[MysterE]

Good evening CD,

I often find that I am in the position of having to choose when to write or not to write on any forum. I learned a long time ago that responding to open accusation or inevitable conflict can't be done when one is tired and sensitive to what is happening around me.

With that in mind, I've been watching the other post concerning the Red Stick Rumble and after watching one of my own students post, I think I need to discuss the event as a whole. Before I begin I need to state that this event is ran by my team, FIRST Team 3337, Panthrobotics and is not in any way affiliated with any official FIRST event.

First, let me explain my belief about the off-season event that we run. The Dow Red Stick Rumble exists for three primary purposes.

1) To provide the surrounding community a thorough demonstration of the power of FIRST Robotics to create powerful STEM experiences and thus changing the lives of its participants.

2) To allow teams the opportunity to replay the previous year's game with the idea that new members can take part. This means that we as well as others use less experience drivers and often have robots that by now have been abused through many demonstrations and the like. I never wanted an IRI as this is not primarily about the competition but about the camaraderie.

3) To provide an atmosphere for my students to learn how to run a Four Program event (FRC, FTC, FLL, and JFLL). They act as volunteers, as area representatives, ambassadors, referees, and so on.

What we are not hosting is an event where we expect harsh competition, powerhouse alliances, and the like. Yes - this does happen but we also recognize that most of the teams that have come to join the Red Stick Rumble are not a powerhouse team. We are teams that are still growing.

In this, I believe that the way we handle our event is justified by its ends. Due to a scheduling mishap between the Louisiana High School Sports Association, our school, myself, and a myriad of others, our event ended up scheduled on the same day as a volleyball tournament. We were required to change our dates. As a result we lost 9 teams and a number of important volunteers including all but one officially trained referee. We also lost an entire team (456) who historically is one of the most helpful teams I've ever met in FIRST in regards to event flow, setup, and tear-down. (Sorry. . . just a plug for an amazing team). Most had ACT testing, other commitments, etcetera.

Due to this, we chose to adopt a different set of rules a week prior to competition. With only having one official referee who could not be present until the day of the event, we went with the same rules that will be applied at the Chezy Champs later this month. This was made clear in a mass email sent out to teams a week prior to the event.

On the day of the event, we had sixteen teams scheduled to compete. This led myself as well as our FTA, FTAA, and other acronyms to decide to hold a traditional eight alliance elimination match except with only 2 teams per alliance.

Unfortunately, one of the teams was a no show. As is our policy we allowed the games to go on as scheduled - hoping that our no show would. .well. .show. They did not. We used lunch time to determine how we would change the alliance selection procedure. We went with five alliances of three teams where the 1st seed received a bye.

Due to the lack of a strong selection pool we went with a rule that is common at many off-seasons where the five top seeds were not allowed to select from among themselves. This made sure that we did not invalidate the goals of the off-season as a whole.

All teams competed in the eliminations. Team 3039, Wildcat Robotics from Destrahan, Louisiana, 2992, the SS Promethius, from Mandeville, Louisiana, and 4209, Tigerbytes, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana came away with the 2015 Dow Red Stick Rumble win.

As a whole, the event was an amazing success. We had over 190 FLL students participate in a Fast Start directed by the Louisiana State University Peer Mentor program. All reported an amazing time. The Louisiana Junior FIRST Lego League partner gave a presentation to coaches on how to start a JFLL team in their school. This program is still very small and growing. I've received a lot of positive reviews from many of the FRC teams as well - including teams who made it to practice for the first time before competing or in the case of the TigerBytes won their first trophy ever.

We managed to raise $200.00 in support of a child with Leukemia as well as had 23 people donate blood to help her through her chemotherapy. School officials, possible donors to the Bayou Regional, Dow officials, and many others came through as well as a myriad of students and adults from the public all with the same look they all have - "So this is what robotics does."

My students acted admirably throughout the entire event - working as field reset, referees, score-keepers, safety-glasses attendants, garbage clean-up...you name it they did it.

These were our successes. Where did we fail?

Our biggest failure was with our FTC event. There was some confusion in regards to which control system was being used. We were unable to find the old control system software until the day of the event due to changes in its location on the FIRST website. Some teams had the JAVA system others had the Legacy system and that created some issues. This was our first year running an FTC event without help from our regional partner in Texas and I learned that smaller robots do not necessarily mean easier events.

A positive report though - we ended up having a good competition. We developed our own method of setting up a round robin game system and after some bumps the teams all had fun. Most importantly, they worked with us in getting the event moving smoothly and even offered help in working with our growing FTC group through the state.

Secondarily - communication. This was, admittedly, the hardest Rumble that I've run. Changes in schedule, loss of volunteers, the immensity of a four program event - it was a big deal. This is especially true of a Social Studies teacher turned robot coach. Many decisions were made on the fly with help from our AndyMark officials who had been to many more events than I could even fathom. Unfortunately this meant that some teams found out information much later than would been desired.

I was approached by one person expressing issues with the way that the event was run. This was done once while I was preparing for closing ceremonies and once when they were leaving prior to the end of the event. I will be honest. I referred them - as I believe is standard policy - back to the FTA and FTAA to discuss the changes in alliance selection. When I was handed our buttons and told that they would not be returning, I responded in as civil a manner as I could considering the method in which it was presented. I said, "As you wish."

All of the facts are true. Yes - we changed rules last minute. Yes - I did not take time to discuss the issue at the time. Yes - this could have been handled differently. Blame it on stress, on the pressure of a huge event at the end of the day after spending 72 hours setting it up.

But in the end, I stand behind all of our decisions as I saw the bulk of the teams present enjoy their experience. I stand behind our kids and the amount of work that they did to make this successful. I stand behind the results that the Rumble brings to my community, to my state, to the states around us, and to the overall perception of FIRST robotics across the entire Bayou Regional area.

I am definitely not perfect. I am definitely prone to responding in sarcasm when I am approached in anger. I am definitely prone to dancing around with the students, doing the whip and the nae nae. But I am also prone to recognizing that it is not my job to make everything work perfectly. All I can do is improve. Every year.

Next year we will have another Red Stick Rumble. Some teams will join us, other teams will not. I can't change those decisions. What I can say is that what we will do is try our best. When that is not good enough, we will try again.

Thank you.
-Daniel L. Eiland
Red Stick Rumble Coordinator
Proud Coach for FIRST Team 3337, Panthrobotics.