Team 1094

[ace94x]

Just finished the website around 4am this morning. So tell me what you think.

http://channelcats.rivercityrobots.org/index.html

[EricLeifermann]

It looks good. The big thing I would change/add it to your About Us History section to include stuff about previous robots. I would also change showing the pictures of each award and just list each award you got in chronological order starting with the most recent at the top and going down from there.

[ace94x]

The awards are in chronological order.(we wanted the photos of our awardsa and where we got them as well though) And I will add the About us history (I just have now got the information yet. And thats the same with the robots page

[STCarpenter]

I took a quick glance at your website. From what I've seen I noticed that first, it took a while to load your header.

In the "First History" There is a huge paragraph, which should be broken down, as well as have the "wikipedia numbers" removed, as they are no longer working links on your page as they were on Wikipedia's.

I would cite the game animation on your page. For example put: "This video was made and graciously provided by FIRST."

Finally, I noticed that one of your images (http://channelcats.rivercityrobots.org/Awards.htm) the 2006 Safety Pin, has a weird white area around the image. Maybe make the image a .tiff to have a transparent background.

That's all. I wish you the best of luck in the Website Competition as well as the Game Competition. Hope this helps!

[ace94x]

Ty for your input I have just fixed the first few things you have suggested and I am tampering with the image now (I was supposed to remove the background to all the images anyways)

I always love going to team's websites and seeing what robots they have made. My suggestion is to add a part of your website where pictures/videos of your robots are shown.

[jkato]

It's a nice website, the only thing I can think to add is to try and add something just to take up some space; the homepage feels somewhat empty, like it needs something there just to take up space.

The rest of it is done very nicely and professionally, 5 stars.

[ace94x]

we have youtube videos of our robots and im working on the past robots page

[zim2411]

• Resize the FIRST logo on the home page, it doesn't scale well in some browsers
• Make sure the font size for text is consistent across pages. About FIRST has some large sections.
• What is "FEED THE FISH!" ?
• Consider adding a background color to the content. That much orange is a little over powering.
• I personally don't care for the wibiya bar, it's a little annoying, but it's not terribly intrusive.
• I popped in the live chat briefly. Who is that intended for?

[ace94x]

I am comparing every browsers compatibility (138 versions) right now, so ill fix everything nessary. same with the font size. "FEED THE FISH" Is our motto. The live chat is intended for Everyone to talk about FIRST/Robotics/Channel Cats/ Other teams/ and more.

[Tristan Lall]

A few things I noticed (in Chrome 17 on Windows 7):

1. That social media bar on the bottom doesn't seem too useful. They're probably just using it to serve ads when you click through it or something.
2. That little dialogue box in the right hand corner ("Welcome to Channel Cats Official Website! Check out the About Us & the FIRST Tabs") is useless. Lose it. (UI elements like that should be reserved for important messages, because people will think that it's necessary to take an action. When they disappear like that, people will wonder, did I miss an opportunity to confirm something important?)
3. The site is really slow, especially loading the images. Maybe find some sort of professional hosting? (Who hosts ChiefDelphi these days, for example? Lots of small webhosts would probably be willing to give you a good deal.)
4. FIRST appreciates a little more white space around their logo. Check their logo guidelines for details.
5. When you say "About US", it looks like you might be referring to the United States. Why capitalize one word, but not the other? It's a weird place to put emphasis. (Especially when "Contact Us" is in title case.)
6. Similarly, "FIRST" | "Dean's HomeWork" is a bit strange. (CamelCase?)
7. The copyright notice is immaterial, but harmless. (Every United States creative work fixed in a tangible medium of expression is copyrighted, for a very long time after its first publication. Copyright notices and years are no longer required for copyright protection.)
8. "FIRST stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology”" I think you meant "of" instead of "in".
9. "FIRST Robotics is a non-profit organization that encourages developments in science and technology." Strictly speaking, FIRST is the non-profit; the FIRST Robotics Competition is the competition. Also, "encourages developments" is vague.
10. You probably want to explain what a channel cat(fish) is, for the benefit of the people who read "We are called the Channel Cats because it is the Missouri state fish."
11. Change "out reach" to "outreach"?
12. What's the difference between RiverCityRobots and Channel Cats? I see the number 1094 prominently displayed on each site. Is one a division of the other?
13. Your banner image is a little blurry. Any chance for a re-shoot, or maybe you have a better copy?
14. The "Click Here to Share" message that appears on mouseover of the FIRST logo and the images on the Awards page is unusual. It's unclear why someone would want to share those images using social media. (I'd get rid of the mouseover thing, personally.)
15. That black bar under the lower edge of the images looks like a glitch with an HTML div or something. See if you can make them go away.
16. Fix the text justification on the Awards page; some of the captions look strange.
17. This is just personal taste, but I'd give the FIRST trophies prominence, and demote everything else. Maybe make a separate, much less prominent list for those. (Honestly, very few people would care that 1985 thought you were an "Awesome Alliance Partner". Do they give that to everyone?)
18. The Chairman's medal is not a separate award; it's just what individuals get to commemorate the Chairman's Award, which is already represented by its trophy.
19. The background on the UL safety pin is dithered because someone saved it as a GIF file and then set the transparency to (most likely) white to eliminate the background. If you have access to the original, you can probably edit it a little more carefully using a magic wand selection (or whatever your image editor calls it), with a wider tolerance, or a colour replacer, again with a wider tolerance.
20. The link to the FIRST History page says "First History" (wrong capitalization).
21. You copied text from FIRSTWiki, with attribution. While that should probably be alright in practice (because most of the FIRSTWiki contributors are nice people, and wouldn't exercise their copyrights), it's likely better to write your own text.
22. If you do stick with the FIRSTWiki text, I suggest removing the citation indicators (like "[12]"), and just linking once to the appropriate wiki revision.
23. Woody ≠ Woodie.
24. I don't believe Woodie Flowers was a FIRST founder.
25. On the 2012 game page, which says "...each alliance will also try to balance on the white CoopertitionTM bridge...", you're under no obligation to indicate that "Coopertition" is a trademark. But if you do, use the ™ character.

Hopefully this helps, and you can make some of these changes before your regional's reviewer finds your page!

[ace94x]

Thank you. I have changed most of what you suggested and will reupload the updated website to the FTP once i change everythign that was either suggestered or recommanded. Also The black bar under the photos is because of the (Hover Share) That is was defines it. If you notice every photo has it except the header. and you can even share the page (To promote FIRST & Channel Cats)

[1986titans]

It might just be Chrome, but I'd make the banner image the same width as the navigation bar.

[ace94x]

it's not just google chrome. I made it like that because with the bigger bar it looked awkward and with a smaller banner the pictures were becoming distorted. (Even by that little amount it changed the look majorly) But I do see waht you mean and I'm trying to find a way to streach the bar without making it look awkward.