly and efficiently they're working. Dropping words that could be interpreted as game hints is another matter. Let's stick with one year at a time on those. This year's game hint threads are going to be chaotic when people start mixing up hints for 2012 and 2013.

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

We do not need cutting edge. We need relevancy. We have that now. This system, frankly, doesn't need to change for the forseeable future.

I sincerely hope that FIRST's roadmap for technology includes a giant "STOP" sign that says "Please check to see if making this significant change really brings anything to the team members."

For instance, improving the input system to the laptop would be wonderful. Changing from Joysticks in the KOP to Logitech Gamepads? Great! Adding anything that increases complexity on an already complex system? NO!

Re: [BB] 9/20/11 "Up Up and Away"
 

I'd take them making it simpler. Faster boot times, faster connect times, faster LV compile times... Nothing innovative just some iterative changes.