These are the notes I took at the Richmond Team Forum on Monday. Typed again when I tried to post and it said page not found.
Sound is too loud, be generally the opinion is better this year than last
A CD of the manual would be very helpful. Some rural teams have limited internet access, with mabye noone on the team having highspeed access for downloading large PDFs. CD cheaper to burn then copying paper manual.
Autonomous mode, lots of talk
- Many against and many for, most against expanding it this year
-New controller limited autonomous advancement from last year
-A reliable plug-in center would improve automode, especially for rookies
-" 'Woodie likes it', so it isn't going anywhere"
-A reference model would help teams with a starting point
IR needs work, a assembled sensor would be very helpful.
Also having working emmitors on the field would be good.
Reflections off the diamondplate on the field was causing problems.
Playing field blueprints were late, and that was bad
Releasing bill of parts for field early is very helpful. Allows teams to get items donated/price check.
Inventor model of field in the kit.
Consolidation of rules after week one
Have official refs at scrimmages
Judges need FIRST experience, at least some of them should have previous FIRST experience
Feedback from judges to facilitate team improvement would be very helpful
Missing parts, want parts or to know they can’t have them. FIRST acknowledged that this was a major problem this year, and attrebuted most of the problem to growth.
MSC on site was beneficial at Chesapeake Regional
MSC reps that were at Chesapeake wants to expand and have MSC onsite at more/all the regionals next year. Possibly having nuts and bolts and such be free for repairs. This is still being percolated upwards at MSC.
Availability of game pieces, not substitutes was discussed. There was miscommunication between FIRST and the vendor somewhere.
Larger accumulators, possibly plastic accumulators for lower weight.
The LED lights were flimsy and broke often.
Defer eligibility to Nationals for a year o allow for fundraising.
AV is one of the largest costs of a regional, but AV makes the event.
Fed-ex pick up in rural areas is sometimes difficult, with pickup not guaranteed on any day. FedEx won't schedule, only calling the day before for a "maybe we'll pick it up tomorrow."
Winner getting losers points helps level the playing field and is good.
Publicize rule clarifications/interpretations better.
Better control of media passes at events.
People are still opinionated on engineer vs. student run. Big surprise.
These are just the notes I took, and I didn't write down everything that was said, just most of it.
Wetzel