2012 Festival de Robotique FRC a Montreal Regional

[Racer26]

I really didn't like the Montreal regional's venue. It's not very well suited to an FRC event.

http://www.stadeuniprix.com/tennis_c... Z8WHzisjUxg==

It was held in the indoor tennis centre part of Stade Uniprix, which has no permanent seating. The temporary seating brought in was horrid, lacking any real semblance of vertical rise. What this meant was that anyone standing in front of you (including on the floor below the seating) obstructed your view of the field. Truly, even the scoring table was obstructing the view of the field. I expressed my concerns to Mark Breadner (Director of FIRST Robotics Canada), and he agreed, and said that the seating would be improved for next year.

The stadium part of Stade Uniprix is actually the 11,500seat open-top stadium adjacent, formerly used by baseball's Montreal Expos.

Parking was ATROCIOUS. I'm not sure where they park cars for the 11,500 seat stadium, because just the few thousand people in attendance for FRC had Stade Uniprix's lots full, AND the surrounding streets were full of cars parked on-street. To add insult to injury, as we were leaving, we saw Montreal Parking Authority police officers ticketing several vehicles parked illegally since there was nowhere else to park.

Truthfully, I can't believe a better venue in the city of Montreal can't be found. Why not make like Ontario and go for a university gymnasium or a QMJHL hockey arena, complete with its own permanent seating?

All of that said: The bilingualism was flawless, despite not being the advertised "as anglophone as Waterloo is francophone". The MC did a fantastic job keeping the anglophone and francophone teams separate and introducing them accordingly. It made alliance selections a little interesting, what with francophone teams calling out anglophone teams and vice versa, but all-in-all, it went quite well.

I'm not sure if it was just the MC in particular doing this, or if this was a francophone thing, but I noticed the MC calling out francophone teams by individual digits (un zero sept cinq), rather than grouping pairs like is common in anglophone regions (dix soixante-quinze) [one zero seven five, vs ten seventy-five]. I think it was just the MC, since francophone teams tended to group the numbers as in English (3386/3387 called out 1547 as quinze quarante-sept at GTR East)

[mregimbald]

Here are "some" pictures from the Montreal Festival de robotique:

Photobooth
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fusionjeunesse/sets/72157629697212081/

Arena

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fusionjeunesse/sets/72157629337647812/

Ceremonies

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fusionj...7629362214894/

Autres - Others

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fusionj...7629361387716/

merci Thanks

[JamesC]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

Parking was ATROCIOUS.

I take it you've never visited Montreal before... Parking for this venue was better than parking for most others in Montreal, simply because there WAS a parking lot.

Despite the fact that the temporary seats were a little low, I think the venue was quite well suited for the robotics festival that they decided to have there. The FRC event was merely one part of it.

If you had a look around the rest of the venue, there were three other robotics events going on at the exact same time, all under the same roof. For me, this is the true spirit of FIRST, inspiring young minds to look to higher levels, and something I hope they keep for next year.

I'm not an expert in knowledge of the City of Montreal, but I can't think of any other venues in Montreal that can house an entire robotics festival, not only in the same venue, but literally steps away from each other.

As for the temporary seats, I'm sure its lesson learned for next year.

Tl;dr for a robotics event, especially being a rookie event, Montreal was incredible. If I had to choose between the four different Canadian regionals I attended this year, Montreal is my #1 choice.