Seats at Championship

[GBK]

Everyone wants a good seat to watch matches, especially when it comes to watching their own team compete. They also like to have their team sit all together. I saw fairly large teams taking large sections of seats and covering them with coats, capes, banners and anything else they could use to save a section large enough for their team. There was one team that had at least 30 seats saved for their "scouts" and when I an another mentor wanted to take a couple of minutes to watch a few matches before we went back to the pits, it was mad clear several different times that these seats were for their scouts.
The other thing I saw is teams that want to stand and cheer for their team. This is fine during the introductions, or if the team is seated where they are not in front of others. We all want to cheer for our team but the people behind us also want to see the matches.
I like the idea of a scouting section, the number of seats per team should have a limit. However with 100 teams per division this year the number of scouting seats would add up fast.
Our team seems to always find seats that are less desirable so we do not have to deal with moving our feet and loosing our seat.
We will never solve the issue completely but as stated above sending the judges to the stands without judges shirts on would be interesting to say the least.

[George A.]

This might be a little out there, but hear me out.

Since we have the dome AND the convention center, what if we make scouting satellite to the dome? Have a room for each division with a bunch of chairs and outlets for laptops, and a huge screen/projector that gives a wide view of the entire field (one stationary camera with a wide view of the field versus the shoulder mounted views that the directors switch between)?

This way the scouts have the best view, they aren't taking seats, and you don't have to worry about people in front of you standing to block your view.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by George A.

This might be a little out there, but hear me out.

Since we have the dome AND the convention center, what if we make scouting satellite to the dome? Have a room for each division with a bunch of chairs and outlets for laptops, and a huge screen/projector that gives a wide view of the entire field (one stationary camera with a wide view of the field versus the shoulder mounted views that the directors switch between)?

This way the scouts have the best view, they aren't taking seats, and you don't have to worry about people in front of you standing to block your view.

Who will want to scout basically by themselves for an entire day? And I know lots of teams use 6+ scouts, it's going to have to be an awfully big room...

[George A.]

Originally Posted by bduddy

Who will want to scout basically by themselves for an entire day? And I know lots of teams use 6+ scouts, it's going to have to be an awfully big room...

With the way the games are today, I would be VERY surprised if a team only had 1 person on their scout team.

I know a lot of the teams that I have interaction with have at least one person watching each robot on the field for the match, and they work in shifts so that the same kids aren't scouting the entire competition.

[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by George A.

With the way the games are today, I would be VERY surprised if a team only had 1 person on their scout team.

I know a lot of the teams that I have interaction with have at least one person watching each robot on the field for the match, and they work in shifts so that the same kids aren't scouting the entire competition.

This brings up a very different question.

Do teams need to change the way they scout?

I think sitting in the stands with a "scouting system" and watching every single match, trying to track the way every point is scored is terrible, and that data is of very little use to drivers/coaches/alliance captains at the end of the day. There are other, bigger questions that scouts should be much more worried about.

Quit torturing the scouts!

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

This brings up a very different question.

Do teams need to change the way they scout?

I think sitting in the stands with a "scouting system" and watching every single match, trying to track the way every point is scored is terrible, and that data is of very little use to drivers/coaches/alliance captains at the end of the day. There are other, bigger questions that scouts should be much more worried about.

Quit torturing the scouts!

I am guessing a lot of teams are duplicating a majority of the data they take (how many penalties a robot commits, how many objectives a particular robot completes, etc). This is a wonderful opportunity to crowdsource the statistics on a web app or something, but the crowdsourcing idea runs into problems OTHER than not having internet at the venue.

If every team thinks that other teams will be recording the statistics, you end up with a dearth of contributors. Some teams will not want to put their scouting trust in a system of other teams. If the system/app goes down everyone participating loses their statistics, etc.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

There are other, bigger questions that scouts should be much more worried about.

I'm very curious to know how you scout. Could you please share?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

I think sitting in the stands with a "scouting system" and watching every single match, trying to track the way every point is scored is terrible, and that data is of very little use to drivers/coaches/alliance captains at the end of the day. There are other, bigger questions that scouts should be much more worried about.

What could possibly be more important than an objective measure of how many points a robot scores? With 100 teams in a division and a dozen or so students watching matches, trying to get consistent comparisons between teams without some objective metrics is impossible. I don't think a purely number-of-balls pick list is a good idea, and qualitative statements are important, but the more you can make objective, the smoother the process will be.

[BrendanB]

I think the scouting section has been beaten to death so many times and it won't happen. Full view of the field is nice but how can you see team numbers? Why separate teams? Why make a separate viewing area for teams when there is already a good one there?

We are all humans, people want the best seats, people always want to save seats religiously, somethings you sadly can't change.

One thing that should change is teams standing up! I have been to champs three times and sadly it has been the teams in the front row that stand up and is extremely rude.

Another issue that needs to be addressed by FIRST is an announcement should be made at the beginning of every event is housekeeping rules (they should do this before opening ceremonies because the people who will be in the stands all day are usually there by now) that includes standing up and most importantly saving seats. So many guests and attendees can be driven away by rude teams not willing to offer up one seat.

[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by BigJ

I am guessing a lot of teams are duplicating a majority of the data they take (how many penalties a robot commits, how many objectives a particular robot completes, etc). This is a wonderful opportunity to crowdsource the statistics on a web app or something, but the crowdsourcing idea runs into problems OTHER than not having internet at the venue.

If every team thinks that other teams will be recording the statistics, you end up with a dearth of contributors. Some teams will not want to put their scouting trust in a system of other teams. If the system/app goes down everyone participating loses their statistics, etc.

A crowd source app would be great, there have been many attempts at it over the years, however I think someone should take some initiative and get a Android/iOs App for this together. Figuring out who is inputing data, and who's data is correct is a major challenge.

Originally Posted by Chris is me

What could possibly be more important than an objective measure of how many points a robot scores? With 100 teams in a division and a dozen or so students watching matches, trying to get consistent comparisons between teams without some objective metrics is impossible. I don't think a purely number-of-balls pick list is a good idea, and qualitative statements are important, but the more you can make objective, the smoother the process will be.

Its not about who scores (that is an easy question to answer), its where they shoot from and the strategies they use. You can make this process a lot more efficient if you apply technical analysis to the game statistics. How an alliance works as a whole changes the situation a large amount every match. See below.

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

I'm very curious to know how you scout. Could you please share?

I love questions! This is exciting.

The scouting/strategy method that I use was actually designed mostly by my Dad, but I do a lot of work with it. Both of us have backgrounds/careers in Finance but somehow found our way into FIRST. We apply the same ideas of stock/equity analysis (finding a stock to buy) to scouting/strategy. Most of it is Technical Analysis (ie - looking at match score averages), this allows us to sort through all of the teams at an event very quickly. Much more efficient than using scouts. After that we get into Fundamental Analysis/Qualitative aspects (ie - where do teams shoot from) to better determine what we want to do in matches/alliance selection.


The key is to understand the short comings of your statistics and then do some minimal match/pit scouting to better answer any questions that could be raised. The less time you spend gathering the data, the more you can use your time to use more effective scouting strategies.

This thread really isn't the correct place to discuss all of it so if you guys are interested I'll start a new one. But look into 1114's presentation they gave on scouting, it is on the right track.

[TrevorJ]

I'm not the best at writing long and eloquent rants on a forum, so I won't do it. I'll just say that if your team isn't going to be picking, yet you insist on being in the front rows, don't stand up DURING matches. The situation my team went through on Saturday morning was one of the most frustrating situations I experienced in my four years of FIRST. For the first time ever, I found myself pulling out the rule book for something that didn't happen on the competition field. There is absolutely no reason to stand up in the front rows during matches while teams are trying to make the final adjustments to their pick lists.

[sanddrag]

Electronic locking seatbelts or lap bars anyone?

[Grim Tuesday]

To bring this back to the original topic, I have a major complaint about seats that hasn't been mentioned yet. As a team that has never been to Champs, we had no idea what to do with the yellow award bracelets we were given on Wednesday. We had a lot of trouble finding someone who would tell us, too. Pit admin didn't know, and neither did the multitude of teams we asked. We ended up asking pit admin again on Saturday, and were finally directed to the right place. When we got there, we were told that there was simply no where to sit, and we would have to stand. Then a volunteer told us we could sit in one section. Then another told use we couldn't. We stood in the back until we were told we couldn't do that either. It took us about 30 minutes to find a place to sit. I feel like if there are exactly 402 teams at the competition, and they ask for two reps from each one, they should make enough room for 804 seats, rather than hope that some teams will forget.

[bobl]

As a mentor and coach of an FRC team, I know the importance of collecting information about possible alliance partners and opposing alliance members. While at the 2012 Championships the team tried to accomplish very basic scouting, i.e how a robot scored, bridge ability, hybrid scoring. We had to give up very quickly because we could not determine what the team numbers were on many robots. The rules state very clearly that the numbers need to be easily read from a distance of 100 feet and be white or outlined in white. Even with this rule many team numbers were almost impossible to determine. Teams used many different fonts, styles and even substituted symbols for numbers. Teams used colors other than white and either did not outline the numbers in white or used a pencil thin line of white which did nothing for the readability. Trying to determine which robot is which was extremely frustrating and next to impossible unless you were right next to the field. We were not that fortunate. We were either up high against the back wall or so far off to one side we could only see about a third of the field.

Perhaps the rules need to state exactly what font, type size, color, stroke weight to help other teams (and spectators) distinguish one robot from another.

[RayTurner1126]

I saw a team save SEVEN rows of seats for their team, and not even use all of them, but rather spread out amongst them and get comfortable. I was appalled by this lack of regard for others and the manner in which they got the seats (pushing and shoving others aside to assure these seats in prime location were theirs). What happened to GP, teams? I know we could hardly even get 10 seats for our scouters and a few mentors there, it was ridiculous.

maybe teams should get 5-10 seats reserved per a day in a certain area, but not have the same area every day, and rotate people through different spots every day, so as to keep things fair. maybe not this, but some sort of system has to be put into play. I couldn't believe I was being shoved at a FIRST event.