2013 Lessons Learned: The Positive

[sanddrag]

Talon motor controllers - lower price and flawless performance
Frank Merrick visiting our pit at the Inland Empire regional - he really is a great guy

and the best:
the nVidia graphics cards on FIRST choice. PLEASE nVidia donate to FIRST again! Thank you!

[Ian Curtis]

I think Ultimate Ascent is the best all-around game since the turn of the century. It was very exciting, and there were tons of strategic choices, and the robots looked different! While 2004 will forever be a person favorite, I tried to sell it a bunch of newer mentors and they told me it was too complicated. Ultimate Ascent was easy to grasp for people that just showed up at the day of the competition.

The voucher & FIRST Choice were good additions, I'm sure FIRST has learned from this year and they will be even better next year. Getting additional free game pieces was awesome!

The level of play was definitely higher than I expected. Ri3D is probably partially responsible for this, but I think a big thing is that there were plenty of parallels back to 2012. Some of the lessons learned shooting in 2012 could be applied to this year. Frisbees are also a really spectacular game piece. Not very expensive, and very consistent to shoot and pickup.

FIRST can change a rule after the week zero scrimmages, and other than the immediate predictable "HOW COULD THEY DO THIS THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!1" thread on CD, the game still worked out fine. To be honest, I think the frisbee blizzard probably would have taken away from the game at weaker events where humans had a ton of frisbees to throw.

The bumper rules have gotten simpler while I've been gone, which is nice.

I also really liked the change to the perimeter rule. We came so underweight we put a bucket of lead onboard and still weighed less than 100 lbs. It will be interesting to see if lots of teams have weight issues next year, particularly if we switch back to a bigger size.

The Wildcard system is definitely an improvement as well. Nice to see the finalists get a ticket to the championship when the winning alliance has teams that already have spots.

It was a great year to be back after taking a couple years off from actively working with a team.

[PayneTrain]

I want to talk more about it later, but I just want to ask a question:

Can you feel it?

Teetering on the edge of it all, solemnly looking below at how far we could fall while we focus on the horizon beyond and imagining how far we can fly. It sounds cushy and whatnot, but I mean it. This is serious business.

For the better part of the last few years, I felt that FIRST was more or less going through the motions. More teams, more events, different games, Dean tells teams get in contact with alumni and senators and start more teams. The program has felt like it was in a bit of a rut, going nowhere.

I know this may seem like a touchy subject, but you could feel the fire in Dean Kamen all throughout that dome on Friday. He has had to bury his father and brother in the span of a few years. He is not the spry 40-year old that founded FIRST so long ago, nor is he just some little guy from Brooklyn with a few crazy ideas up his sleeves.

Time is short for everything. It is short for Dean, it's short for me, it's short for all of us... but it was also short for this organization until it recommitted itself to not just changing the culture, but being an active participant in it all.

I don't want to live in a place where I still have to explain FIRST to people in 20 years. We can't afford to let this be the best kept secret much longer. FIRST is quickly reaching a critical mass where it will either consume the hearts and minds of a lot of people or remain stuck in neutral forever until it withers away. The organization needs to be bigger. More people need to know.

I am excited about all of that very much.

Is there a video of the opening ceremonies anywhere?

[Zuelu562]

Originally Posted by Nawaid Ladak

I hope they give Karthik 3 hours and the auditorium next year.

Forget an auditorium. Let's give Karthik a primetime TV Slot XD

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Zuelu562

Forget an auditorium. Let's give Karthik a primetime TV Slot XD

I'd settle for just giving him an MC assignment at the championship.

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by thefro526

- Motor Allowances. I'm a fan of 6 CIM's, 4 Mini-Cims/BAGs, 4 550's, 4 9015's and the rest. We should do this again.

- Starting Volume. The Perimeter method is definitely the way to go, makes inspection so much faster and easier.

I knew I forgot a few things. To add on to what Dustin said, the motor allowances were great this year, and I think had a lot to do with the increased competitiveness of teams, since a lot more teams were able to build fast/accurate mechanisms without a lot of advanced planning.

I REALLY REALLY REALLY liked the perimeter specification rather than maximum cardinal dimensions, I think it contributed heavily to the large variety of robot designs this year, and made things seem less "cookie cutter". It also makes it easy to adjust in future years to adapt the exact size to the field and game challenge without being a "major" rules change.

[Suitster]

Several things I noticed

The game:
The game this year was very well designed, in my opinion. Very few teams were able to build a robot that could do everything, and yet it was easy for any team to compete, such as building a kitbot with pool noodles and a drive on hanger.

The rankings:
The rankings were much better this year than in my rookie year. It was difficult to explain the rankings with the coopertition bridge, so this year was much better for explaining the tournament to spectators.

My favorite game so far (small sample size, though )

[Carolyn_Grace]

Everyone is mentioning Frank, and I totally agree: Thanks for all you've done for us this past year!

I also want to mention how great the rest of the FIRST staff were this year.

I felt extremely prepared going in as a volunteer at Worlds.

At MSC we had multiple FIRST staff members visiting our event and spreading their positive energy to everyone.

The communication via email, web conferences, phone conferences and even text message was fantastic.

Their helpfulness at Worlds was unending.

Thanks, FIRST staff, for all that you do. You have difficult and often under-paid jobs.

[IKE]

I am going to pile on with not necessaryily new stuff, but stuff I really like:

Game quality was awesome this year. I loved Triple Play, and was really hoping for a gme similar to that. Initially I was dissappointed, and worried shooting frisbees would be more difficult than it turned out. Kudos to the GDC for making sucha great game.

I think they got the points perfect for each section. Balance was quite good. I would have changed the climbing rules a bit to make climbing easier, but I would not have changed the points. Nice job.

I liked that both the regular scoring and the bonus had a tiered scoring structure with the lower tier being very easily achieveable. This not only gave some clean and simple objectives so that teams could score, but allowed for teams to add depth to the cost benefit analysis that they do for various game efforts. There are a lot of important lessons taht come from this.

Thank you VEXPro and AndyMark for your continued support and availability of high quality affordable products. Yes, not every product was perfect, but I dare you to find a product line that is. Both of your teams made products that makes FRC so much better. Just watch any old match video and you can tell the difference.

Talons, I can't say enough good things about this product. Compact, capable, and a great value. I may not know why a chicken crosses the road, but I can tell you the bees are very happy the crossed over to Talons.

Thank you GDC for the additional high motor options. There are now so many good COTS power transmission products available, teams can focus their efforts on designing manipulators and scoring devices.

I like the frame perimeter rule. This allowed teams to think outside the box (pun intended) and added a lot of variety this year. 112 was a tough dimension to work within, but I like the challenges of a smaller footprint, and I think it helped with congestion on the field. Between this and the 54", I don't think it actually saved any inspection time (as others have said), but it has allowed for more diversity. Here in Michigan, we pay very close attention to the time required to inspect, and in general, the 112" was measured at the weigh in station which meant pretty much the same time as using the sizing box. It did allow for faster set-up of the inspection station which is a big plus.

I really appreciate the "Frank" discussion (2nd pun also intended) we have been receiving from FIRST HQ this year. I have been really impressed with the improvement in communication. Even when decisions were made taht were unpopular due to timing, I think the honesty and humility conveyed in the communications made it much easier to deal with.

Grand Blanc district event. I have sung the praises of this event in previous posts this year, but the attention to detail was amazing, and made the event so smooth. This was a role model event from a role model team.

As I think of more, I will chime in again.

[Koko Ed]

I would also like to add I appreciated the announcer rotation. It was great having several different announcers come to your field from time to time. I would like them to do that with the MCs as well so more MCs can get time on the field (like Karthik and Angry Eric).

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I would also like to add I appreciated the announcer rotation. It was great having several different announcers come to your field from time to time. I would like them to do that with the MCs as well so more MCs can get time on the field (like Karthik and Angry Eric).

Does Karthik even want to MC at Champs? But I agree we should be showcasing MC's that teams might not get to see because they(both teams and MC's) don't travel

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I'd settle for just giving him an MC assignment at the championship.

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I would also like to add I appreciated the announcer rotation. It was great having several different announcers come to your field from time to time. I would like them to do that with the MCs as well so more MCs can get time on the field (like Karthik and Angry Eric).

This! I loved the announcer rotation, and I love all the current MC's - but we definitely need to start rotating in MORE talent in both roles!

I'm not saying to replace anyone, but what about two per field? There's a lot of matches to be played (should have had more but that's another thread) and there's a lot of talent that's been in the community for years, and should probably have a spot somewhere in there.

[Carolyn_Grace]

Originally Posted by Libby K

This! I loved the announcer rotation, and I love all the current MC's - but we definitely need to start rotating in MORE talent in both roles!

I'm not saying to replace anyone, but what about two per field? There's a lot of matches to be played (should have had more but that's another thread) and there's a lot of talent that's been in the community for years, and should probably have a spot somewhere in there.

Team Grant Cox and Samir.
just sayin'

[Phyrxes]

While it was neat to have Paul and Karthik guest announce on Galileo for a "lightning round" seeing the different styles of the various MC personalities in First without having to hop divisions would be awesome.

[RoboMom]

This: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hreadid=116551