Championship 2011 - St Louis - Your Thoughts Please?

[JesseK]

Hey, whatdya know -- the 2011 Championship Survey was just emailed to team contacts a few minutes ago.

With all of the robot cross-traffic of teams going to the Dome, I understand why it may be necessary to require safety glasses for pit fields. Yet they (possibly) could have arranged the pit fields so as to facilitate a safety zone where goggles weren't required. However, I'm sure there's some logistical/other tradeoff to doing so.

Great

• Food -- the boxed lunch was spectacularly better than either DC or VA. DC's was something next to 'god awful' and VCU's was a 'not bad', but Champ's was great. Bottled water, chips/cookies/sandwich left me hungry at 4pm rather than 2-3pm at the regionals.
• Pit field proximity to pit, and feeling like we had 'court-side seats' to some of the best matches FRC can offer spectators. If we could figure out how to increase the quantity of seating, I'd be all for pit fields next year.

Good

• For once, I didn't feel like the music was trying to rip a hole through my eardrums as we stood in queue or put the robot on the field.
• Wildstang broke 2 paradigms on my team last week (though they weren't my own POV's). They'll forever be on my 'rock stars' list becaue of it. 1.) You don't NEED high traction wheels to make it to Einstein. 2.) No, the driver coach doesn't need to micro-manage the drivers. We simply need to design the robot in such a way that gives the operators more opportunities to quickly recover from the inevitable failures (dropped tube, misalignment, etc). Thanks Raul!

Meh

• I didn't get a shirt this year, for the first time in 3 years. Honestly, I hope several others noticed their elevated prices and didn't purchase because of it.
  
• I think I stated enough about the bad in the 2011-Negative thread, but the only other thing I'd add on top of what others have stated regards the safety advisors. Safety is taken seriously most of the time, yet it's not administered evenly. That cute little WallE robot attracted crowds that would make a 20-30-foot circle, including 2 safety advisors at one point. I understand that it's very easy to lose focus at a championships; but really if they're going to be pedantic about us having too many people in front of our pit, they need to be pedantic about the other situations that happen as well.

[Debbie]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Hey, whatdya know -- the 2011 Championship Survey was just emailed to team contacts a few minutes ago.

[*]Food -- the boxed lunch was spectacularly better than either DC or VA. DC's was something next to 'god awful' and VCU's was a 'not bad', but Champ's was great.
[/list]

You must have A) not looked inside your food.. or you would've seen the mold that I found on 10 sandwiches our team ordered... and B) have a much stronger stomach than those that got sick on my team! I'm glad someone enjoyed it! It certainly wasn't me lol

[Karibou]

I just keep on thinking of more things to add. Sorry for always posting something new :/


Did anyone else feel like the arrows on the floor weren't accurate? I don't know which ones in particular, but I remember looking down a few times after I had gotten my bearings, saw "FTC/FRC to __location__" and thought "That's not right..." There were even a few that had one of the competition names blocked out in black Sharpie.

[kristin329]

Good

• The concert! I was originally sore about it kicking out 2 fields, but it was well worth it!

• The hotel we stayed at was beautiful with great views of the arch.

• The representatives at scholarship row helped me narrow down my top schools.

• Roboprom!!

• St. Louis was wonderful, they really did their best to welcome us.

Bad

• Crowd surfing...my team was on the floor for the concert, and I'm pretty small and weak, so when a crowd surfer came my way, he fell on me and it hurt!

• The food was disgusting and overpriced.

• The after party was not worth going to, there was virtually nothing to do.

Overall, I had a fantastic time and I'm sure that I can say the rest for my team.