2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative

[JuliaGreen]

Originally Posted by rocknthehawk

Is this not standard? I know we picked up our Chairman's feedback from pit admin after awards were over. (At GSR). It is hugely helpful, pointing out our strengths, and the one thing we didn't touch on. We won EI and will push harder for RCA next year

We got feedback at our district event, but did not get feedback at the regional (Michigan State Champs) or CMP. We asked about feedback at the regional event but were told that the winning teams did not get feedback, because they won.

There's always room for improvement, even if you win.

Julia

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by JuliaGreen

We got feedback at our district event, but did not get feedback at the regional (Michigan State Champs) or CMP. We asked about feedback at the regional event but were told that the winning teams did not get feedback, because they won.

There's always room for improvement, even if you win.

Julia

I know that we did get to receive ours last year when we won at Midwest. Weird.

[torihoelscher]

Alli, my sister mentioned (this year being her official freshman year) that the negative things she experienced was:

1) Teams not showing the values of FIRST during the competition.
2) Communication issues on the fields.

My own negatives are:

1) Not getting feedback from the Chairmans judges.
2) Teams rushing inside pretty much taking myself and my grandparents out while rushing for seating. I was not happy about people pretty much running us over.
3) The seating of Einstein and the opening Ceremonies.
4) Cannot see Einstein on either left or right in the stands
5) Could not see any of the matches from the Pits.
6) The smoking area. (Im sorry, I am allergic to smoke)
7) Teams not being Gracious to each other and to other people.


These are all minor things, I loved the closing ceremonies and the Finale!

I LOVE FIRST WITH ALL MY <3

[Joon Park]

I agree with:

The Einstein seating hassle. That was kind of ridiculous. If they had opened up the upper levels beforehand, as they should've been able to easily predict their necessity, perhaps all that walking up and down and around the dome wouldn't have happened for our team.

The FMS problems. I don't think I need to add much else to that.

Also, one thing that our veteran members really missed was the Glossary in the rules. The manual in general was smaller this year, and while being succinct is great, the lack of definitions really brought up too much ambiguity.

I asked Bill Miller and some GDC members at FRC Live! during Champs, and Bill's justification was that they made the rules shorter so that teams who don't read them actually would. I did not agree with that method. Don't get me wrong, I approve of shorter rules as long as they are clear and specific. But the reason they provided did not bode well for me. Teams should read the rules, 5 pages or 500 pages, and those who don't should take what comes to them because of it.

One of the GDC members also stated that the glossary was removed in fear of creating a rule within the definition. I don't agree with that answer either. I believe the usefulness of the glossary outweighs that issue. I believe the usefulness of the glossary outweighs a lot of things. In short, we'd really like the glossary back.

[lemiant]

Kill the speeches on Einstein. After we won our division I sent the webcast link to a bunch of people and along with the field issues the sheer number of speeches made it remarkably uninteresting. If you want to make it consumable to a larger audience it has to be interesting. I recommend a separate awards ceremony and far fewer speeches.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by lemiant

Kill the speeches on Einstein. After we won our division I sent the webcast link to a bunch of people and along with the field issues the sheer number of speeches made it remarkably uninteresting. If you want to make it consumable to a larger audience tit has to be interesting. I recommend a separate awards ceremony and far fewer speeches.

That's a common complaint every year -- and I couldn't agree more. I have no idea how a group of geniuses intent on making STEM exciting for the masses so consistently make the final championship games so painfully boring!

(That is to say, the matches themselves are generally great, but the speeches are so numerous and so long that the overall Einstein spectator experience is downright tedious.)

[Cory]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

That's a common complaint every year -- and I couldn't agree more. I have no idea how a group of geniuses intent on making STEM exciting for the masses so consistently make the final championship games so painfully boring!

(That is to say, the matches themselves are generally great, but the speeches are so numerous and so long that the overall Einstein spectator experience is downright tedious.)

It was worse before.

In 2002 and prior when at Epcot Einstein was played through to completion, at which point there was a 2.5 hour long award ceremony in 100* heat with everyone looking forward to going to Disney as soon as the awards were over.

At least now the teams get time between matches to fix any breakdowns, let the robots cool, etc. The real problem is the content that FIRST is choosing to fill that dead space with, not the existence of it.

[sircedric4]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

That's a common complaint every year -- and I couldn't agree more. I have no idea how a group of geniuses intent on making STEM exciting for the masses so consistently make the final championship games so painfully boring!

(That is to say, the matches themselves are generally great, but the speeches are so numerous and so long that the overall Einstein spectator experience is downright tedious.)

I am pretty sure the reason they do speeches during Einstein is to give the robots a chance to cool down and for the teams to perform maintenance/battery changes on the robots between matches.

So its either speeches that are gonna be made one way or the other, or another 5 minutes of dancing to Cotton Eye Joe.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by sircedric4

I am pretty sure the reason they do speeches during Einstein is to give the robots a chance to cool down and for the teams to perform maintenance/battery changes on the robots between matches.

So its either speeches that are gonna be made one way or the other, or another 5 minutes of dancing to Cotton Eye Joe.

I remain... unconvinced that robots need more cool-down and battery change time on Einstein then they do during division (or regional) tournaments. 2+ hours to play at most six 2.25-minute matches is more than a bit much. If you don't have a personal investment in a team on the field, the finals are downright boring.

Please note that I'm not saying this to whine, I'm saying it as a suggested improvement if FIRST truly wants to become a popular culture, spectator phenomenon that actually transforms the culture. FIRST has clearly embraced the realization that the games themselves must be fun to watch even for people who are not on a team; they just need to apply the same reasoning to Einstein.

IMO, of course.

[torihoelscher]

Originally Posted by sircedric4

I am pretty sure the reason they do speeches during Einstein is to give the robots a chance to cool down and for the teams to perform maintenance/battery changes on the robots between matches.

So its either speeches that are gonna be made one way or the other, or another 5 minutes of dancing to Cotton Eye Joe.

I say we dance to the 5 mins of Cotton Eye Joe even though I love the speeches, it would get energy pumping again!! I know I danced the cotton eye joe when I was down near the stage! It got me extremely excited to watch the matches!

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by torihoelscher

I say we dance to the 5 mins of Cotton Eye Joe even though I love the speeches, it would get energy pumping again!! I know I danced the cotton eye joe when I was down near the stage! It got me extremely excited to watch the matches!

All stand for the FIRST National Anthem.

[torihoelscher]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

All stand for the FIRST National Anthem.

Ha ha ha ha ha! Amazing!

I cant wait to see pictures of the Championship!!!