FrankAnswersFridays: October 25, 2013: Safety at Championships

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Justin Montois

I agree with most of this. However it doesn't address the problem of a team sending a 1 or 2 people to save 30 seats or more.

Am I the only one who just explains that you can't save those seats and continues to sit in them? Not trying to be a jerk but if your 30+ member team is represented by 2 team members and some jackets, then I'm going to still take the seat.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

Am I the only one who just explains that you can't save those seats and continues to sit in them?

There are more than a few of us who will happily claim an unoccupied seat. If challenged, I'll just as happily offer to vacate it upon the return of the team member it's being "saved" for.

I even followed through on that offer the one time a team member did need the seat before I left. :-)

[aryker]

I think one of the major issues with seating was how little seating in the facility was made available for people--the Championship is held in a huge stadium, and yet what the staff seemed most concerned about was the fact that everyone stayed on the first level of seating. It seemed like 60 percent of the seats in the facility were unused! Maybe the crowd would thin out a bit if teams were allowed to make use of all the available seating, rather than just a small portion!

[Kevin Leonard]

I think FIRST should take a look at how well the scouting section at the GTR Regional (I can't remember which one) that is being held at 610's school. If the whole "Scouting Section" business runs efficiently there, I see no reason why they shouldn't attempt something like it at championships. Especially if they could find a space to set up a full-field view.
This would alleviate the problem in the stands immensely by moving scouts who need priority seating out of the stands and into a scouting section.
I think they find four relatively large areas in the convention center to run these sections. Preferably a relatively quiet area. This might also encourage collaboration between teams that are scouting.


Another thought: What if they used the high-up seating that is unused above a section to facilitate the scouting section? Would it be difficult to set up a projector there? It also has the benefit of being close to the actual seating and field.

The reason I'm so concerned about this is that our scouting operation is intense. We run six scouts, a head scout, a paper filer, and a data entry person. We also collaborate with other teams for our scouting. And anyone who knows FRC knows that scouting wins matches, and good scouting wins regionals.
So whatever solution is presented, I want to make sure that scouting is considered as a high priority item.
I have no doubt that most of you understand this, but it's something that could easily get thrown under the bridge in the name of organization.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Thunder910

Another thought: What if they used the high-up seating that is unused above a section to facilitate the scouting section? Would it be difficult to set up a projector there? It also has the benefit of being close to the actual seating and field.

Given the option I don't think there's a single team that would rather watch the match on a screen rather than live when it comes to scouting.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Cory

Given the option I don't think there's a single team that would rather watch the match on a screen rather than live when it comes to scouting.

Agreed. As someone who takes scouting very seriously I have never seen a video stream or angle that would come close to being a supplement for scouting. I remember scouting at Champs in 2009-2010 in some of the very back rows and still be able to do so successfully with identifying bumper numbers and where people were on the field.

There is a small level of scouting you can do via a video feed but if you want to do it properly you need to physically be watching everything on and off the field. I am curious to see the 610 setup for their regional but I am still very, very skeptical.

[Ernst]

Originally Posted by Cory

Given the option I don't think there's a single team that would rather watch the match on a screen rather than live when it comes to scouting.

I did data entry for my team's scouting group at MARC over the summer. I set up at a table in a hallway. It was quieter, cooler, and I could lay out everything I was looking at instead of balancing a laptop and several accordion folders on my lap in the bleachers. Given the choice of entering data in a hall like I did, in the stands, or in a room with tables and a stream of the match, I would pick the streaming.

I don't think that the whole scouting team would have liked the secluded room, given that a lot of the fun is getting to sit as a team.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Cory

Given the option I don't think there's a single team that would rather watch the match on a screen rather than live when it comes to scouting.

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Agreed. As someone who takes scouting very seriously I have never seen a video stream or angle that would come close to being a supplement for scouting. I remember scouting at Champs in 2009-2010 in some of the very back rows and still be able to do so successfully with identifying bumper numbers and where people were on the field.

There is a small level of scouting you can do via a video feed but if you want to do it properly you need to physically be watching everything on and off the field. I am curious to see the 610 setup for their regional but I am still very, very skeptical.

I understand that. And that's why I'm curious to see how well 610's setup will work.
However, given the choice of not having seats to scout or scouting via full-field-fisheye (henceforth known as F^3), which would you choose?

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Thunder910

I understand that. And that's why I'm curious to see how well 610's setup will work.
However, given the choice of not having seats to scout or scouting via full-field-fisheye (henceforth known as F^3), which would you choose?

Neither. I would show up at 5 AM and get seats.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Cory

Neither. I would show up at 5 AM and get seats.

Fair enough.

[Nate Laverdure]

I don't understand the basic foundations of this discussion. It's the Championship-- stop sitting and start walking around.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure

I don't understand the basic foundations of this discussion. It's the Championship-- stop sitting and start walking around.

But who will save my seat when I get up to look at things?



I'll be competing at GTRW with the remote scouting room. I'll relay observations to CD.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

I think the fairest system, and the one requiring the least amount of work to implement, is the one that many teams (including my own) try to follow now -- you show up early in the morning with as many people as seats you want to claim, and stand in line.

Originally Posted by Karthik

I'm 100% in agreement with Pat here. If lineups were clearly marked and enforced each morning, there would be absolutely no issues. There's no need to implement a complicated solution for what is a relatively simple problem to solve.

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Lotteries, etc... are silly and resource intensive.

From the perspective of someone who only needs to line up early when I'm visiting with a team that has that objective, and even then, only when I'm not otherwise engaged as a volunteer, I'm not really in favour of making the line at the door into part of the competition.

Sure, it's one more way that a motivated team can gain a useful advantage through their disciplined efforts off the field—but it's also an arms race in which the fanatics and the scouts will be keeping each other company for the lonely hours before sunrise. And while I suppose it's their prerogative, it's a little undignified and kind of overlooks the bigger question: is the first-come-first-served allocation of seats so essential to the competition (as a whole, rather than on a per-team level) that it couldn't be replaced with a system that is fair through randomness? If the few teams currently lining up very early lose their advantage, but everyone gets more sleep and less stampeding happens, are the event and the experience improved or degraded overall? I don't have data to estimate the relative benefits, but the costs to the event of enforcing an orderly line seem greater than the costs of assigning scouts' seats in advance.¹


Also, lotteries are easy when you have a known set of entrants and don't need to do it in real time. The week before the event, with great pomp and circumstance, the regional director selects a hat and draws team numbers from it. A set number of that team's representatives are assigned to predetermined seating blocks in the order drawn. A slight improvement/complication involves the teams ranking their preferences for blocks of seating beforehand; when drawn, they get the most preferable block not already taken.

¹ Despite that, I have to admit, I'm sympathetic to the teams that are annoyed when their scouts are beaten to the front row seats, and then have to endure sitting behind people that stand up and cheer for their team instead of quietly observing the match. I'd wager that the loss of productivity of the scouts in the 2^nd row is greater in magnitude than the benefit the 1^st-row team gains by cheering—and in effect harms the competition compared to the situation in which the seats were switched.

[DampRobot]

Isn't the solution for this problem a bit obvious? If there was someone with a FIRST volunteer shirt to walk around and tell off the most egregious violators of the "no saving seats" rule, I'm sure a lot of the motivation for the stampede to the stands would be gone.

In terms of saving seats, I'm not talking about a kid for holding a seat for their friend who's in the bathroom, I'm talking about the one person defending a huge block of seats like the people just trying to get off their feet are zombies coming to attack them. Those are the people that are causing a problem, and breaking a rule by the letter and in spirit.

Most teams get up early and run to the stands because they know that if they don't: a, they won't get good seats to watch/scout/cheer, and b, they won't be able to get them later, because those seats will continue to be saved. If they knew that they could simply sit where there is room, rather than where other teams have not claimed, teams wouldn't be so motivated to get up at the crack of dawn or sprint to the stands. They would know that there would likely be plenty of fine seats left, and as they day went on, they could move up into better unoccupied seats.

Of course, a lottery system or multiple coordinated entrances would be good ideas, but they'd likely take a fair bit of organization and work to implement. I'm not sure that they get to the root cause either, that people are very motivated to get to the stands as fast as physically possible to save seats for their team.

[JB987]

Originally Posted by Cory

Neither. I would show up at 5 AM and get seats.

And we will still show up at 4:59 am