2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by jee7s

Also, at the FRC level: Has anyone ever pondered the wisdom of wearing gloves while "working" on the robot? That's in the official safety manual the last time I checked (which is admittedly a while ago). Personally, I NEVER wear gloves while working on the robot. I've seen too many gloves get dragged into mechanisms or caught up in the robot that I'm sufficiently worried about losing a finger. Wear gloves while lifting, sure. But, while working on it? That just seems like too much of a risk should something turn on. I would much rather get a blood blister than have my hand pulled into a drivetrain by accident.

Quick scanning of the 2013 Safety Manual yields these:

Originally Posted by PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT (PPE)

Hand Protection
Hand protection is designed to protect against heat, electrical, chemical and mechanical hazards. Use proper gloves and mechanical tool guards.

Originally Posted by PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT (PPE)

Gloves
FRC participants should work with the team Mentor to ensure the selected glove is the correct one to use for each project. For example, chemical-resistant gloves afford some measure of chemical protection. Wear them when handling chemicals. Check your gloves for proper size, absence of cracks and holes, and good flexibility and grip before you wear them.

Originally Posted by SAFETY REQUIREMENTS

General Safety
• Wear gloves where needed and use hearing protection if necessary.

If at some point the recommendation was to use gloves while working on the robot, FIRST has removed it now.

[SarahBeth]

Originally Posted by RoboMom

[I wish this response wasn't in the Negative thread...]

Not if you have the "booth" on Thursday only.
For the past few years, off and on, we've tried a low key concept at the Chesapeake.
Team Showcase. Team gets a table (usually in the pits) for one hour. Sign up ahead of the event. Agenda is passed out and announced every hour. They can feature anything about their team/outreach/technical.

It needs some tweaking, but I generally think it is a good concept. I originally developed the concept to deal with all the special requests coming in (some from teams competing for RCA) to showcase their team - giveaways, time on field to present a special award, requests for a special space or booth to promote something. All worthwhile ventures - I was just trying to level the field.

This is a really cool idea, and I think if more districts/regionals/events offered it, many teams would take advantage, even if it was just an hour at a time. I also do like the idea of an area for teams who are competing for RCA to show off what their team does - or those who *have* won before. Maybe have it on Saturday, after all the RCA judging is over so no one is at an unfair advantage.

My only worry would be implementation--if it were mandatory for all submitters (not winners already, like those at MSC and MAR) to make a booth, would we see fewer teams try? We're already talking about the difficulty and complexity of submitting. If there was a way to keep or raise participation rates though, booths would be really great.

Maybe its not mandatory though. As I mentioned above, maybe make the 'booth' thing on Saturday after all the RCA judging and give teams the option to do it. Saturday is also a benefit because thats when most of the general public attends with families, etc and it'd be a nice showcase.

[MARS_James]

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace

For the record, it is a little easier to do this at MSC because we already have 11 winners from the District system. We're planning on doing something similar at the Indiana State Championship on May 18th.

Possible solution: other official FIRST competitions could offer a booth to the previous three year's winners to showcase what they've accomplished.
The downfall of this is that it would give them a more visible showcase to judges, which could be inferred as an unfair advantage for winning this award.

Or since all events know who is submitting Chairmans at their event before, put all their pits together and have it said these are the Chairman's contenders

[Mr V]

In regards to all the complaints about only having 8 seeding matches. Yes it was less than ideal but the fact of the matter is that FIRST and Frank Merrick carefully considered the average cycle times across all of the regional events before making this hard choice. Fact is that you can speculate how things are going to go before the season starts but until the season actually starts you just don't know how things will play out. Reset times are one of those things and they did what they had to do to fit the available schedule. I know from working at regional events that it is a hard choice to make and everyone I know tries their hardest to maximize the number of matches that teams play.


Thanks to Frank Merrick, and his regular reading of this forum, headquarters is aware of the disappointment and I trust that, as mentioned in this thread ,they will do their best to improve the number of matches at CMP next year.

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by Siri

...Something has to change with the green shirts. Now. Most of them are quite good, but the bad ones are creating a dangerous culture.


*I literally had an SA tell one of my drivers to run (yes, "run") around our cart in the crowded pit so they could get to the front and yell "ROBOT!" We already had a driver in front of us kindly asking people to move, and it had worked well for several hundred feet.

Oh yes, this needs to be highlighted to FRC in general. And it reminds me of a couple things to mention.

Firstly, remember that not every Green Shirt is actually from UL. I wore that green shirt at an event last year, and I've never worked for UL. I think the sponsorship and logos lead people to that false impression. I know Siri didn't say that, but I've seen it mentioned elsewhere.

Secondly, I've found that Volunteer Coordinators sometimes make the Safety Advisor role a place to put a professional that is more technically inclined but not necessarily familiar with FIRST. At that event last year, I was the ONLY SA with any FIRST experience at all. We had a "Lead SA" who was a UL employee, but hadn't even been to an FRC event before. We also had a couple of safety folks from the venue (it took place at a University). But other than the four of us, the other SAs had little safety experience over all, much less safety in FIRST. I found myself having to bring all of those SA colleagues up to speed on FIRST and the safety culture. They were receptive to it, and I'm flexible to fill needs when they need to be filled, but that wasn't exactly part of my role description.

And the yelling "Robot" thing just has to stop. It's rude, unprofessional, and distracting. Thanks to one of the Mentors on my team, we consistently counter the yelling of "Robot!" with a loud but not quite yelling retort of "Human!". Remember everyone, humans always have the right of way. If you're moving a robot, it's your job to manage the traffic to clear a path. Yelling "Robot!" doesn't cut it in my book, and if you yell at me louder when I don't/can't move out of your way, I'm just going to be less inclined to get out of your way.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by jee7s

Thanks to one of the Mentors on my team, we consistently counter the yelling of "Robot!" with a loud but not quite yelling retort of "Human!"

Honestly, this strikes me as far more obnoxious and unhelpful than the yelling of "Robot!" is in the first place; "Robot!", even if you believe it is suboptimal (for the record, I think it works fine), has a clear use. "Human!" does nothing but add to the noise and confusion. Almost no one is going to have a clear inclination of what is meant when someone shouts "Human!" Pretty much everyone knows what is meant when someone shouts "Robot!"

If you think the shouting of "Robot!" does more harm than good, that's fine. But be reasonable about how you try to convey that point. The action you've described is going to do absolutely nothing to fix the problem; on the contrary, it does nothing but exacerbate the very problems that the critics of "Robot!" point to.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

What happened in 2013 that FIRST could stand to improve upon?

Frank still being only the "interim" Director. Its time he becomes the permanent/full time director.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

Frank still being only the "interim" Director. Its time he becomes the permanent/full time director.

Where did CD put the Like button?

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by SarahBeth

This is a really cool idea, and I think if more districts/regionals/events offered it, many teams would take advantage, even if it was just an hour at a time.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2159 White paper from 2008.

Procedures have been updated a bit, but this is Team Showcase in a nutshell. Email me if you want more info.

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Honestly, this strikes me as far more obnoxious and unhelpful than the yelling of "Robot!" is in the first place; "Robot!", even if you believe it is suboptimal (for the record, I think it works fine), has a clear use. "Human!" does nothing but add to the noise and confusion. Almost no one is going to have a clear inclination of what is meant when someone shouts "Human!" Pretty much everyone knows what is meant when someone shouts "Robot!"

If you think the shouting of "Robot!" does more harm than good, that's fine. But be reasonable about how you try to convey that point. The action you've described is going to do absolutely nothing to fix the problem; on the contrary, it does nothing but exacerbate the very problems that the critics of "Robot!" point to.

Just to be clear about this, it's not like we go around shouting "Human" every time someone shouts "Robot". It's not even shouted. When we do it, it's a comment directed at the team that's yelling "Robot", not a general comment to everyone within earshot. Yeah, it's a little sarcastic, maybe. But, 9 times out of 10, or maybe even 95 out of 100, we get a chuckle from the team because they know what they are doing is what we have discussed: Safety Theater.

Often, that becomes an icebreaker between our two teams, we get to know each other, and we start reminding other teams to not shout "Robot" all over the place. So, no, we aren't jerks about it. We use the "Human!" content to provoke thought and conversation, and it's been quite successful on those two fronts without the drawbacks you assumed above.

And, BTW, there's PLENTY of ambiguity in "Robot!". It's not clear what people should do when they hear that, particularly to those not familiar with FIRST. Even if it's coupled with a clear indication to get out of the way, that doesn't help much either as people don't usually know where they need to move to get out of the way. This is particularly true if their backs are turned to you, which is when this "Robot" shouting technique is usually employed.

But hey, everything I just said has already been said in other threads. No need to beat this to death.

[Clinton Bolinger]

Originally Posted by CalTran

Like sending a trained 2337 representative to every regional? But seriously, FIRST needs to take a hint or a dozen from how 2337 runs their Michigan archives. 1 GoPro + 1 painters pole + 1 fish eye = AWESOME way for me to be a Michigan fanboy in Kansas.

Thank you for the kind words. I was able to talk with Frank at the Championship about what we have been doing with Web Casting and Archiving matches to YouTube. Frank was really open with the idea and asked for me to e-mail him information or a white paper on our setup.

We started this project almost 3 years ago in the hopes that FIRST would eventually see it and do it for all events. I feel that each year we are getting closer.

I will be sure to post the white paper on CD as well.

If anyone has any questions about it or wants more information, please feel free to contact me.

-Clinton-

[Taylor]

I think it would be awesome if RCA/DCA videos were shown on the big screens various times throughout the event. Perhaps interspersed with the sponsors' advertisements.

[josmee443]

The real time scoring system was definitely a problem during regionals. There were a few kinks in the system that left people in the stands confused about what the actual score was. Hopefully, next year the real time scoring system is improved!

[David8696]

Something simply MUST be done about the alliance selection and ranking systems in the Championship qualifying rounds. This year, my team (2485) wound up ranking 69th overall in Galileo, regardless of the fact that we ranked SIXTH in total teleop points, had the highest score of the qualifiers, and won our average game 133-106. We played with four of the bottom ten ranked teams in the tournament; in our average match, the ranking of our partners was 55.31 and that of our opponents was 46.33. Every single game that we played with alliance partners who, collectively, finished above .500 we won, and handily–our average win was by 94 points. Every game we played with alliance partners who were below .500, we lost, but not by much–our average LOSS was by 25 points, with two games decided by a disk and one decided by a climb. And in the game we lost by 8 points, one of our partners slipped off the pyramid a second after the buzzer rang.

I probably sound like a whiny little kid throughout all of this, but let me just say that we enjoyed every second of our first trip to nationals, and hope to return for many years to come. We just couldn't help but feel almost cheated by pure bad luck as we watched a robot that we felt was heavily underranked go without being picked for elimination.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by David8696

I probably sound like a whiny little kid throughout all of this, but let me just say that we enjoyed every second of our first trip to nationals, and hope to return for many years to come. We just couldn't help but feel almost cheated by pure bad luck as we watched a robot that we felt was heavily underranked go without being picked for elimination.

Please read the first line of my signature.