2015 Ventura Regional Feedback/Improvements

[DylanJG]

Hello everyone! I'm Dylan and I'm one of the four student members of the Ventura Regional Planning Committee. We hope everyone had an awesome time this weekend but we are already looking for improvements for next year. If you guys could share your opinions about what worked, what didn't, what could we add, etc. that would be awesome! Thanks in advance and good job to everyone who attended, it was awesome!

[rsisk]

As Lead Robot Inspector and Judge Advisor, the Sisks give the Ventura Regional a huge thumbs up. Good food, enthusiastic hard working volunteers, a very laid back setting. We will be back next year. Oh and the free sauna was an added bonus :>

[Boltman]

Just got back from Ventura as I post from home sweet home in San Diego. The Ventura Regional was awesome it had a nice small scale feel to it and all the judges, pit bosses, teams and everything were top notch for first time out. We received a warm welcome...I personally enjoyed the ease of going pit to pit. Everything was perfect down to our wonderful Alliance #3 made up of our team selected by Circuit Breakers (696) and Milken Knights (1836) ...special thanks to GB.... we almost by 2 points avg. made the Finals... could not ask for a more perfect match of teams for us and what we can do ..Thank you to our alliance partners for giving us such a great chance...your teams rock! and thanks to Ventura planning committee and volunteers.

Huge congrats to Beach Bots (330) D'Penguineers (1717) and IronHorse Robotics (2761) what a fantastic alliance you were! Amazing posting 207 only 8 off top score this year...Wow!

Woodie Flowers was inspiring also...great "surprise" glad he came to Ventura.

Looking forward to San Diego this week... round two we'll see soon what happens.

Anyhow....

As for improvements I have three:

1. It gets so hot in that venue...need more air conditioning
2. More food options than just Grilled Cheese and Shaved Ice.
3. If you are going to hang banners on top level then let people stand otherwise first three rows cannot see any of the field. The venue fills up so standing on top level should be allowed or take those banners down and hang them as to not obstruct rows from field views.

That's it! I highly encourage teams to put Ventura on their radar.... especially if you want to go against TOP California competition hopefully more variety next year! But all- California was truly cool.

You had to go to team rank 28 to fall below 60 QA.... outstanding group of California teams and great venue!

Hope San Diego is as good!..for us. Fingers crossed.

We will definitely consider being back...unless we decide to go the easier route to WC with so many good teams in Ventura.

[steelerborn]

Dang, free sauna, I am wishing I had applied to volunteer there lol.

Although I didn't get to attend I was watching the live stream and it was very nice. Picture and audio was clear for me, and I did enjoy the segments that I saw from the team interviews in the pit. Made the time between matches quite enjoyable, hopefully we see more of that from now on.

[DylanJG]

Thanks for the feedback! We are definitely going to work on the air conditioning issue. We tried to find food trucks that were not too expensive (<$10) and that had that weekend free so that narrowed our choices a bit, but it's definitely something we can improve on. We didn't even consider the banner issue in the top section, we'll keep it in mind for next year!

[EricH]

How about putting all the banners on the OTHER side of the field? Maybe a temporary "banner attachment rail".

The heat... biggest complaint there. There just weren't enough fans. OTOH, the scoring table cooler kept getting resupplied... and then promptly emptied.



There were more food options available--the concession stand had hot dogs and pizza (and they weren't even at typical stadium prices...) but maybe a couple more would be appreciated. (I was a volunteer, so I had free food already .)

[SenorZ]

For an inaugural regional it went great. Now that I've had time to cool down (both body temp and mentally) I can make a fair assessment of what could be done differently.

Pluses:
1. Free parking (and ample if you show up early)
2. plenty of seating
3. Woodie Flowers
4. Plenty of matches.

Deltas:
1. Better ventilation. AC would be nice, but the just some sort of exhaust to pull the hot humid air out of the building rather than pumping outside air in.
2. Pits could be more spacious. Most teams are used to 10x10, and these seemed to be liberally labeled as 9x10
3. Seat access: the lower bleachers behind admin weren't easy to get to
4. Practice field should be located on a level surface.

Great job running the first Ventura Regional.

[sanddrag]

First, let me say that I appreciate the promptness by the event organizers to start this thread. Asking for feedback shows a true dedication to improving the quality of the team experience.

On behalf of Team 696, I would like to thank Velma Lomax, Dave Berggren, the event sponsors, and everyone on the Ventura Regional Planning committee for the top-notch event they ran this past weekend. Putting on such an event is a major undertaking that requires the countless hours and dedication of numerous people whom I cannot even imagine. Everyone we interacted with, from volunteers to students and mentors, was so enthusiastic and dedicated about their involvement and participation in this event. We had a wonderful time. To me, the biggest factor of the customer experience is not being hassled by anyone for any reason, and not having anything pointless over which controversy arises. This event exhibited those traits.

For the first year of this regional, it seems like FIRST put their absolute best people on it, and it really made a difference. From the referees to the judges to the event crew which ran power, trusses, cable ramps, etc, everything was top notch. The camera work and quality of the webcast was leaps and bounds beyond numerous other events we've both watched and attended.

The free and easy parking was certainly appreciated and worked really well. Load in and load out was a breeze in Lot C. Also, our students had a great game of Volleyball at the beach Thursday night. There aren't too many regional where you can do that.

Finally, to be awarded the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award, from the man himself to whom we owe so many thanks, was such an incredible experience for my students and me. I'll never forget it.

Now, onto the areas of improvement.

Suggestions & Feedback

The pit area was cramped, but maintained a nice atmosphere with the teams. Everyone was maintained awareness of people and robots in transit, and was respectful of clearing the way when needed, without the need to yell "Robot!", and even while amazing conversations took place, yes, in the aisles.

While we most certainly prefer a 10x10 pit area since we've invested a lot in that standard format setup, we were able to adapt our arrangement to fit the smaller constraint, and we made it work. If having 10x10 pits meant there would not be enough slots for us to attend, I'd prefer the smaller pit over not attending. It did seem like at least one more team could have been added in the area where the safety advisors table was. This was a very underutilized space that would have better supported the expansion of team pit areas. If the pit areas do end up to be smaller than 10x10 again, I would respectfully like to request that knowledge be formally communicated to all prospective teams MANY MONTHS in advance, including which dimension (front to back, or side to side), is smaller.

It was a mistake to essentially tell people to leave before playing the Chairman's video. It was an honest oops that was not intentional. However, the fact that a majority stayed to attentively watch speaks to the character of the teams at this event.

Regarding the heat. In my next statement, my goal is not to complain, but to help improve the situation. I will be honest in saying indoors, it was the worst heat and humidity I have ever experienced next to IRI 2013. It honestly was at a dangerous level for many of the elderly attendees and for the students who have been awake a long time, often without eating. Outdoors, it was a beautiful cool breezy day. It would have been very easy to make at least a sizable difference in the problem by opening the doors to the fitness exercise area. Let me explain the issue from an engineering perspective.

You have somewhere in the neighborhood of a half million cubic feet of air trapped in this building, with only 50 square foot hole to get it out of, and nowhere for new air to come in. Add to that the 50kW heat load of the roughly 100 estimated 500W apiece halogen lights, and you have an absolute oven in there. It was noticeably cooler on the arena floor when the lights were dimmed after the event. I absolutely LOVE that the field was incredibly well lit. It made for amazing and easy video and photos. Do not change the lights, but we need more air. Additionally, how many people were inside? The average male adult is roughly a 100W heat load when simply sitting in a room. But, the people in this venue were not just sitting still, they were excited! It's easily another 100kW heat load from the ~1000 people inside. I am not an expert in thermodynamics nor heat transfer, but I know how to cool a building, and the small fan in the small doorway helped in the 5 feet surrounding it, but did absolutely nothing to address the massive heat load in the relatively small building.

To cool this particular building, the ideal circumstance would be to allow for cross flow. Enter a large volume of air on one side, and evacuate it on the other side. However, it appeared the design of this older structure didn't include any openings whatsoever on an opposite side to the main doors (which however old, is still kind of surprising). So, the flow would be a U-turn, if only the fitness center doors were open.... I asked a few people if it could be done, but apparently not. This is a mandatory change for next year, if the event is in this building again. Those doors must be open.

If the building had any kind of air exchanger or air anything at all, I didn't see it, and it clearly wasn't working. What is needed to remedy the problem is to exchange the inside air with outside air, with a high flow rate.

Even something like a BigAss Fan permanently installed in the venue would help to improve convection. The college really needs to work to improve cooling in this building, not just for FIRST, but for anyone else who uses it.

Chezy Champs was pretty up there with heat and humidity as well, but they had a planned remedy to the problem with the Port-A-Cool units which were very effective at maintaining a reasonable climate inside.

At the end of the event, I felt bad that I think it was team 4201 did not get to take their photo on the field under the lights. The lights were cut out just as they were arranging their group. I realize that the production crew has a schedule, and to run over time costs a lot of people a lot of money, but FIRST needs to remember one thing:

The photos teams take on the field are often used as the primary selling point of each team, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars and numerous business partnerships being brought into the program each year, which we ultimately turn around to pay FIRST as registration fees, which keep this thing going. Let the last team take their photo under the lights.

Finally, while I really appreciate that the event was scheduled during the college's break, it would be even better to work the schedule to not be concurrent with the swap meet on the college campus. The swap meet attracts a very different crowd, consisting of several types of individuals you do not want in or around a large quantity of high school kids. Additionally, there needs to be a stronger security presence in and around the venue. We had an incident that necessitated the need for a police officer to respond. The response time was abysmal, and there was only one officer on site for the entire college, with the FIRST event, swap meet, and soccer games all going on concurrently. Even a private firm such as Securitas to park in the lot outside the venue would be better than nothing. There were times where we felt our students and equipment were not safe in the parking lot.

While there are a couple areas for improvement, do not let my comments in any way detract from the high quality event that took place last weekend. Thank you again to everyone involved in its production, and we hope to be back next year!

[seg9585]

Everyone's already touched on the heat/humidity issue, and I will agree it was a big problem -- especially since we are trying to encourage folks from the community to watch and enjoy the competition, but the heat issue didn't encourage folks to stay long.

For the space we had, the volunteers worked REALLY hard and did a great job guiding teams through the breezeway, into and out of the loading area, etc. Great work volunteers!

The breezeway got really congested, robots running back and forth with no room to move. We were gridlocked a dozen times through those small doors since robots went in and out of the same door, some too tall to fit through. Recommend a one-way flow, find a way to have robots leave on the other side of the court., or even behind the video/curtain system.

Pits were 9' x 10', but really only 9'x9' was usable space due to wiring, signage behind pits.

The practice field was problematic, as the bright sun overheated laptops and were hard to see. Also robots got very hot sitting in the sun waiting for a spot on the field. If it rains next year, does that mean no practice field?
I recommend large canopies over the field or control area (there were only some for volunteers and the sign up area). Practice field registration was not controlled, as some teams just put their own team number in a ton of slots just in case they needed to use it (volunteers didn't restrict this).

[EricH]

Originally Posted by seg9585

he breezeway got really congested, robots running back and forth with no room to move. We were gridlocked a dozen times through those small doors since robots went in and out of the same door, some too tall to fit through. Recommend a one-way flow, find a way to have robots leave on the other side of the court., or even behind the video/curtain system.

Actually, that was the original plan. The problem was that one of the "A/V cave" curtains hung too close to the rail curtain on the scoring-side stands to allow for safe robot transit, and moving the rail curtain would have blocked off the end of the stands (as well as subjected the scorer's table to getting whacked by robots). Moving the other curtain would have needed to be done early, and it wasn't.

I kind of get the impression that some of the inconveniences were caused by "new venue, need to make this work, oops, need to change this plan at the last minute to make this work somewhat".

Oh, and for sanddrag: There WAS supposed to be a pit where the safety advisor's table was, as you seem to have suspected. The associated team didn't show up, for reasons that I don't know. I saw the pit's sign get taken down on Thursday evening, I think during/right before load-in.

[DylanJG]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

While we most certainly prefer a 10x10 pit area since we've invested a lot in that standard format setup, we were able to adapt our arrangement to fit the smaller constraint, and we made it work. If having 10x10 pits meant there would not be enough slots for us to attend, I'd prefer the smaller pit over not attending. It did seem like at least one more team could have been added in the area where the safety advisors table was. This was a very underutilized space that would have better supported the expansion of team pit areas. If the pit areas do end up to be smaller than 10x10 again, I would respectfully like to request that knowledge be formally communicated to all prospective teams MANY MONTHS in advance, including which dimension (front to back, or side to side), is smaller.

Totally understand! This is something that personally I did not feel was communicated very well, and even more annoying was to have my team's pit feel more cramped than usual! Due to the number of teams there it was hard to find extra space in the smaller gym, but I've had a couple ideas about how to remedy that, and plan to bring them up next time we meet. Thanks for the input!

[DylanJG]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

To cool this particular building, the ideal circumstance would be to allow for cross flow. Enter a large volume of air on one side, and evacuate it on the other side. However, it appeared the design of this older structure didn't include any openings whatsoever on an opposite side to the main doors (which however old, is still kind of surprising). So, the flow would be a U-turn, if only the fitness center doors were open.... I asked a few people if it could be done, but apparently not. This is a mandatory change for next year, if the event is in this building again. Those doors must be open.

While I'm not certain about this, I believe that the doors were closed due to Ventura College not wanting FRC kids going in the gym to watch matches (I will admit I was guilty of this at least once). I think it was a quick decision that someone made that they didn't think through, but we'll try to not let it happen again.