2014 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[Koko Ed]

What could FIRST stand to improve upon?

[Hallry]

Free corn dogs. Especially now that 254 won.

[Steven Donow]

inb4thegame*


But in all seriousness, I didn't have much of a problem with "Make It Loud" until Champs. Some of the performances as part of the "make it loud" campaign just seemed awkward, even via webcast. I'd imagine it was more awkward in person.

"Make It Loud" also seems somewhat misguided at this point-I love it as a rally cry for spreading the word of FIRST, but what is the point of it? Get celebrities mentioning FIRST? Get 'non-traditional' companies involved in FIRST? Tweet #MakeItLoud? It's a great phrase, but to me it just needs some direction.


*for the record I like this game

[Oblarg]

It seemed most of the reffing issues and problems with penalties were absent from Worlds (partly due to them thankfully not calling G28 in the manner described in the driver meeting), but certainly many of the regional competitions suffered from poor reffing and large numbers of matches determined by penalties. While I think Aerial Assist was a fantastic game, future games absolutely must be easier to referee.

I don't have any real complaints other than that; everything about this year was pretty great.

[Loralyn P]

Something small that I would really like to see (and I have no idea why they didn't do it this year) is clarification on the rules of the Dean's List interview, and a better feedback sheet. Currently, there is no mention of the time limit in the Dean's List section of the Administration Manual, and the feedback sheet was the most minimal thing I've ever seen. At least put in a "you can improve on" section!

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Loralyn P

Something small that I would really like to see (and I have no idea why they didn't do it this year) is clarification on the rules of the Dean's List interview, and a better feedback sheet. Currently, there is no mention of the time limit in the Dean's List section of the Administration Manual, and the feedback sheet was the most minimal thing I've ever seen. At least put in a "you can improve on" section!

Similarly, in regards to Dean's List, I was very unhappy with the way it was handled/done in district systems/the inconsistencies between different regions in how they determined Finalists.*


*I'm unaware of what FiM or PNW did, so I'm going off the differences in DL in MAR and NEFIRST

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

inb4thegame*


But in all seriousness, I didn't have much of a problem with "Make It Loud" until Champs. Some of the performances as part of the "make it loud" campaign just seemed awkward, even via webcast. I'd imagine it was more awkward in person.

"Make It Loud" also seems somewhat misguided at this point-I love it as a rally cry for spreading the word of FIRST, but what is the point of it? Get celebrities mentioning FIRST? Get 'non-traditional' companies involved in FIRST? Tweet #MakeItLoud? It's a great phrase, but to me it just needs some direction.


*for the record I like this game

The entire Make it Loud portion of closing ceremonies was very cringeworthy.... I muted by live feed several times because of it. I'd much rather we have some video or information being played about all of the teams on Einstein and maybe presenting the alliances one at a time to hype the matches, instead of going between random song performances and disconnected awards presentations.

Also, I think the closing ceremonies this time took a similar amount of time to last years. I thought the whole point of moving the majority of awards to divisions was to reduce the closing ceremonies time?

[safiq10]

Originally Posted by Loralyn P

Something small that I would really like to see (and I have no idea why they didn't do it this year) is clarification on the rules of the Dean's List interview, and a better feedback sheet. Currently, there is no mention of the time limit in the Dean's List section of the Administration Manual, and the feedback sheet was the most minimal thing I've ever seen. At least put in a "you can improve on" section!

As a dean list nominee I can agree with you on that! The feedback form was absolutely useless. I wish they would make it more like Chairmans!

[AlecMataloni]

Overzealous seat savers aren't going away, unfortunately. If you want good seats for your team at Einstein, you'd better have at least half of your team there. It's ridiculous how some teams send their parents over to the stands with a bunch of spirit gear and lay it out on a whole section of seats. I had more than one poor interaction with some of these people pre-closing ceremonies.

[Nick1912]

I will say that by week 6 the game really did get better, and the elims were some of the best I have seen in first, but one thing I do miss was the end game. It was exciting for a few matches but I felt like with about 45 seconds left in most matches you could tell which way the match was going to go. I hope to see the end game back in future years.

[rsisk]

Chairmans feedback forms at regionals. Wish they would scan them and email to the team contact. I never remember to pick it up at pit admin

[dcarr]

In 2014, getting a quality webcast is apparently a hard thing to do.

Except it's not. Please fix this. Baseline HD stream requirements for all events. Include equipment/connectivity/staffing in budget or find a team/volunteers who can handle it.

Multi-cam setups are ideal for the big screens at the events, but for online, a single full-field view is optimal. Perhaps offer both?

[bduddy]

Not having separate scorekeepers for a game like this was a huge mistake. Whoever made the call that the same 5-6 refs could watch for fouls and keep score at the same time obviously did not actually try to do it themselves.

[Nathan Rossi]

Having one game piece per alliance.

Now, on a championship level, having one game piece was perfect, it created close and exciting matches (how about those Einstein rounds!). However, at a regional level, it created a slow and frustrating game, especially during qualification rounds, the con outweighs the pro here. There are a lot more regionals than championships.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by dcarr

In 2014, getting a quality webcast is apparently a hard thing to do.

Except it's not. Please fix this. Baseline HD stream requirements for all events. Include equipment/connectivity/staffing in budget or find a team/volunteers who can handle it.

This please.

[asid61]

No endgame. The game was basically over after the first half; there wasn't really any way to bounce back because you would have to radically modify your strategy in order to start closing a point gap.