Championship 2011 - St Louis - Your Thoughts Please?

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Cory

But how many people had floor access? maybe 1/10 of the people there? If that?

Most people didn't have floor access in Atlanta either and I bet it was still a significantly longer walk because of the courtyard.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Hawiian Cadder

cons.
there are not nearly enough lunch venues around the dome. the CNN center was excellent for this.

there is no park nearby. my team has a tradition of playing ultimate Frisbee against other teams in Olympic park. it was sorely missed this year.

[...]

it was far to easy to get lost in saint Louis, the dome is squished in a small plot, and there are no open spaces to get ones bearings.

Next time you're there, do this: go out the the main entrances, and go straight away from the Dome on one of the streets. Keep your eyes open. Stop when you reach the park (should be about 10-15 minutes if you're on foot, max). Look around. You should see at least a couple places to eat. And there are others closer to the venue--you might have spotted them on the way out to the park.

What might help that for next year is for there to be a readily-available map with all the local places to eat--I know such things exist (and am mildly surprised that teams apparently didn't get them). You don't need open spaces to get oriented, just intersections.

[Valkyrie133]

For anyone complaining about crowd control at the concert, I'll add my 2 cents...we were going up a (moving) escalator, only to find that the crowd had pretty much stopped at the top, and the large hallway was blocked by crowd control barriers. This meant there was no place for us to go, and a solid wall of people was still coming up the escalator. Fortunately, one of our student team members had the presence of mind to press the e-stop on the escalator, which solved that problem...but it was a completely avoidable problem that should NEVER have happened at all.

[Acerflamma]

As a member of a rookie team at FIRST the competition itself was amazing. I had tons of fun, and the experience was nearly overwhelming. While 3588 didn't perform the best, the people, events, and sights were amazing. Everyone is so friendly! I made many new friends while I was there.

Personally everything had a good aspect to it, or my team made something good out of it. With the lack of seats we made chairs out of extra parts, we mingled with every person willing to chat, and tried to attend every event related to it, like the rookie meet up, robo prom, and the stuff happening after the closing ceremonies. I just wish I wasn't a senior. Hopefully I can start a CARD team to compete next year. Anyone have a link that has more information on CARD? Or a way to register a team?

Originally Posted by InfernoX14

The fields in the pits - This wouldn't have been so bad if there was more seating, or more space around the field.

Well, team 3588 built a wooden bench out of extra wood for us to sit on since we had no chairs. We did end up carrying the bench around the pit area to have other teams sign it though! Overall we got several thousand signatures, including Dean Kamen and Woody Flowers! Anyone on here sign our bench?

[torihoelscher]

Originally Posted by Debbie

and 2 -

the pre-ordered food was dangerous... Finding MOLD in 10 of my team's turkey wraps was highly unsettling.. the fact that after we returned our wraps they continued passing them out was highly disturbing to me... To pay TEN DOLLARS a meal for that meal which at best contained brown lettuce and hard cheese, and at worst.. mold.. was unacceptable... 2 of my team members got sick and I have to question if it came from the food. Most of my team did not eat the meals after the mold instance, which sadly was noticed on Saturday and not Thursday! The Finale party food was sitting in unrefrigerated crates for how long? Dangerous.. and I won't be ordering food there again, unless a new caterer is brought in.. missed the food spread at the finale party in Atlanta and the fireworks!!!!!


B

Oh yes. We had the same issue. I did not feel well after eating the chicken sandwich on friday and refused to eat the finale food on Saturday. FIRST, we love ya but please get better vendors!! (Loved the dome food but really expensive)

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Acerflamma

Well, team 3588 built a wooden bench out of extra wood for us to sit on since we had no chairs. We did end up carrying the bench around the pit area to have other teams sign it though! Overall we got several thousand signatures, including Dean Kamen and Woody Flowers! Anyone on here sign our bench?

What a fantastic idea. Can you post a photo of your team/community bench?

Jane

[1986titans]

Originally Posted by Debbie

and 2 -

the pre-ordered food was dangerous... Finding MOLD in 10 of my team's turkey wraps was highly unsettling.. the fact that after we returned our wraps they continued passing them out was highly disturbing to me... To pay TEN DOLLARS a meal for that meal which at best contained brown lettuce and hard cheese, and at worst.. mold.. was unacceptable... 2 of my team members got sick and I have to question if it came from the food. Most of my team did not eat the meals after the mold instance, which sadly was noticed on Saturday and not Thursday! The Finale party food was sitting in unrefrigerated crates for how long? Dangerous.. and I won't be ordering food there again, unless a new caterer is brought in.. missed the food spread at the finale party in Atlanta and the fireworks!!!!!

Same here. I had a turkey wrap on Saturday and stopped eating it after I tasted something weird. At the time, I thought it was Mayo that wasn't on the one I had on Friday or something. I was very sick Saturday night, so this seems like a likely culprit.

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by Acerflamma

Well, team 3588 built a wooden bench out of extra wood for us to sit on since we had no chairs. We did end up carrying the bench around the pit area to have other teams sign it though! Overall we got several thousand signatures, including Dean Kamen and Woody Flowers! Anyone on here sign our bench?

Haha, we did. 1675 signed with the caption Ultimate Posterior Seat.

EDIT: Agreed with Jane, post pictures!

[Jimmy the Kidd]

Originally Posted by Chexposito

\

the airplane throwing competition was fun to watch though. especially the crowd reaction to them making it far (to the torn down devision field area) or to the awards stage

*cough*

I'll have to take credit for starting that...

[torihoelscher]

Originally Posted by 1986titans

Same here. I had a turkey wrap on Saturday and stopped eating it after I tasted something weird. At the time, I thought it was Mayo that wasn't on the one I had on Friday or something. I was very sick Saturday night, so this seems like a likely culprit.

I had a bad feeling about the turkey. but i ate the cookie and some chips. It was weird seeing all those people eating those dangerous boxed lunches. Anyone else have any issues?

[Boydean]

The Good
- The venue. The walk from the pits to the dome was obviously a lot closer. I got to see the pits this year because of this! Not much more to say.

- 2 fields in dome, 2 fields in pits. Some said this was awful, some people really liked it. I really liked it. I think it mixes it up, and gives the pits a warner feel with the game announcer in the background. Not to mention that the pit fields clearly had a queuing advantage over the dome pits.

- The concert was a fantastic addition to the event. It made up for the lack of fireworks during the finale, not to mention giving out the Chairmans award during it was amazing. Could have lived with not having the Willow Smith performance though ("Where's my 21th century girls!!", sorry I had to say it).

- FIRSTies during the finale was amazing. Enjoyed every minute of it. Thanks AndyMark!

- Volunteers were spoiled, like they should be. The food was amazing (aside from the lack of vegetarian friendly food as Kara pointed out earlier, and the finale food), they were giving volunteers free massages, and a room full of bean bags for resting.

- The number of good hotels that were seconds from the dome by foot. I stayed in the Missouri Athletic Club which was 2 blocks (5 minute walk) from the dome. It was a nice hotel, great price, and they gave me free parking for the entire weekend (versus $10 a night like their site says). Not to mention they have a basketball court on the 5th floor.

The Bad
- The very clear lack of knowledge of the facility staff. Multiple times I had to ask facility staff how to get to things and they would look at me with a blank face. One staff member didn't know what I meant when I said "FIRST Robotics Competition pit area". This could be solved with a simple, short staff meeting before the event.

- The lack of directional signs throughout the venue. Several times I got absolutely lost when I thought I was following the signs.

- The lack of food around the venue was awful. I know there were places to eat, but the problem was...they were all out of food Friday. I walked into Subway, Quiznos, and Atlanta Bread; all of them some way or another were out of food. After that I called a chick-fil-a that was a bit down the road from where I was - they were just closing up because they ran out of food.

Notes
Some people complained about the safety of crowd surfing. Crowd surfing is extremely dangerous, but it is unavoidable. I've worked in events about the size as the BEP one, you can discourage it, stop it, and even throw people out for doing it, but people are still going to do it. I do wish, though, that people in FIRST would understand the dangers of it and not do it.

I wish they would have explained more of what the Chairmans team did. Either at the concert or at the award ceremony.

Lack of music on Einstein made the entire thing kinda...well, boring. Although, if it was for the documentary I can deal with that.

The speeches on Einstein were longer then usually. But FIRST really only has two times in a year to make that kind of show - the kickoff, and the championships.

[Mike Marandola]

Pros:
-The fields in the pit were cool so I could go see our robot fast between matches
-All of the free stuff!
-In a city with a national monument (The Arch)
-Jack Black in the i.am.first event video
-The Roboprom was cool, especially since Deadmou5 was there
-The comfortable seats in the dome
-The paper airplanes at the concert and Einstein
-Tons of close hotels
Cons
-uncomfortable pit field seating
-poor boxed lunch food
-pit field bleachers were a tad too small
-Hotel service was horrible (Holiday Inn Select)
-Many of the dome floors were sticky
-wearing safety glasses in the pit field bleachers while scouting was pretty annoying
-where was Morgan Freeman, I was told he walked around the pits but that's it?
-The First finale was pretty boring, we decided dinner was more fun and left after staying for about 20 minutes
-there could always be more free stuff!

So after attending both venues, I decided that I enjoyed Atlanta a lot more. I expected this due to the fact that this is the first year in St. Louis. I would only imagine the organizers will continue to learn from the previous year and get better.

[Acerflamma]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

What a fantastic idea. Can you post a photo of your team/community bench?

Jane

I will get some photos up when we get the bench back from our crate. Some higher quality pictures would probably be better to put up.

Originally Posted by BigJ

Haha, we did. 1675 signed with the caption Ultimate Posterior Seat.

EDIT: Agreed with Jane, post pictures!

I remember you guys trying to get it to match UPS! I think I can remember where to find it. I'll take a picture of it and post it when we get it back.

[treffk]

Pros:

• As a volunteer I got that food which was yummy.
• I liked the seating going up higher because more people could get a centered view of the field and the concert.
• The concert was a nice touch as a reward for teams
• I loved the fact the venue was only a 4 hour drive from my house rather than a plane trip. STL is just more centered geographically, I did hear some east coast teams complaining about having to fly(those in Georgia) or having to pay $300 more dollars to fly to STL.
• I enjoyed how many restaurants are close by with a short walk. Lacedes Landing has many restaurants that were told in advance about us coming, which gave them time to prepare themselves. Some even do call ahead seating(the old spaghetti factory for example). Most of the food in the area is reasonably priced too. I got a hamburger from Big Daddy's for $6.

Cons:

• Even as a volunteer I was confused about how to get around the pits. I'd walk and find a dead end filled with crates.
• Lack of safety being enforced in the pits. I saw some teams having students sit on the ground in the aisle. I was walking with other volunteers and one got ran into with a robot all because the team was being quiet. I know even on the playing fields my cousin was holding the robot waiting for their cart and got shoved by another team which ended up giving her a wicked bruise.
• I was shocked by certain doors being open one day and then locked another, or vice-versa.
• I enjoy having the FIRST Store there because it allows us all to purchase items without paying shipping. (Big plus for my team because we by the iron on patches on which shipping tends to get ridiculous.) I felt that there were too few people taking orders for as much business they do. At first I didn't realize that they has specific people taking orders and I went to find an order form and was told by a seeming rude person I could not fill it out myself. I understand why due to as many messed up orders happen. When I went to pick up my order I handed one of the workers the sheet. He stared at me for a minute then snapped at me "Want to help me?" I was wearing my volunteer name tag and did not realize my name was not legible on the order form.
• I was not aware on how to get food for the Finale and it seemed like they were not enforcing the wristbands. When I found out where to get the food all they had left was salads and possibly sandwiches further down. I was not a fan of the doughnut glazed cookie or the vitamin water. I decided not to risk it. I ended up not eating it anyways, volunteers were given pizza instead.

I have no opinion on fields in the pits due to me not watching many matches. I was too busy showing around my boyfriend who is still somewhat unfamiliar to FIRST. Possibly look forward to a Navy booth next year, he got excited about it and called his recruiter to tell him about it. We all have to remember that this was the first year at this venue and all they can do is improve. It was a learning experience for all and we will benefit from it next year.

[Cory]

Pros:

Short walk to dome floor from pits, short walk to pit fields
Comfortable seats in dome
(I feel bad just putting 2, because the much higher number of cons is going to make it sound like I had a bad experience, which isn't the case)

Cons:

Awful Hall of Fame placement. I'm guessing the majority of people never saw it, as it was hidden way off in the corner by FLL/College FIRST. Maybe there was a reason, but they ought to have displaced something else to put it front and center like in Atlanta.

Terrible signage. It was very confusing at times where things were. Galileo pits were the worst. It was really confusing at first.

Terrible crowd control. We showed up very early to ensure we got the seats we wanted, either in the dome, or in the pits. The venue staff either told us to stand one place and then let other people in front of us, or left various random doors unlocked such that other teams ended up in the dome/pits well in advance of them opening.

Event staff forcing everyone to leave the pits for the opening ceremonies. We got up at 4:30 in the morning so we could get to the event early enough to get the seats we wanted. We get them and then the volunteers force us to leave for the dome and hope that when we come back someone else hasn't sat in our seats. We pay $5,000 to come to the event. If we don't want to go see the opening ceremonies we shouldn't have to.

Limited food choices in the vicinity of the pit. I may have missed something, but it seemed like you had three choices. Hot dogs, corn dogs, and traditional stadium snacks. There was that little "cafe" but they had a limited selection and I heard it was pretty bad.

Volunteers being extremely over zealous about safety glasses in the pit entrance. If all you are doing is walking to the pit fields, why do you need safety glasses? Compounded by the fact that they will not hand out safety glasses to team members (I understand the reasoning, but come on, just let people walk to the field without them).

Rude volunteers on multiple occasions. Not the fault of St Louis or FIRST even, really. There's always going to be a few.

Minor, but I'm fairly certain that the event staff mopped every single row of seats and the concourse inside the dome with soda every night. It was that sticky.