2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[Alex Webber]

Originally Posted by thatprogrammer

Flaws of RR:

4. The streams at world champs were disgusting. I had a friend interested in the program who was planning to watch it with me, but left because the quality and camera angles turned him off (FULL field view, PLEASE)

3. Set up a better stream at champs, I understand this is too expensive for regionals, but champs deserves this.

I couldn't have stated it better. Streams were horrific. In the closing they stated its our job to grow FIRST. How can we do that with crappy webcasts. We need to use webcasts as draws to FIRST. First is all about Tech, so let's get techy.

Some teams have scouting programs (like mine). We need tools to train scouters. Such as FULL FIELD view from the stands.

[John Retkowski]

I agree with a lot of whats being said except for the cans and match outcome being decided in auto.

Even when 1678 and 118 got 3/4 cans, (I believe it was in semi finals on Einstein) 987 and 2826 still pulled out the victory scoring well over 200 points. Winning the can wars definitely helps, but it doesn't mean instant win or loss. You still have to stack them. In addition there were barely any matches this year where one alliance got all the cans off the step. (I can only recall two) And again in one of the two matches, the alliance that got all the cans only put up 4 very sub optimal stacks with cans, and was eliminated. There was only one match that I can think of the whole year, where the outcome was decided in auto. I think I can live with that.

[maths222]

I'm curious: which divisions were you guys watching on the stream? I watched Curie, and while the resolution was pretty bad, I generally found the camera angles and split view to be pretty nice. That said, I was generally not focused on a particular team, but rather trying to take the whole thing in as an un-invested spectator. Einstein was notably worse, with its focus on players and such (although I will say that, for those in the dome who could see the physical field as well, it may not have been as bad)

[Alex Webber]

Originally Posted by maths222

I'm curious: which divisions were you guys watching on the stream? I watched Curie, and while the resolution was pretty bad, I generally found the camera angles and split view to be pretty nice. That said, I was generally not focused on a particular team, but rather trying to take the whole thing in as an un-invested spectator. Einstein was notably worse, with its focus on players and such (although I will say that, for those in the dome who could see the physical field as well, it may not have been as bad)

I had all of them going, on 3 monitors and a TV, so two per screen. I was not impressed at all. I hated the split. I would more rather see the whole field, the entire time.

[Louis_]

Originally Posted by maths222

I'm curious: which divisions were you guys watching on the stream? I watched Curie, and while the resolution was pretty bad, I generally found the camera angles and split view to be pretty nice. That said, I was generally not focused on a particular team, but rather trying to take the whole thing in as an un-invested spectator. Einstein was notably worse, with its focus on players and such (although I will say that, for those in the dome who could see the physical field as well, it may not have been as bad)

I had octoview going.

[matan129]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

There's a reason why control systems is one of the toughest subjects in mechanical and electrical engineering, and why controls engineers are heavily sought after in the job marketplace. Controls is definitely not trivial. As RC said, you may not understand what "controls" means. I suggest you look at some of the code 254 and 1114 have released previously.

Without getting personal here - Please, I am well aware of what controls are. I also did already see 254's code and it isn't very complex. There's just a lot of it.

I want to go ahead and further clarify that I wasn't at any point suggesting that general controls programming is easy, nor that the programming you might learn at FRC is not extensive.

I meant that the FRC controls are boring, and I'm speaking solely about the robot code. Especially when the common programming language for the cRIO / RoboRIO is LabVIEW (our team is C++ing, though), you don't really learn too much when comparing, for example, to the mechanical knowledge you might gain from a good season in FRC. The only way IMHO to gain real and comprehensive knowledge with programming at FRC is to do something that is not directly related to the robot (i.e. 254's ChessyArena is absolutly fantastic), but again - few are the teams that do such projects.
The other option IMHO is to do CV - but it didn't get you real advantage in any of the last years games. Even last year the hot goal reflector was broken. I think this symbols how FIRST treats CV.

Also, I think I can safely presume that the code at 254 is more complicated than the code you will find on the average team (i.e. TrajectoryLib ). All powerhouse teams have complex mechanics, and us such these teams have more systems to control. Programming more cylinders is exactly the same as programming a few in terms of complexity.

[Mike Marandola]

Originally Posted by RoboticJoev

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.

What do you mean? If a team loses in the finals, what do you want to happen?

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by evanperryg

4) take the money used to get the DJ and use it to hire the PNW media people.

+1

FIRST is a technology organization. Poor stream quality, especially if they want new people to be interested in FRC, is unacceptable.

Strike a deal with Google and YouTube or one of your other supposed sponsors and partners and get every event, but especially Championships, better streaming quality.

And for Championships, get a broadcast like the one for the Michigan State Championship going on Saturday. MSC is incredible to watch, even with this year's game due to the incredible production value put into the event.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by evanperryg

4) take the money used to get the DJ and use it to hire the PNW media people.

And hire the Roboshow guys to do interviews and help with game analysis.

[stens987]

Originally Posted by Boltman

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.

As a member of a large team, I can tell you that we get to the stadium early to have good seats. That opportunity is available to all teams.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by stens987

As a member of a large team, I can tell you that we get to the stadium early to have good seats. That opportunity is available to all teams.

While I don't dispute your ability to get to the stadium early to get good seats, what my (also large) team does generally is position the scouting section in good seats at championship, while the cheering and spectator section can be further up and out of the way. This also allows them to stand up and cheer more, because they won't be in the way of any scouts.

If you manage to arrive early enough to get enough seats for your large team, all the power to you. Just don't stand up right in front and cheer while my scouting team is also attempting to scout.

[stens987]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

If you manage to arrive early enough to get enough seats for your large team, all the power to you. Just don't stand up right in front and cheer while my scouting team is also attempting to scout.

Well I feel like we are pretty good about only standing when they are announcing our team and a quick cheer when the match is over, but if we have ever stood in your way while you were scouting a qual, you have my sincerest apologies.

[vann2648]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

Please, don't do round robin if there is any appreciable defense. It will only incentivize the weaker alliances to gang up against the most powerful alliance.

I think this is a very good point.
Imagine if AA had been scored like RR. The weaker alliances would play no defense on each other so that they would each score huge points and move on.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by stens987

Well I feel like we are pretty good about only standing when they are announcing our team and a quick cheer when the match is over, but if we have ever stood in your way while you were scouting a qual, you have my sincerest apologies.

Not you in particular, just large teams that stand in front. Huge pet peeve.

[MisterJ]

I think that my least favorite thing about Recycle Rush was the feeling that it generated among the teams and supporters due to the method of ranking teams (and determining quarterfinal and semifinal matches) by average score.

In other years, there was always someone to cheer for. If your team wasn't on the field, you could root for an underdog, a friendly team, or a prior alliance partner. (I can remember being ranked in the top-10 in Ultimate Ascent games and screaming for some lower-ranked teams to pull together and upset the highest-ranked ones.) Even if you had your own team's best interest in mind, there was always a team to root for.

But during Recycle Rush, the best thing for your team's ranking was to put up as many points as possible and have every other alliance do poorly - canburglar fails, stacks falling over, collisions, confusion, fouls, etc. The best case scenario for your team was to have all other teams score as low as possible.

It's a terrible feeling to have to wish that on other teams to allow your team to have the most success.