Team 254 Presents: Chezy Champs

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by Francis-134

We have posted the raw images of all the robots at the event at our imgur. These are the same images you may have seen over the weekend.

Weren't there 34 teams in attendance? It looks like someone got left out.
Hmmm, who might that have been?

[Francis-134]

Originally Posted by billbo911

Weren't there 34 teams in attendance? It looks like someone got left out.
Hmmm, who might that have been?

While I'm sure you know, it was your team! We didn't get a picture of you guys until Saturday morning, so we added it really quickly on Saturday, and it was in another directory.

The other missing team is 254, but the photo was theirs, so I do not feel it's appropriate to re-post it.

[hionwind]

I think that Mike Corsetto summed up my feelings about Chezy Champs pretty well so I don't have much to add. I will say that I had more fun at this event than at any regional we have attended in recent history. The atmosphere was very relaxed and supportive of students which is really what FIRST is all about.

The idea to run awards during elimination matches was a brilliant move. No-one likes to hang around for another hour or two once finals are done.

The elimination matches were some of the most exciting we have played this season and that includes our matches against 254 on Einstein. Thank you to all of the amazing teams (especially those who travelled from afar) who cranked up the excitement level.

So I really want to extend a huge thank you to the Poofs and all the other volunteers who helped make this a landmark off-season event. We are already looking forward to Chezy Champs 2015.

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

• FTA's could debug problems faster with the diagnostics page on their smartphone.

Nobody planned for that to be possible, but the initial design decisions that Pat made made that possible. That was very handy, and saved a bunch of time. Go Pat! I hope FIRST makes that possible with the new system.

[Deetman]

Originally Posted by AustinSchuh

Nobody planned for that to be possible, but the initial design decisions that Pat made made that possible. That was very handy, and saved a bunch of time. Go Pat! I hope FIRST makes that possible with the new system.

While I do not know all the capabilities your software has, FTAs at official events have the capability to view diagnostics via phone or tablet if they so choose.

[Karthik]

Simply put, in terms of the overall experience, Chezy Champs was easily the best off-season event I've attended. In fact, it might have been the best FRC event I've ever attended. It was nice to be at an event where the focus was on the teams, and all the volunteers worked to make sure the teams had the best experience possible. The event was what I would call "team friendly", which is something many FRC events have lost over the years. Each and every volunteer was most concerned with the teams having a great time, as opposed to being focused on their own experience. It was crazy how big of a difference this made in the event atmosphere.

Essentially the organizing committee found a way to capture all the things that make FRC awesome, while discarding the things that we've all grown frustrated with. I know I walked away with a lot of mental notes that I'm going to be taking forward to any events I end up being involved with in the future.

Thanks to Team 254 for inviting me out to this event and being such amazing hosts. It's been a long time since I've actually had fun MCing an FRC event, so thanks for reminding me what this all supposed to be about. Schedule permitting, I'll absolutely be back next year.

[Nuttyman54]

GameSense has posted a survey to get some feedback from everyone who watched the event either in-person or online. Please help us improve for next time!

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Simply put, in terms of the overall experience, Chezy Champs was easily the best off-season event I've attended. In fact, it might have been the best FRC event I've ever attended. It was nice to be at an event where the focus was on the teams, and all the volunteers worked to make sure the teams had the best experience possible. The event was what I would call "team friendly", which is something many FRC events have lost over the years. Each and every volunteer was most concerned with the teams having a great time, as opposed to being focused on their own experience. It was crazy how big of a difference this made in the event atmosphere.

Yes! I never thought of it at the time, but looking back on it, I can't think of a single time where a volunteer decided to yell at me or anyone else. I think that's the first time that's ever happened to me at an event. The volunteers were all so cool, and focused on everyone having a good time. To anyone that volunteered, thank you so much.

I also loved that the event was both chill, but really focused on performance. It's not like everyone was running around red lined on adrenaline, but the event was set up so every team was called to compete on the highest level they could. This is in contrast to the regionals I've been to, where there a very tangible level of stress around the teams and volunteers, but at the same time, the event seems to be more focused on being a "STEM celebration" as opposed to a competition (at least compared to Chezy Champs).

Oh yeah, and the field was everything it was supposed to be. Professional looking graphics, quick to connect, perfect timing, zero scoring/pedestal issues, and best of all, zero foghorns!

Lets just make every regional like CC!

[icecube45]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Yes! I never thought of it at the time, but looking back on it, I can't think of a single time where a volunteer decided to yell at me or anyone else. I think that's the first time that's ever happened to me at an event. The volunteers were all so cool, and focused on everyone having a good time. To anyone that volunteered, thank you so much.

This exactly,
I've had some pretty bad experiences with volunteers at regionals, the ones at CC were very relaxed and helpful, compared to some of the bad volunteers I've seen, these ones actually wanted to be there (or at least acted like so).

[Jeremy Germita]

To echo everyone else's comments, Chezy Champs was the best FIRST event I've ever attended.

Team 5012 walked away from the competition with many lessons learned from the highest caliber of west coast teams. The eliminations matches were amazing to watch. Kudos to all eliminations teams!

After suffering from many robot issues all weekend, we'd like to extend our most sincere thanks to the following entities:

Team 254 and Bellarmine College Preparatory
The constant advice and assistance throughout the weekend was very much appreciated. From our arm getting destroyed in quals 2 to our constant software and electrical issues, your help has been extremely valuable.
Also, thanks to Bellarmine for housing the event. BCP was possibly the best venue for an FRC event I've seen, rivaling even the Championship Event. Signage was very clear, volunteers were helpful, and pits were spacious, ventilated, and well lit.

Team 1678
Thanks so much to team 1678 for assisting us after our arm failure in our first match! The materials and advice given to us by your pit crew members was critical in us getting a functioning intake working before remainder of our qual matches. Citrus Circuits are a class act and I really enjoy attending an event with them as they strive to raise the competition all the while setting the bar themselves.

Also special thanks to 8, 399, and 5136 in lending us more parts and materials to get some things working!

Personally, I hope to be back in some capacity for Chezy Champs 2015!

Congratulations to every team who attended and thanks for making it a memorable experience! Hope to see a few of our SoCal friends at Fall Classic and Battle at the Border!

[MARS_James]

I would love an explanation on something that happened during Alliance Selections, Karthik said that Code Orange had Velcro on their scouting sheet can either he or someone from the team elaborate/show a picture of what he saw. The idea intrigues me but sound like a practicality nightmare and would love to know how they did it.

[icecube45]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

I would love an explanation on something that happened during Alliance Selections, Karthik said that Code Orange had Velcro on their scouting sheet can either he or someone from the team elaborate/show a picture of what he saw. The idea intrigues me but sound like a practicality nightmare and would love to know how they did it.

I got a glance at it at competition, if I'm remembering correctly, each team at the competition had a little Velcro piece that they could move around, perhaps in order of preference.

[saikiranra]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

I would love an explanation on something that happened during Alliance Selections, Karthik said that Code Orange had Velcro on their scouting sheet can either he or someone from the team elaborate/show a picture of what he saw. The idea intrigues me but sound like a practicality nightmare and would love to know how they did it.

Its essentially a page that has team numbers written on different velcro pieces. They make their pick list by organizing the teams on the page, and remove teams that are chosen as alliance selection goes on. The page may also be divided into a few sections, like a DNP List, an inbounder list, and so on. Its a quick, easy way to figure out whats going on and make good choices without looking at data during selection.

I believe that Gary Hedge, who mentored Team 980, introduced it to them.

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by saikiranra

Its essentially a page that has team numbers written on different velcro pieces. They make their pick list by organizing the teams on the page, and remove teams that are chosen as alliance selection goes on. The page may also be divided into a few sections, like a DNP List, an inbounder list, and so on. Its a quick, easy way to figure out whats going on and make good choices without looking at data during selection.

I believe that Gary Hedge, who mentored Team 980, introduced it to them.

Yep Gary Hedge invented this back on 980, back in the day. Gary now mentors 3476. Funny thing is Gary's velcro sheet wound up being used by 3309. So both 3476, and 3309 were right next to each other in the rankings, thus were next to each other in line with very similar pick lists.

The 3309 students loved this system and are very thankful for Gary teaching them. Gary uses it to gut check the quantifiable atributes. Its then used as the pick list.

[Nato]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

I would love an explanation on something that happened during Alliance Selections, Karthik said that Code Orange had Velcro on their scouting sheet can either he or someone from the team elaborate/show a picture of what he saw. The idea intrigues me but sound like a practicality nightmare and would love to know how they did it.

Yes, as others have stated, Code Orange adapted this system from Gary Hedge and team #980.

For those wanting a more in-depth explanation, 3476's velcro board consists of several lines of velcro ("loop" side) on the inside of our Scouting Binder. Each team's number is printed out and glued to smaller pieces of velcro ("hook" side). The pieces are color-coded to provide another visual cue. For each year, we assign other visual markings to indicate "classes" or capabilities of robots. For example, we might have marked a 2013 5+ disk autonomous robot with a green "5" or a full-court shooter with a purple dot.

Teams are generally arranged "top to bottom, left to right" style. Sometimes teams possessing a certain attribute (say, goalie pole or exceptional defense) will be ranked in a separate column of their own.

The nice thing about this system is that it is extremely liquid. It adds a qualitative level to our quantitative data (and yes, before anyone asks, Code Orange does take qualitative data as well). For example, say that the head scout notices team #XXXX is scoring 50 points per match, but falters under defense. Meanwhile, team #YYYY is scoring 45 points per match, but consistently plays through defense. The velcro board allows the scouts to reflect observations that might not be quite as visible in the "hard data."

Since teams are removed after they are selected, it is also very handy to take a look at the board during Alliance Selections and see teams that might be slipping through the cracks. Yes, we have our "hard data" that we bring on the field for Alliance Selections too, to compare findings with our alliance partner and to make last-minute references.

It has worked very well for us the past three years.