[FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers

[Hallry]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 5/13/16: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...by-the-numbers

The 2016 Season, by the Numbers

Written by Frank Merrick, 2016 May 13


The 2016 Season, by the Numbers

Hope everyone had as much fun this season as I did!* The staff here took about one week to recover after the FIRST Championship, then started hammering away on the 2017 game. And, good news, our friends at Walt Disney Imagineering, a Gold-level Supplier to FRC, will be lending their creativity and expertise once again to the process!

Here are some FIRST STRONGHOLD season numbers you may find interesting.

335,730

The number of times the FIRST STRONGHOLD game animation, produced by our friends at Automation Direct, also Gold-level suppliers to FRC, has been viewed on the FRC YouTube channel as of this writing.



44,549

The total number of registered attendees we had for the FIRST Championship



32,598

The total number of team-affiliated attendees we had registered for the FIRST Championship. For the students on these teams, that’s many thousands of young people potentially leaving St. Louis with an expanded sense of their own potential. They leave ‘bigger’ than they arrived, and not because of the BBQ at Pappy’s.



13,303

Total number of official qualifying and playoff matches played this season



5,532

The number of different field set-ups used in those 13,303 matches



3,140

Total FRC teams registered this season



400

Total Rookie FRC teams registered this season



100-1

More of a range of numbers here, but some folks in our community seem to enjoy comparing how good they thought the FRC games have been over the years. So, I thought we’d do a data dump. To my knowledge, we’ve only asked a ‘so, what did you think of the game?’ question systematically on team surveys for the last four years, so that’s as far as these numbers go back.

A few notes on this info:

• This is not a scientific survey. It’s an aggregation of responses to the post-event surveys we’ve sent out over the years. All registered teams should get one of these surveys for every event they attend, but the surveys are just sent to the two main contacts, and those contacts may or may not respond and may or may not forward along the survey to other team members and ask them to respond also. Also, since a survey goes out for every event attended, teams attending multiple events get to ‘vote’ multiple times. So, no one should assume this information precisely represents the opinion of the FRC community as a whole, though it may give some rough pointers.
• You will note a shift in the original wording of the question we used in 2013 from asking about the quality of the game concept to just asking about the quality of the game in later years. We did this when we realized a game concept might be great, but the execution awful, and we really just wanted to know what folks think of the games overall. We realize ‘quality’ might be a loaded term also, though. Maybe next year we’ll just go with the ultra-concise ‘Game?’ as the complete question. Or no words, just a question mark. That would do it.
• The survey for Championship attendees for 2016, in which we also ask the game quality question, has not yet closed. While I wouldn’t expect the percentages for this year’s game to change much when those results are finalized later, they may shift a bit, and the response count will rise.

You can find the data here.



3




Number of sea containers we needed to get all those boulders we used in FIRST STRONGHOLD from Sweden to the United States for distribution to teams and events

Photo credit



1

Prettiest Princess Award. Check out the 2016 FIRST Bad Lip Reading video here, and thanks to all the folks that helped put this together!

Frank

*For the record, the amount of fun I had this season can be objectively quantified as ‘mondo’

Sorry Frank, I never did get the chance to buy you that corndog.

[jojoguy10]

I took the liberty of creating a bar graph of the Weekly Quality Survey 9from the survey Excel sheet that was in the post).

http://imgur.com/kDRQseO

Edited spreadsheet is attached

[BotDesigner]

And, good news, our friends at Walt Disney Imagineering, a Gold-level Supplier to FRC, will be lending their creativity and expertise once again to the process!

Are we going to see another "themed" game? I am not sure I like this...

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by BotDesigner

Are we going to see another "themed" game? I am not sure I like this...

I was one of the bigger whiners about the game theme pre-kickoff, and I was happy with how it turned out.

I look forward to more well integrated themes.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I was one of the bigger whiners about the game theme pre-kickoff, and I was happy with how it turned out.

I look forward to more well integrated themes.

Ditto!

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Originally Posted by BotDesigner

Are we going to see another "themed" game? I am not sure I like this...

I would guess we will. I hope if they do though, they stick to using themes that excite people and still feel like a competition. This year worked great because it gave the feel of a medieval tournament. It still felt very competitive and I feel added to the game fairly well. A theme like recycling though sort of takes away from the competitive aspect and doesn't really pump anyone up. I'm not sure how many themes they could use that fit with robotics but hopefully they find another that can work as good as Stronghold.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

I would guess we will. I hope if they do though, they stick to using themes that excite people and still feel like a competition. This year worked great because it gave the feel of a medieval tournament. It still felt very competitive and I feel added to the game fairly well. A theme like recycling though sort of takes away from the competitive aspect and doesn't really pump anyone up. I'm not sure how many themes they could use that fit with robotics but hopefully they find another that can work as good as Stronghold.

Personally I would have liked stronghold better without the theme.

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Personally I would have liked stronghold better without the theme.

Care to elaborate? Just throwing opinions on message boards without any substance is useless.

I, for one, think the game helped to contribute a lot to FIRST, including making viewership for an outsider seem a bit more entertaining. The theme helped to get team members engulfed into the game, and while the 'Renaissance Fair' flair that some people had at competitions may have been off-putting to some, it just shows they were inspired.

The Disney Imagineers helped to hit this game out of the park.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by bkahl

Care to elaborate? Just throwing opinions on message boards without any substance is useless.

I, for one, think the game helped to contribute a lot to FIRST, including making viewership for an outsider seem a bit more entertaining. The theme helped to get team members engulfed into the game, and while the 'Renaissance Fair' flair that some people had at competitions may have been off-putting to some, it just shows they were inspired.

The Disney Imagineers helped to hit this game out of the park.

I disagree.

Most of the people I showed the game to thought the medieval theme was too childish. The times where we got the best response during demos of our robot we just explained it as a Dodgeball robot.

Our team went with the theme quite a bit. In fact our lead mentor spent over 10 weeks straight hand making chain mail. But, I think the best first games are the ones more like a sport. It's just easier for some outsiders to relate.

Also I don't see how making a costume instantly shows someone is inspired.

Think of this game without the decals without the castle tops and without the interestingly named defenses. I think it would still be just as fun and less off putting to the average high school student.

I will end this saying I did love the game the concept was cool and I liked the game pieces. What I did not like was the imo childish theme.

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Most of the people I showed the game to thought the medieval theme was too childish. The times where we got the best response during demos of our robot we just explained it as a Dodgeball robot.

I hope you didn't lie to too many people.

I don't see how making a costume instantly shows someone is inspired.

Inspiration- the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.

Think of this game without the decals without the castle tops and without the interestingly named defenses. I think it would still be just as fun and less off putting to the average high school student.

The game would be confusing without the theme. The theme tied it all together.

As for your 'average high school student' comment... I find 2 key issues.

1) Not every 'average high school student' connects to sports
2) This program is full of students I would say stray from the 'average' high school student in A LOT of ways.

While I like sports games too, FIRST has done A LOT of sports themed games. Its cool to stray from the norm. I think a majority of the people in the program took the theme well.

Besides, its better than Recycling.

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by bkahl

The game would be confusing without the theme. The theme tied it all together.

I agree. I think the big difference between 2015 and 2016 is that this year the theme helped the game make sense. The very different tasks of shooting, driving over obstacles, and climbing are all tied together by the theme. The theme makes the game make sense as opposed to 2015 where they could have called the game Stack Attack and it would have made just as much sense.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by ASD20

The theme makes the game make sense as opposed to 2015 where they could have called the game Stack Attack and it would have made just as much sense.

Except that in 2003, Stack Attack made a lot MORE sense--see (opponent's) stack, ATTACK!!!! (Yep, that was the game name that year.)

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by EricH

Except that in 2003, Stack Attack made a lot MORE sense--see (opponent's) stack, ATTACK!!!! (Yep, that was the game name that year.)

I know it was the 2003 name, but I can never think of another name to use as an example because it is so darn catchy.

[jijiglobe]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

I disagree.
Most of the people I showed the game to thought the medieval theme was too childish. The times where we got the best response during demos of our robot we just explained it as a Dodgeball robot.

I had quite a different experience. I explained the game as a tower-defense game to most people and they seemed quite excited by it. This especially appealed to high schoolers who have experience playing tower-defense games but might not have been interested in robotics. At the end of the day, appealing to high schoolers is kinda the point. The theme made the game easier to explain and more interesting to watch for outsiders. I also liked the medieval fanfare because it added a bit of flavor and excitement to the events (also felt pretty sweet carrying a division standard onto the field ). I'm not sure how long they'll be able to come up with unique, well-integrated themes (perhaps a 4-year theme cycle?) I also think that one of the reasons that FIRST Stronghold is one of the most beloved FRC games in recent history is that it had such a strong driving vision behind it. You might say that that Stronghold would have been better with the exact same game, without the theme, but I highly doubt the current game design would have been reached without the theme.

[EricH]

A themed game does not have to be good or bad. As a matter of fact, what makes or breaks a game probably ISN'T the theme, but the theme can enhance the game.

Themed games:
2008 (NASCAR/Mario Kart)
2009 (Moon base)
2010 (Soccer)
2011 (FIRST Logo)
2012 (Basketball)
2015 (Waste management)
2016 (Medieval)

Pre-2008, there really wasn't much of a theme to the games, per se. They were... the games. 2013 and 2014 are left off as well, for a similar reason.

So, with that being said...
2009 and 2015 consistently make "bad game" lists. 2009's primary issue seems to have been the floor and the trailers resulting in scrums; 2015 was essentially 3v0 + 3v0, with "extra" game elements. 2011 is often included on those lists due to the minibots (a rather failed attempt to integrate FTC with FRC to some extent, which happened to decide many matches and tournaments).

On the other side of the coin, 2012 is generally regarded as a good game (though not top-flight necessarily--that depends on how many other good games whoever is ranking it has seen) with the one negative being the coopertition points that year; some teams tell horror stories about being stood up on that bridge. 2008 is "OK"--nothing fancy, nothing too terrible (other than the dreaded lane violation penalty); 2010 is in the same boat (with the main complaints being, as I recall, the ties and the possession limitations). And 2016 is one of the few games that was greeted with "We get to play this? COOL!" rather than "WTF, GDC?", and maintained a generally very high level of liking through the season (minor hiccups aside).

Where does that leave themed games? Done right, the theme enhances the game and makes it more popular. Done wrong, the theme can detract from the game. If a game element is done poorly, the themed game can give all themed games a bad name...


I'm thinking that next year's game will have a hard time passing Stronghold, but I'm willing to give it a shot.