Bills Blog 10-25

[Trying to Help]

While some aspects of the Manchester Kickoff were kind of a pain, I can't see how it's actually going to be improved for local teams. You know the time in the broadcast when they finally unveil the game and everyone goes graciously nuts? I'll be in the car or waiting in line in Manchester to get our KoP. Yeah.

Trying to Help
attending BAE GSR 2012

[apalrd]

1. We used to record the live feed, cut out most of the speeches, and watch it as a team a few hours later (dedicated members and mentors would watch the whole thing live). The pre-recording isn't a big loss to us, but an explanation might be nice.

2. Critical Dimensions would be really nice. We were super confused this year to find that the peg heights weren't spelled out anywhere. It basically said "If you cut these pieces of PVC, and insert them into T's to the same depth we did, you will end up with a rack of the correct size".

3. Vex releases a full field model, in STEP format and a Solidworks eDrawing ( a CAD viewer + CAD file in a single executable). The eDrawing even includes tools to measure things, without even having CAD software. Just saying, FIRST could learn a few things from Vex.

[Rangel]

Originally Posted by apalrd

1. We used to record the live feed, cut out most of the speeches, and watch it as a team a few hours later (dedicated members and mentors would watch the whole thing live). The pre-recording isn't a big loss to us, but an explanation might be nice.

2. Critical Dimensions would be really nice. We were super confused this year to find that the peg heights weren't spelled out anywhere. It basically said "If you cut these pieces of PVC, and insert them into T's to the same depth we did, you will end up with a rack of the correct size".

3. Vex releases a full field model, in STEP format and a Solidworks eDrawing ( a CAD viewer + CAD file in a single executable). The eDrawing even includes tools to measure things, without even having CAD software. Just saying, FIRST could learn a few things from Vex.

I totally agree with the field dimensions. Our team changed our peg lengths about twice before the end of the season and they were still wrong. The layout for where to place duct tape was also pretty confusing.

[Kims Robot]

My first thought was Boooo... I finally move back to NE AND am old enough to attend the founders reception, and though I did get to see it "live" the last two years, I was still looking forward to it as much as Christmas!!

But then reality set in and I realized I survived 14 years in FIRST without going to a Live Kickoff, and remembered that when I was in high school and college we used to send our team "adults" to the kickoff and would wait eagerly by the phone for kickoff to be over and stand by a FAX machine awaiting the fax of our next six weeks. 4-9 hours later we would have our KOP. I think while I was in college we watched it on a terrible buffering computer screen. Now we are spoiled with these huge broadcast rooms and a live audience to "interact" with, and a recording of the event so we can watch it as many times as we want.

Will it be different? yeah. But Im in the boat of lets wait and see what happens. Maybe it will save us all some $$, maybe it will be better quality, maybe there will be some surprises in store... who knows? Im sure we will find out soon enough.

[JohnBoucher]

Originally Posted by Roger

This may be the answer -- the NH primary date hasn't been announced but expected to be Jan 10th. It may take some pressure off trying to get hotel rooms. Or traffic. Or something.

But is the new game field going to be "live"?

I booked a room yesterday at the Holiday Inn next to the Airport Diner. Rooms are always tight when it's a primary year. You just have to deal with it.

Not happy with this decision.

Are they dumping the workshops also?

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Alex.q

As a member of a team in Minnesota, this doesn't really affect me too much. I don't really sympathize with anyone when they say they now won't get to see the full field for real because we never were able to see the whole thing until competition unless we built one ourselves.

Yeah maybe you couldn't go, but it didn't mean we all didn't benefit from someone else having a live interaction with the field. I don't know if they still plan on having a field there, but if they do not, that would be the biggest loss. Often the "first impressions" of the field are cataloged by several people on CD. We are all able to take them in and maybe even make some educated guesses on a design strategy based off a simple measurement, or material type, etc.

Also, local kickoffs are becoming larger and better year after year. Many of them now also have some version of a field to interact with. I still think we all benefited from seeing those first pictures, etc. Hopefully that tradition will continue.

-Brando

[Josh Drake]

Hotel and flight booked weeks ago...
I was looking forward to a kickoff like the ones I witnessed during the webcast the last few years.
My expectations are that the workshops will still happen, the founder's reception will still take place at Dean's house, and the field will still be set up so teams can interact with it and take measurements. If I get to still experience those things, sitting in front of a screen on Saturday morning won't be too much of a letdown. If other things change, that's a different story, because I feel these decisions should have been made before teams were allowed to sign up for the founder's reception on TIMS. It's still too early to jump to conclusions about the other aspects of the FIRST kickoff. Hopefully all else will be fine.

[Dustin Shadbolt]

Like other people, I'm not to happy. I mean especially since I wanted to go to the live event one day in the future. I'm not going to go now if it's just going to be a film on a screen...I can do that here.

[JaneYoung]

It will be fine.

--
I enjoyed my trip to the Kickoff a few years ago. It was enjoyable in a lot of ways. In other ways, it was a difficult trip to make. I remember being very cold most of the time and wasn't crazy about the politicians that were campaigning that year. The highlight for me was meeting/seeing so many FRC people and getting a sense of the history of the community and area. That was very special.

That said, I love the way our remote Kickoffs have developed here in Texas. Austin somehow dropped the ball this year but - San Antonio will get us through it in the awesome way that they do everything.

I do hope everything works out with the visit to Dean Kamen's house and the workshops.

Jane

[Dale]

This also gives FIRST the opportunity to just post the kickoff video at 10:00am EST and teams can watch it whenever they like. They can still have kickoffs at the instant the video is reveled or watch it at a more teen friendly hour. That is especially an issue for west coast and Hawaii teams. Early am kickoffs, as great as they are, don't mesh well with the bioclocks of the target audience. I'd rather have an alert team for that Saturday brainstorming than one who had to make a 7:00am kickoff.

[Conor Ryan]

This also means HQ can focus on giving us a better overall experience in place of a live event. The live event is cool, but significantly more expensive and a whole lot more work.

Potentially the kickoff presentation could be more in depth, and all the information released might lead to less questions and forum Q&A posts. Give it a shot and don't shoot it down before it gets its fair chance, HQ is responsive to the community's reaction.

This also means they can add a laugh track for all of the great jokes.

[OZ_341]

Will they still reveal the full field in NH?
We have not gone to NH since 2008, but that is a big advantage of going to NH.
The full field is sometimes quite different than looking at the low cost field parts.

[JohnBoucher]

For those that have not been to kickoff in Manchester, it was quite a networking event. You had the workshops, the Founders reception at Deans house, the party at Millies and the game reveal. You could visit with vendors and ask the GDC questions about the game. The GDC made themselves available on the field after the broadcast. You got to go into FIRST HQ and meet those fine folks when you picked up the KOP.

It would be a shame if those things no longer took place.

[Meredith Novak]

Some sponsor invitations went out this week from FIRST HQ for the Founder's Reception, so I assume that will go on as usual.

[Jessica Boucher]

It's all good. We're still after-partying.