**FIRST EMAIL**/ Good, But Should Be Better

[Mr V]

I just recieved this message and thought I'd share a snipit of it with CD.

We just wrapped up a great Championship 2013; but there is still room for improvement.

Other than some early FTC communications issues and a common Team Finale problem, the 2013 Championship went well for the Jr.FLL, FLL, and FTC participants.
However, the vast majority of participants in St. Louis are FRC participants and there were some disappointments for them. They felt they did not get to play enough and some also felt that limited seeding matches led to ambiguous seeding results. Some others were disappointed with imprecise real-time scoring. And all four programs were let down by a too-long Closing Ceremony and a too-crowded and delayed Team Finale. (The rain shut down a major venue and resulted in under-estimated interior crowding.)

To address the concerns of our FIRST Community:

· FIRST will work hard to increase FRC seeding rounds by at least 25%;
· FIRST will reconfigure the Closing Ceremony to be more efficient and end sooner; and
· FIRST will change the Team Finale, targeting a much better result.

FRC had a wonderful game this year. Kudos to the FRC Game Design Committee!

[Moriarty]

FIRST will work hard to increase FRC seeding rounds by at least 25%;

At least 10 matches? That sounds amazing, but I am interested in how they will accomplish this. Looking forward to the solution.

EDIT: Corrected my dumb math mistake to prevent confusion for future thread readers

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Moriarty

At least 12 matches? That sounds amazing, but I am interested in how they will accomplish this. Looking forward to the solution.

My math says 25% of 8 is 2 which would mean 10 matches.

[Jeffy]

I like this a lot. FIRST seems to be continuously striving to better the program. Very inspiring.

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by Mr V

My math says 25% of 8 is 2 which would mean 10 matches.

Still great. A few years ago they vowed to give a minimum of 10 matches, which prompted the move to starting qualification matches on Thursday. I'm glad to see an effort to get this back.

The other points are also good. Shorter closing ceremonies are long overdue

[MechEng83]

The FIRST® Community:



We just completed another strong season for all four of the programs at FIRST: Junior FIRST LEGO® League® (Jr.FLL®), FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL®), FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC®), and FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC®). All programs experienced strong growth, with FTC and FLL leading the way.



We just wrapped up a great Championship 2013; but there is still room for improvement.



Other than some early FTC communications issues and a common Team Finale problem, the 2013 Championship went well for the Jr.FLL, FLL, and FTC participants. However, the vast majority of participants in St. Louis are FRC participants and there were some disappointments for them. They felt they did not get to play enough and some also felt that limited seeding matches led to ambiguous seeding results. Some others were disappointed with imprecise real-time scoring. And all four programs were let down by a too-long Closing Ceremony and a too-crowded and delayed Team Finale. (The rain shut down a major venue and resulted in under-estimated interior crowding.)



To address the concerns of our FIRST Community:



· FIRST will work hard to increase FRC seeding rounds by at least 25%;
· FIRST will reconfigure the Closing Ceremony to be more efficient and end sooner; and
· FIRST will change the Team Finale, targeting a much better result.


FRC had a wonderful game this year. Kudos to the FRC Game Design Committee!



All programs had strong seasons with good team satisfaction and team growth. However, the season ending could have been better. As the Closing Ceremony dragged on too long, I was inspired by the sustained enthusiasm generated by all the participants. FIRST owes you better solutions to the issues I mentioned and FIRST will respond.



Thanks to all the team members, Mentors, Volunteers, and Sponsors; YOU WERE GREAT!



Bob Tuttle, Interim President

So, 10+ matches next year at the Championship?

[Akash Rastogi]

I really love the direction FIRST is headed.

Thank you FIRST!

[Jared Russell]

With Frank and Bob at the helm, we are really headed in a good direction

[Akash Rastogi]

Also, I love how amazingly blunt this email is. There is no beating around the bush with anything, no excuses (other than the rain obviously). This is really cool to see. He states the issues like they are, and then states what needs to change. Just plain cool.

[MysterE]

I wish all organizations were this open.

[seg9585]

I'm curious -- what "major venue" was shut down due to the rain? Was there another activity in town that was cancelled and all those patrons came to the FRC Finale instead?

10 matches would be fantastic. We had 3+ hours in between matches on Friday which is excessive. I understand field reset takes so long and there are a lot of teams to play through, but for the amount of cost and effort to come to Championship, give us some reasonable playing time!

By "Team Finale" does this refer to the Einstein Field? I thought the flow of Closing Ceremonies was fine given the field reset times which drove the timeline. Could this have actually been reduced? Also, wasn't sure if Closing Ceremonies progressed following the final Einstein match -- most of us left at that point.

[J-Blondie]

While I think it is good that FIRST is trying to address people's concerns, I think we also need teams to be more understanding of the situation. Championships is always the big leagues and they are trying to have more of the best teams. There were tons of good teams this year so unfortunately not everyone will make it as far as elims or Einstein. I think teams generally are handling it well, but I have seen times where it's been a big display of just being downright not GP.

[orangemoore]

To get more matches without being really frantic next years game needs to have an easy reset. This year that seemed to be the biggest issue with the number of matches that we had.

Big Time consuming things this year:

Counting the frisbees
Getting climbing robots down

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

To get more matches without being really frantic next years game needs to have an easy reset. This year that seemed to be the biggest issue with the number of matches that we had.

Big Time consuming things this year:

Counting the frisbees
Getting climbing robots down

Reset time was the big factor in determining the number of matches at regional events and CMP this year. I'm confident that they will consider this for next years game.

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by seg9585

I'm curious -- what "major venue" was shut down due to the rain? Was there another activity in town that was cancelled and all those patrons came to the FRC Finale instead?

10 matches would be fantastic. We had 3+ hours in between matches on Friday which is excessive. I understand field reset takes so long and there are a lot of teams to play through, but for the amount of cost and effort to come to Championship, give us some reasonable playing time!

By "Team Finale" does this refer to the Einstein Field? I thought the flow of Closing Ceremonies was fine given the field reset times which drove the timeline. Could this have actually been reduced? Also, wasn't sure if Closing Ceremonies progressed following the final Einstein match -- most of us left at that point.

TEam Finale is the event after the closing ceremonies, aka the science center event. I think they were expecting people to be both in and outside at the center. The rain drove everyone inside and made the event super crowded