Petition to end things that confuse the public

[sanddrag]

Well, it's been just over two years to the day since my wildly popular and hotly contested Petition to end the shouting of ROBOT. Two years later, I can say it definitely has had a effect for the better, and I'm proud to have been the initiator of a national effort to improve the perception of our program by the general public.

This year, I began thinking about other things that perhaps are turning people away from wanting to be involved in this wonderful program we run. While attending events this year, I realized what some of these things are. We are a goofy bunch of folks, who have built a culture around celebration of what we do, in some strange ways that are not at all related to what we do. You all know what I'm referring to when I talk about the pauses between the finals matches at regional events. It's the dances, to the same goofy songs every year.

And believe me, I have seen the pure and genuine joy and excitement on my student's faces when they're out there doing their thing, but to the unfamiliar observer, it is difficult to relate these goofy activities with a highly technical robotics competition. It's confusing, and hard to "get." I've been to other robotics competitions outside of the FIRST league, and they just don't have the same energy and appeal. But, I'm not convinced it's these silly songs and dances that make FIRST events what they are.

Why can't regionals run finals the way championship does, with awards between matches, instead of these goofy songs? Did we debate this before and I missed it?

And I strongly considered putting a question mark at the end of this thread title, because I'm not sure if it's something I feel as strongly about as I did the thing with yelling "robot" and I may get completely shut out disagreed with on this one. But let's get the dialog started nonetheless. I feel like this thread will result in much more debate, and much less clear of an answer than the previous one, but I'm curious what the rest of the community's opinion is.

And as a standard disclaimer, if this thread were to years from now result in any drastic culture shift in FIRST, I sincerely hope it's for the better.

Debate away!

[Boltman]

Personally I liked the breaks to perfect the #cheescaking procedure.... so silly songs sure....

[dcarr]

Thanks for introducing a much-needed dose of common sense with "Petition to end the shouting of ROBOT" - I too have heard it less and less often as the years have gone by, and I think it has had a continuing positive impact as the practice is no longer being "passed on" to new teams who might have otherwise picked up the practice without knowing any of the context behind it. Also, now is as good a time as any to say, congratulations on the WFFA!

Originally Posted by sanddrag

And believe me, I have seen the pure and genuine joy and excitement on my student's faces when they're out there doing their thing, but to the unfamiliar observer, it is difficult to relate these goofy activities with a highly technical robotics competition. It's confusing, and hard to "get." I've been to other robotics competitions outside of the FIRST league, and they just don't have the same energy and appeal. But, I'm not convinced it's these silly songs and dances that make FIRST events what they are.

Have you encountered people who are confused or turned off by the intermissions that happen between elimination matches? I think things like this are a part of what makes FIRST culture unique. I'm not sure there would be much of a net positive if some of these fun traditions were removed or reduced.

[artdutra04]

While I'm not generally one who enjoys hearing the same six dance songs every few hours at events, I don't believe they necessarily are a negative part of the competition experience.

They have parallels to things at existing sporting events. Take baseball for example. Between every inning at baseball games, there are all kinds of weird shenanigans that entertain the crowd while the teams switch sides.

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

This year, I began thinking about other things that perhaps are turning people away from wanting to be involved in this wonderful program we run. While attending events this year, I realized what some of these things are. We are a goofy bunch of folks, who have built a culture around celebration of what we do, in some strange ways that are not at all related to what we do. You all know what I'm referring to when I talk about the pauses between the finals matches at regional events. It's the dances, to the same goofy songs every year.

It's like a Grateful Dead (or Phish) concert with Robots.

You walk in to the arena, the action on the stage is inscrutable, the audience is wearing colorful clothing and dancing a lot, people are responding to the action in unison and you're not sure why, and everybody is really nice to each other, GP.

Originally Posted by sanddrag

This year, I began thinking about other things that perhaps are turning people away from wanting to be involved in this wonderful program we run. While attending events this year, I realized what some of these things are. We are a goofy bunch of folks, who have built a culture around celebration of what we do, in some strange ways that are not at all related to what we do. You all know what I'm referring to when I talk about the pauses between the finals matches at regional events. It's the dances, to the same goofy songs every year.

In the end, I think it is about the students celebrating their hard work and that is a priority.

I am a little tired of the same songs too, etc.... but it works, and it is a collective activity, so, I dance with them.

I am also GA and we have had discussions in our conference calls about activities during the timeouts that have to occur this year for Robot "cooldown" in the SF's and Finals. We are trying to "mix it up" with activities that keep the audience attentive.
Your suggestion about doing awards between the matches is a good one, but awards require a cleared field for teams to walk down and be recognized. Probably won't happen until the CMP.

So, IMHO, no petition needed here. The petition about the shouting of "Robot!" had it's desired effect. This concern is more complex.

[Koko Ed]

I'm down with banning the Chicken Dance (and take the Macerena with you when you go)!

[The other Gabe]

the games themselves are quite confusing, but we can't really get rid of those

[The other Gabe]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I'm down with banning the Chicken Dance (and take the Macerena with you when you go)!

noooo not the Macerena :'(

On a different note; these competitions are not done for the bystanders, but for those who spent an inordinate amount of their time building a robot and want to have fun at these events. and let me tell you, after 2 hours straight of sitting, scouting matches, a dance break is more than welcome (especially at districts- those darned bleachers hurt!). Part of the atmosphere of FIRST is having fun at events, being serious only when needed and having fun the rest of the time. and awards cannot necessarily be given in between matches; if not given at the end of the event, some teams' improvements/cool stuff they do cannot be seen until near the end.

I could also go off on a tangent about how much I dislike your petition to end the shouting of robot, because that was another thing I liked about the atmosphere of FRC competitions, but that's for another place

[Basel A]

As someone who probably hasn't danced at an FRC competition since 2009 (my freshman year of HS), I think it's obvious the effect it has on the energy level of the students and the competition. As odd as it is to have so much dancing at a robotics competition, removing it I believe would be detrimental to the impact that FRC has.

[GreyingJay]

Yes, I liked the fact that showing up at an FRC event felt like going to any other sporting event like a hockey tournament, complete with silly music, sound effects, cheering, the wave, and so on.

Anything that makes STEM seem like a fun party time is a good thing, I think.

My local university used to broadcast courses on a cable TV channel. One that I would periodically tune into was some civil engineering course where the project was to build a bridge out of popsicle sticks. The prof would then load-test each bridge design to see how much weight it could handle before catastrophic failure. It was fun to watch - sort of - the guy was your typical dry stuffy prof and there was obviously mostly silence as he did the work in front of a quiet classroom. Your average jr high or high schooler would have got bored and switched the channel pretty quick.

Compare that with the energy levels at an FRC regional.

[Sperkowsky]

To start I don't think the robot shouting petition hit long Island because it seemed as bad as ever.

But more related I do agree on some of your points.

1.reserve non team seats in the front. So say have the team seats higher up allowing for the general public to get close to the action and not go all the way to the nose bleeds because they don't want to sit inside a team.

2.do crowd activites. Anything from small quiz games about Frc or even showing small videos the community has been made will make a difference.

3. Play the game animation constantly. New people need to know what they are watching and being the announcer called them barrels consistently even though in the manual it says containers it really annoyed me.

4.end the blue Alliance red Alliance chant. Everyone not part of Frc I have brought also thought it was the most annoying thing and made no sense. Just please stop it. If the people want to shout their Alliance fine but when it's done 50 times every match It makes me want to get on the mic and scream purple Alliance.

That's all I have now

[ToddF]

I think the biggest improvement regionals could make would be displaying informative graphics on the big screen between matches. There should never be a time when an audience member should need to ask, "What's going on?"

Suggestion: There should be ever present graphics between matches with the following info:
-Time since last match ended, previous match number, teams that played, outcome of the match.
-Upcoming match number, teams that are playing and their current ranks
-Some sort of graphic showing the phases between matches, with the current phase highlighted (scoring, robot removal, robot placement, connecting to field, ready for match) If a timeout is called, display the number of the team that called it, and a countdown clock. If there is an administrative timeout between finals matches, put up that graphic and countdown clock. If it's lunchtime, put up a graphic with a countdown clock until matches resume.

Having this info displayed would also make watching online streaming matches much easier to follow.

So, my solution to ending public confusion is simply to provide the information the public (and everyone else) wants to know: What's happening right now? What just happened? What's going to happen next? When will the next thing happen?

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by ToddF

I think the biggest improvement regionals could make would be displaying informative graphics on the big screen between matches. There should never be a time when an audience member should need to ask, "What's going on?"

Suggestion: There should be ever present graphics between matches with the following info:
-Time since last match ended, previous match number, teams that played, outcome of the match.
-Upcoming match number, teams that are playing and their current ranks
-Some sort of graphic showing the phases between matches, with the current phase highlighted (scoring, robot removal, robot placement, connecting to field, ready for match) If a timeout is called, display the number of the team that called it, and a countdown clock. If there is an administrative timeout between finals matches, put up that graphic and countdown clock. If it's lunchtime, put up a graphic with a countdown clock until matches resume.

Having this info displayed would also make watching online streaming matches much easier to follow.

So, my solution to ending public confusion is simply to provide the information the public (and everyone else) wants to know: What's happening right now? What just happened? What's going to happen next? When will the next thing happen?

I really like this - you can still play a dance song, do FRC trivia, or have some other thing happening while this graphic is up, if you so choose - but it would certainly eliminate the "Is this a time out? Cooldown break? Just hanging out? Is it over?"

I'm fully aware of the reasons we might have a break, and I'll still miss the announcement of "Team XYZ has called their 6-minute time out, so the clock will start over..." or whatever happens to have been done - so it's confusing to team members as well as first-time spectators. The seconds-counting-down on the overlay score bar isn't quite enough for this purpose.

[Tungrus]

Please do not take away fun from FIRST.... team members sitting on bleacher for hours get a break to stretch and relax. If anyone cannot take goofy song and dance, probably should be visiting pits, where pit crews are sweating. Promoting FIRST and educating masses about it, setup a informational/educational booth showing videos and lectures outside the arena. There is no reason to punish one to please other.

This comment is based on FIM district and not sure how other events and if they are putting off people from attending.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Tungrus

If anyone cannot take goofy song and dance, probably should be visiting pits, where pit crews are sweating.

During finals, most of the pits are either gone or are in the process of being torn down. Some teams are gone completely.

I like the info graphics idea. I also wonder what it takes to do what FIRST did at the Champs last year - they had still photos & silent video of the multi-day competition at some point during Einstein. If wouldn't need to be a grand production - even a PowerPoint or a Prezi would be great.