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Re: Championship 2011 - St Louis - Your Thoughts Please?
The good.
I liked the shorter distances to the fields both in the dome and the pit fields.
Inspection and inspectors helpful and efficient.
Numerical pits made it easier to find people who needed parts and help.
Even though it seemed crowded the shorter distances to many of the displays and the other levels of FIRST was nice.
Robo Prom was great!! and enjoyed by all my team.
Concert Saturday was great as far as team members concerned. Adult feedback was too much emphasis on making a video of it which was distracting. I put it in the good since we a here for the kids!
The bad.
Load-in was very bad. No covered unload area and nothing done to accommodate teams who arrived a little before 5:00 PM. Should have let teams offload and come inside to wait to go to pits. I went through one door that had no one checking in and the next door had one very slow person (linear single tasker) checking in only those coming in that door (about 5 minutes per team). Again teams lined up outside in rain! Event coordinator Jerry saved the day for us but don't know how others fared.
Bleachers way too small.
Newton field in the dome located 15' too close to the stands. Couldn't see 1/2 of the competition floor without standing up.
Adult coaches on the floor way to pushy and looking out only for their own team - don't need adult coaches on the floor in the first place but that is another issue. Seeding is when teams get to show what they can do and in many cases checkout fixes and teams should be allowed to demonstrate their robot to their fullest. Again winning is not everything - just the robot being able to function as designed is a victory for many teams.
Several teams (primarily rookie) around us expressed disappointment in the treatment by other teams - yelled at their drivers when their robot had problems during seeding rounds, etc. My team saw some of this since we had communication problems during most of seeding but since we have been around a while and don't have the win at all costs attitude of some of the teams we just ignored them. We were there to have fun, help others, and learn from the designs of other teams. FIRST is not just about winning the robotics portion of the competition. I felt really bad about one team who had travel a long way that expressed doubt they would ever return to the championship.
Shepard shipping was poor. Took an 1-1/2 hours to get our crate and finally had to go get it ourselves when we located the crate and found one of the crate handlers leaning on their pallet truck. Observed as many a six pallet handlers sitting around doing nothing while Shepard continued to tell us it was being delivered. If Shepard want a separate document it needs to be included with the shipping paperwork at check-in - you shouldn't have to go through line twice to get checked out. Shepard lines need roping to help control the inconsiderate people. (Like Atlanta in 2009 when FedEx handled it). Overall it took me over 2-1/2 hours dealing with Shepard.
Saturday night - just forget it. Atlanta in 2009 was OK - food was good and spread out enough to have some fun, even if it was just Frisbee. St. Louis food poor, not enough activities and couldn't find anything without a lot of walking around. Just don't do it if you can't make it memorable.
Don Davenport
Team 2655.
Last edited by Jessica Boucher : 02-05-2011 at 19:56.
Reason: Language
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