Have your Say! Opinion sought on the FRC Game Manual Website and Apps

[Jon Stratis]

Figured I would duplicate my two main comments here for everyone on CD to enjoy/discuss

For both the app and website: I'd love to see a direct connection (in the form of "comments" on the side?) between the rules and the FRC Q&A. Both the rules and any Q&A responses that pertain to those rules are really needed to fully understand design constraints on the robots.

The ability to "subscribe" to changes to specific sections or subsections, so I could receive an e-mail containing updates I'm interested in. Often teams are broken up into subteams, where each subteam may be interested in a different portion of the robot rules. For example, the electrical team is the only one really interested in the Power distribution subsection, while the PR/awards team will be the only ones really interested in the Awards section.


And of course, I mentioned the app's limitation of viewing one rule at a time. I ended up ditching the app and just loading the PDFs onto my iPhone... much easier to scroll through and find the rules I wanted to look at.

[Phalanx]

I took the survey, and it didn't take that long at all.

I really liked the APP and was glad to have it. I did add to my survey comments the same items I'll repeat here.

1) The ability to search the entire manual. I don't always remember what section has what, so searching for a keyword of phrase would make finding things easier and faster.

2) The ability to ZOOM the screen you're reading. Some of us "older" folks *cough cough* have enough trouble reading a paper manual or PDF so being able to "size up" the screen I'm reading would be a huge plus.

Overall great APP, add my 2 items above, it becomes outstanding. IMHO.

[daniel_dsouza]

Originally Posted by Phalanx

I took the survey, and it didn't take that long at all.

1) The ability to search the entire manual. I don't always remember what section has what, so searching for a keyword of phrase would make finding things easier and faster.

...

Overall great APP, add my 2 items above, it becomes outstanding. IMHO.

Agreed. It was a good use of my time.

One other thing I asked for is an offline mode. If there was one, my Itouch and Android tablet couldn't use it. I would also like the return of the all inclusive .pdf. It made desktop searching offline so much easier.

The best part about the app was the auto-update feature. Although with the new notification features in iOS 5, I would like to have notifications whenever a rule gets updated.

But the bottom line is great job, and I hope this returns next year!

[pfreivald]

I agree with the link between the manual and the Q&A. Directly synching the two by rule would be awesome, so you can read the rule, see posted questions, and see answers (where given) all at the same place.

[dtengineering]

I appreciated having everything available off-line. With no wifi at the event, and having a Canadian cell phone plan, but volunteering at an American regional, data costs are... unreasonable...

Linking Q&A to their relevant rule, so you don't have to go searching for them would be great.

Jason

[LVMastery]

Everyone, thanks so much!

We got 84 survey responses, and our team is looking forward to implementing your suggestions.

Sincerely,
Ben