Quote:
Originally Posted by marshall
I'm still avoiding voting because I haven't made up my mind. Here are some of my thoughts though:
Things I like:
- More play time.
- Unbag time... Particularly if the rules don't change next year.
 - Proximity of the events was nice.
Things I don't like as much:
- No time between matches to fix problems (we will get better at this).
- Lack of understanding of the district points system (this will get better).
- No recovery time on Sundays. The events just left me drained and I will need to plan for this next year (the plus side is missing less work but I found myself taking Mondays to recover?).
- Seeing the same teams win similar awards for events (yes, we were guilty of this too and it is to be expected... it just gets dull).
- Missing our friends from out of state and out of country. We liked playing with teams outside NC. Perhaps we will travel to Indiana next year. I'd like to see other teams allowed into the districts somehow.
- The district events had tiny awards... I know, I'm being petty but it was kinda sad. I get it, I really do, but it was still sad to me. DCMP had the normal size awards. Like I said, I get it... still sad to me.
Things that I really don't like at all:
- The flooring at the NC District events. It was good for standing on but trying to move/roll anything on it was a monumentally painful process.
- Volunteer burnout was obvious. I am hoping to change that with the NC FIRST Alumni group but it is in its infancy. NC needs more volunteers. When we have them, we'll have the luxury of alternating them to help with burnout.
- Districts need to recognize additional Dean's list and WFFA recipients (though maybe as they grow? This might already be a thing and I'm just not aware).
Things that I feel should be fixed:
- NC needs more FRC Teams.
- NC needs more FRC Teams.
- NC needs more FRC Teams.
I'm sure I've got more but that's my list. At first glance it seems more negative than positive but truthfully, we enjoyed the move to districts. It was a great first year for it and I'm hoping for many more awesome years. |
On the topic of the short match times, we swallowed that pill at the beginning of the season and made one of our biggest priorities being making a robot that required this'll maintenance over 150 match cycles. 50 for build and unbag and 100 plays in the regular season. This requirement forced us to simplify and use whatever trick we could in the book to "bulletproof" the machine. We were quite literally running a test chassis into walls during week 2 to see how easily we could break stuff... The regional system and district system can require two entirely different build strategies depending on the kind of team you are. For us, it meant that nothing went on the robot before we were 100% sure it was ready for prime time.
We ran 3 events in 3 weekends. I'm not even gonna ask how 125 is able to run 4 events in 4 weekends, including literally simultaneously running a district event in the middle. Thankfully for everyone, our last event led into Easter, which led into spring break. The kids just completed their first normal week of school since the first week in March; I can't believe I haven't gotten a call from the director at the school about it. It's a grind, yo.
The worst part for me the whole season was paying for the stupid decision November me made, where I got home from Asheville at 1am Monday morning, then proceeded to shotgun unbag time in between work class and "sleep". That is a grind. What's crazy is that some kvs were pulling that as well, just replacing unbag time with field setup time. Now is the time for these emerging districts to embrace all of the great alumni I know we are producing.
I am not much of a fan of the current state of the " R" in FIRST. I think the changes FIRST is implementing through Dean's List modifications are damaging an already somewhat controversial award. The WFA committee is trying to keep themselves from almost actually drowning in essays, but I don't know for sure if it's the right solution to the obvious problem. I have immense respect for all of the crazy men and women who take time out of their job, their mentoring, and the people they probably share houses with and identify as their family to judge the essays, but I wonder if they think it's tenable long term? I also wonder what they think about having Minnesota get 4 wffas a year while FiM, MAR, PNW, and NE get as many with over double the team count... I guess people can and will say that it's an honor for anyone to be nominated for these awards, but if that comes from someone who, you know, actually won the award already, my eyes will probably roll out of my head.
Also, those floors are terrible. We had to unload our robot cart so it wouldn't sink in queue.