2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative

[Astrokid248]

1. If someone posts a question, and you don't answer, and someone posts a more specific version of the question trying desperately to get some sort of a ruling, POST THE D@#N ANSWER. DO NOT say something like "we're not going to review your design" and then backtrack 6 weeks later. Along those lines, use common definitions of words and tell everyone what dictionary you're using, like Webster 7th Edition, so that all of us who aren't in the GDC can go look up the words and better determine how to design our robots until you answer our questions.
2. Set up a day before the first week of regionals for any teams to come test their robots and the FMS. Run as many sensor heavy matches as possible and work out any kinks in the system before the competition season starts. Even if you get a new, foolproof wireless system, DO IT ANYWAYS.
3. Give volunteers multiple shirts. There's no reason to force them to sweat in the same shirt day by day. Also, hold a briefing before each regional and championships for any new volunteers about etiquette and what the heck FIRST is. (We'll do the same with our kids.)
4. Come up with an entrance plan; crowd crush is inexcusable.
5. Live feed in the pits; if you want clean pits and safety, you need to make it so that pit crew members can watch the matches without having to abandon the pit area.
6. As Nate said, put a photocopier/computer with attached printer in the pits. Also, it'd be nice to have electronic copies of the schedules (toss them on a cheap, Air Force-branded pen drive) since many of us like color-coding them but can't ever post color coded copies until midway through seeding matches.