2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[Koko Ed]

What things do you feel FIRST could improve upon for future years?

[sanddrag]

FIRST needs to put their long standing teams at a higher priority than mass expansion, and they need to hold some real feedback sessions with teams or an advisory panel of teams, because it seems they have a mission of what they're trying to do, and it doesn't always align with what the teams want and need. And I don't mean this about the two champs thing, but I speak on other factors. They need more integration into education.

Also, the timing of the Chairman's Award and other top awards needs to be communicated clearly, before any music festival or dance party, and certainly before everyone leaves.

[RoboticJoev]

Well to start they need to make autonomous less important, this year and last year if you missed in auto the game was over and that is not fun for that alliance or anyone watching. Going into the finals of Einstein, it was obvious that Newton was going to use every tote. As soon as they got three cans in tbe first match it was all over. In the second match, there was an even split but Hopper did not get their auto so everyone knew it was over then as well.

I also feel like far too many things were left to the refs discretion this year. Refs need to make calls in regard to penalties but they should not get to decide what scores and what does not. At the end of the season I was left wondering so many things about what counts and what does not. Can I be touching the auton stack if I am not supporting it? Does the same apply to last second cans on stacks? What does fully supported even mean? Now the point is not that there are no objective answers to these questions but that refs can and have given me different answers.

Also transport configuration was a cool idea that was implemented so poorly that it sucked what little fun this game had to offer out before the match even began. Frank said at the drivers meeting at Champs that teams have 1 minute to setup as soon as they are allowed on the field. This is however 'just a guideline' and a ridiculous one at that. To be clear, our team used every second of that minute to just unfold our robot normally. Now add that 5 robots are moving around you along with a plethora of volunteer carrying stacks of totes around and you would be lucky if robots were ready after three minutes.

The tournament structure was awful, it just does not feel rewarding making it to the finals and losing. In all honesty it felt like a challenge more than a competition and I was pretty sure that the 'c' in frc is not for coopertition.

FIRST should realize they can keep it simple, there is no need to add unnecessary game pieces that no one wants and are worth far too many points (litter).

Finally, for the love of bot just let there be some defense. This game was so boring to watch, or should I say wait becuase all I did was wait for one side to mess up and then stop caring becuase the match was over if auton had not already decided that.

[bam-bam]

I'll add quickly that while the championship in person is a great experience, I feel like those unable to attend and have to watch through the webcasts were treated somewhat poorly.

I understand some technical faults and whatnot through webcasts (dropped webcasts, cameras failing, etc.). I want to make clear that I am okay with the parts we can't fix, but rather what we can actually fix itself.

There's already been complaints of poor quality of the webcast. When I can say I prefer the Chezy Champs and PNW among others over how the championships were streamed, something isn't right about how FIRST streams. FIRST has to set a standard for streaming (and I mean in the sense that they have to be far more distinguished, not regulation)- it just looks so odd when another robotics team/organization is performing far more vastly than FIRST itself.

Also, there was just poor scheduling on the behalf of award announcements. Not once throughout the entire Einstein broadcast was it mentioned that Chairman's would be presented at the concert, and that concert in turn is streamed on the exact same stream. At the very least, it could be mentioned in the passing when the awards will be announced, instead of leaving all of us viewers confused about when it will happened.

There were also divisions being streamed through other division webcasts. I don't know if this was to entertain the crowd while the matches were starting since this was on Thursday, but that just seemed like a silly mistake to make.

[Alan Anderson]

Either stick to the published schedule, or have ubiquitous video screens showing when things are really going to happen.

[matan129]

Originally Posted by RoboticJoev

Well to start they need to make autonomous less important, this year and last year if you missed in auto the game was over and that is not fun for that alliance or anyone watching.

I don't quite agree with you. Although I think autonomous shouldn't fully determine the winner of the match - it is no fun knowing who'd win after 15 seconds - I must say the programming in FRC is in general almost trivial.
As a programmer joining a FRC team, I felt both great joy when seeing all the awesome elements the competition has to offer, but I was also disappointed to just program couple of Talons/Victors. It was just sad to see all the potential and programming knowledge of my teammate being thrown away, redundant, like that.

Well, You might say, "there always computer vision (CV) if you want to do something complex". And you'll be both right and wrong. CV is extremely interesting and challenging (we even reached out to NVIDIA), but generally it doesn't provide any actual advantage to the robot -especially this year, when the only vision hints where the idiotic reflectors on the yellow totes.

So, to wrap up - yes, it may be better to let the auto be a little less crucial but programming must be kicked up a notch.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by matan129

*snip*I must say the programming in FRC is in general almost trivial.
As a programmer joining a FRC team, I felt both great joy when seeing all the awesome elements the competition has to offer, but I was also disappointed to just program couple of Talons/Victors. It was just sad to see all the potential and programming knowledge of my teammate being thrown away, redundant, like that.

*snip*
So, to wrap up - yes, it may be better to let the auto be a little less crucial but programming must be kicked up a notch.

This is not true at all. Driver control is only so useful. Lots of teams take advantage of sensors to automate stacking and scoring routines, feedback control is very useful in giving a smooth driving experience, and providing an easy to use interface for the drivers to use is essential for top teams.

[Boltman]

They need to do something about having super large student body teams taking completely over all the prime seating in venues. Its ridiculous.

I get the team spirit stuff...but in no way should one two or three teams take up for the entire days competition all the best central seats. I was looking for a single seat to scout and thy were all saved by various teams with enormous student bodies. One day I found a central seat and would not budge all day.

All teams deserve some of the prime space. Fix it. That aspect was really bad this year.

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by Boltman

They need to do something about having super large student body teams taking completely over all the prime seating in venues. Its ridiculous.

I get the team spirit stuff...but in no way should one two or three teams take up for the entire competition all the best central seats. I was looking for a single seat to scout and thy were all saved by various teams with enormous student bodies.

All teams deserve some of the prime space. Fix it.

There is no seat saving...

If there is an empty seat you have the right to take it.

[SciBorg Dave]

Have a spot for all the eliminations where the 4th alliance member can be with their robot to be introduced, they deserve that.

[connor.worley]

Originally Posted by matan129

So, to wrap up - yes, it may be better to let the auto be a little less crucial but programming must be kicked up a notch.

If you want to get an advantage w/ programming focus on controls not CV.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

There is no seat saving...

If there is an empty seat you have the right to take it.

I did..that does not change the issue when you have hundred same team members taking up an entire prime seating section. There are 40-60 teams not just 3 huge student body ones.

[Dale]

The idea of moving thousands of people from one end of the dome to another in the middle of closing needs to be revisited. I felt bad for the winners and finalists of Einstein getting their award in front of a empty stands. Breaking up the closing activities with another 45 minutes of pounding DJ music before continuing with the program seems like a poor choice. Finally if you aren't going to provide food for everyone then there needs to be a LOT more concessions open with better options.

FIRST has struggled to recreate the finale in Atlanta in St. Louis. This year's event was another attempt but by starting so crazy late after people had been sitting for over six hours didn't work out for many. Well over half the dome emptied.

Looking back over my last 11 years of leading a FRC team things that seem to make good games are:

1) The outcome shouldn't be decided by what happens in autonomous or endgame. This year's can grabbing auto and minibots come to mind as bad game design.

2) There needs to be defense! It's not really a game without it. This year was more of a robot demonstration.

3) Games constantly decided by penalties are frustrating especially in the early weeks. That wasn't a problem this year but was last year.

4) The engineering challenge needs to be different and interesting. This year was good in that regard. Totes and Cans were hard to manipulate.

5) Auto should be worth the trouble. This year's game was fine in that regard.

In my opinion this year's game was one of the worst and the engineering challenge among the best so I guess it averages out. Hopefully we'll return to an actual game next year.

[James1902]

Posting on mobile on the bus home so please forgive some typos.

1) Don't have the Einstien matches on one side of the stadium and closing ceremonies on the other. It messes with the flow of the event, adds more time delays go an already behind schedule (probably) evening, and moving a group of students through those crowds efficiently and safely is a nightmare. Also it left few people to cheer for this year's Champion Alliance as they got their award.

2) If you want FIRST to grow outside the usual crowd someone must provide a better home viewing experience. That means tailoring a broadcast too a remot audience instead of pumping out the in-stadium feed on a webcast. The FRC Live bit is a step in the right direction but the desk commentators were grossly underutilized and the on field interviews didn't really provide any nuance or useful insight. That's not entirely the field reporters fault BTW, that's a much harder job than people think and FIRST should have prepped her better or got someone whose done more of those type of standup reports before.

3) there needs to be more arena staff at Champs, especially in the upper bowl on Sat. There was no one to be found as people sat in the aisles, threw toilet paper (don't know where they got that) over the jumbo torn and clogged the stairs.

4) Make an announcement to stop throwing paper airplanes.

[Anthony Galea]

Originally Posted by James1902

4) Make an announcement to stop throwing paper airplanes.

FIRST, if you are reading this, please do this. I was probably hit in the back of the head by ten paper airplanes, and there was someone in front of me who was hit even more. This was my first time at CMP, and saw a paper airplane land on the field before a good portion of the matches were just about to start. What if someone decides to throw it during a match, and it lands in a team's lifting mechanism or drive train, rendering them useless? Of course they might call a replay, but if someone is throwing the Championship pamphlets (like I saw a few times), it could actually damage their robot.