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Unread 29-03-2010, 11:15
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Lee Drake, CEO, OS-Cubed Inc.
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Re: 2010 Boston Regional

All around 1511 cleaned up in Beantown with the Chairmans and finalist awards as well as coopetition, had an awesome time and were very impressed with the teams there. There were a number of good hangers (ours included after some significant reengineering) and many robots that started a little rough on practice day were up and running well by the end of competition. Thanks to our alliance partners and some awesome competition the finals ended up being high scoring events decided by just a point in each case.

The other teams, the volunteers, the judges and the event crew were all phenomenal. I especially want to thank the Judges, Woodie and Dean for showing up and being so gracious and nice to our team members. I know that just being there made at least some of our parent mentors (parentors) lifetime supporters. One of our parents who had never been on an away trip with her son said to me "Wow, I had no idea. Now I get it. Now I understand...."

The areas for improvement include some issues with getting power to our laptops for scouting on the final day, and a slow startup due to field problems on Thursday morning, other than that the event went without a hitch.

I would like to note that the power issue was not universally enforced. At least one team (not naming names - and we didn't "blow them in" at the event) had power running from the central camera booth down to their scouting laptops the entire time - after it had been announced over the PA and we had specifically been told - no power from the top. It was an obvious cable and was taped down along the stairs - even a casual observation would have seen it. We were alternately told during the weekend it was alright if the top level booth people didn't complain and that it was absolutely forbidden and against the rules. Note I am not criticising the staff or volunteers, they did their best with what were obviously rules handed down to them by either FIRST or the Venue itself.

I think in general this is something that FIRST and the venues that FIRST is at should think about. More and more teams are wanting to use laptops in the stands to scout. Our particular scouting config consists of 6 laptops (one for each robot) and one host machine that gathers the data from the other 6. There isn't a laptop on the planet which can last from a single battery charge for hours of scouting - certainly not the low end inexpensive ones that teams can afford or get handed down to them.

Could there not be some OFFICIAL scouting area where teams could sign up to have up to say 7 seats (one for each robot, and one for a host machine) that has power run to it and it's LEGAL to setup a little network and laptops? Due to wifi restrictions (this DOES make sense - don't want to interfere with the field) we can't network wirelessly and position laptops in supposedly "legal" areas, so cabled networks are the only way to do a shared laptop system.

If you place the scout area in an area that has reasonable view of the game so that scouters can see what is going on, and so that other spectators aren't standing up in the way of the scouters, tape it off and reserve it just for scouters, have the power run by an electrician so it's not a potential danger. Just an idea but one I think is worth considering. I think this would also remove some of the pressure involved with "getting the best seats" for scouting. If we KNOW we have reserved scout seats, then the teams can just pick a nice place to view from but don't have the "scramble" to get to it. This is a general idea for all events and I'd encourage input. I understand the concern for having "amateur run" power in the stands, but I also think that scouting and strategy are an important part of FIRST and it would be nice if we could come up with a solution that both protects the venues and participants, AND allows scouters to do their job.

On my perennial issue of sound both the FLR and Boston regionals seemed to forget the complaints of prior years. The music (especially the final day) was too loud much of the time - to the point of speaker distortion in some cases, the announcing and the field system buzzers were also too loud. Earplugs were a required accessory in the stands. A complaint at FLR resulted in a brief turning down of the volume for an hour or two then it went right back up - I didn't even bother in Beantown, it seems like a lost cause. Are we still measuring SPL levels and monitoring from the stands? Because that seemed to work well last year....
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Last edited by OScubed : 29-03-2010 at 16:32.