2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative

[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!!!