2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

Of all the negative posts, not one mention of the biggest change this year. A change that affected every team ---- The Roborio and the new control system.

The only thing I disliked was how long the DS<->Robot communications took to get established (I previously have called this "mDNS issues", but Greg McKaskle later clarified that the issue is more complicated than that).

In every other way, I thought the RoboRIO was an improvement over the cRIO.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

The only thing I disliked was how long the DS<->Robot communications took to get established (I previously have called this "mDNS issues", but Greg McKaskle later clarified that the issue is more complicated than that).

I'll add one more minor quibble in that the signal cables, when plugged into the RoboRio, seemed mechanically less-secure than they ought to have been, though this is fixable by simply dabbing some hot glue on the connector once it's plugged in (thanks to team 1678 for showing us this trick at championships last year).

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

The only thing I disliked was how long the DS<->Robot communications took to get established (I previously have called this "mDNS issues", but Greg McKaskle later clarified that the issue is more complicated than that).

In every other way, I thought the RoboRIO was an improvement over the cRIO.

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I'll add one more minor quibble in that the signal cables, when plugged into the RoboRio, seemed mechanically less-secure than they ought to have been, though this is fixable by simply dabbing some hot glue on the connector once it's plugged in (thanks to team 1678 for showing us this trick at championships last year).

Since I've seen a handful of roboRIO replies here, I've spawned a separate thread to collect them so they don't get lost in the mass of grumping about the game/competition.

[Kate Muller]

Our team had an amazing year. It is the first time since our rookie year that we qualified for Champs.

I love the district model except our district regional ended at 7 pm on April 18th. That gave us 10 days to plan a trip to ST Louis. We didn't have any mentors on the team that had ever planned a trip to Champs before so it was a painful learning curve.

The hotel reservation and badge registration site was a nightmare. I kept getting emails form First telling me I had to assign rooms or they would drop our block and we hadn't had our qualifying regional yet. Phone calls resulted in confusing and contradictory information.

Find a bus would have been impossible if FIRST hadn't had a bunch reserved.
There were problems with the bus company and I hope FIRST can arrange for better service next time.

I know FIRST is trying to go paperless for many things but that didn't work for us. The app for conference schedule wouldn't download on my phone. Also all the apps requesting access to my contacts and photos was a no go for most of my team.

The lack of maps with location labels was painful. The blue sign labeled innovation faire in the hallway on the second floor of the conference was completely useless and sent many a person on a wild goose chase.

Last minutes email updates are not very useful to a first time attending team. Having a printed copies posted on a wall in the pits would have been very helpful.

The hour + long lines to buy merchandise were a fail. I didn't buy any FIRST souvenirs because I didn't have hours to spend waiting in line. Not labeling the small satellite locations with shirt size limitations was another fail. I had a mentor wait in line for 45 minutes to find out the shirts at that location were all mediums.

I would love to see higher quality food and more options for people with dietary restrictions. Having inconsistent information on being able to bring food into the venue didn't help our team members with severe food allergies.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by hardcopi

Oh yeah... get the API working. It makes us all look bad. We can get over 600 robots to work in an event but we can't update the website? (FYI I do API's and stuff like that for a living, it isn't that difficult)

(Speaking as one of the scorekeepers on Hopper)

This was due to internet connection speed issues between the scorpion (field computer case) and NASA (where our internet and backups come through), not an API problem. With sync enabled it would take too long for scores to be committed to the database and backed up (what happens between the head ref giving a thumbs up and the score being posted to the audience screen). It was slow without the syncing issue (supposedly due to FMS changes to allow for two Einstein fields)... but with sync enabled it was so bad that it would time out half the time.

Sorry about that... We at least (AFAIK) updated things over lunch break and after the last match of the day...

[hardcopi]

There was definitely something not right with it. I assumed since MiCMP used the same system (and had issues at the beginning) that they were testing it out for use on Einstein.

I just hope they get it fixed for next year. I was like a junkie for the rankings.

[nrgy_blast]

0) Stop burning so much time getting Einstein set up.

1) Stop throwing airplanes when matches are going on. It's one thing to waste time when EVERYONE is bored (waiting for something.... anything to happen before Einstein), but there's no reason to do this while a match is going on or between matches. Especially during qualification days.

2) Requiring badges for EVERYONE attending, in the name of security? What a joke.

3) I like the scorekeeping as averaging instead of W-L-T, though only in qualificiations (even more qual matches would be good, too). Go back to double-elimination for the bracked.

4) Seriously, unless someone literally just got up for a bio-break and will be back in 3 minutes, there is no seat saving. Deal with it. As a side note, the seats along the back of the lower stands (direct access, no stairs required) are for people with physical difficulties. If you could walk 1/2 a mile to get to the stands, DON'T sit in that row of seats!

5) I'm not here for a concert or to see celebrities. I'm here for a robotics competition. Please remember this in the future.

[Hot_Copper_Frog]

Originally Posted by nrgy_blast

5) I'm not here for a concert or to see celebrities. I'm here for a robotics competition. Please remember this in the future.

You may not be, but you have to understand that in the spirit of broadening the audience of FIRST and "ramping up" the cool factor of the Championship event, it's not a bad idea. While it wasn't executed in the best way possible, I can see the vision that FIRST is aiming for, and I think it has merit.

Many people attend championships for reasons other than robots. The high level of energy. The intense and grand atmosphere. The feeling that you are a part of something greater than yourself. Meeting people from all over the world. And yes, seeing and possibly meeting some big name individuals.

There isn't anything inherently wrong with that. Please remember this in the future.

[The other Gabe]

Originally Posted by Hot_Copper_Frog

You may not be, but you have to understand that in the spirit of broadening the audience of FIRST and "ramping up" the cool factor of the Championship event, it's not a bad idea. While it wasn't executed in the best way possible, I can see the vision that FIRST is aiming for, and I think it has merit.

Many people attend championships for reasons other than robots. The high level of energy. The intense and grand atmosphere. The feeling that you are a part of something greater than yourself. Meeting people from all over the world. And yes, seeing and possibly meeting some big name individuals.

There isn't anything inherently wrong with that. Please remember this in the future.

It still would have been nice for me to have all the awards happen and then go off on the concert & whatever: I had not realized the time and I was really hungry during the DJ time, and I also got a headache from the excess of bass (and other audio problems from ee-ee-arlii-ii-iier)

[alecmuller]

Championship in particular and FIRST as a whole could really benefit from more effective communication.

This event could have been far less confusing, especially for teams like mine that haven't been in 4+ years.

1. Mark acceptable load-in locations on the map shared beforehand. Even the FRC-uniformed volunteers I spoke with didn't know what was allowed. They told me several times that "they would prefer" that we load in through the doors in the back of the building even though 30+ teams (including mine) had already dropped their gear along 7th and Convention Plaza. Security eventually did let those teams in.

2. Simulcast the Opening Ceremonies, or make it viewable from all 8 sections of the stands, or at least tell people they need to move if they want to watch. It's bad enough to make 10,000 people shuffle a quarter of a mile from one side of the stadium to the other to participate. It's worse when they don't bother to announce it to those people.

3. After alliance selections, tell teams they need to set up a new pit in center field. The 15'x15' pits make perfect sense, but I'd never heard of them until one of our alliance partners came and asked to coordinate which tools we took out there. They told me it was buried in some email FIRST had sent out a couple of days ago, but I didn't see it and still can't find it. This is definitely worth announcing to teams before they need to do it.

4. Train venue security so they know who they're supposed to let in. I saw scores of people with badges get turned away from entrances close to the team parking lots that had "Team Entrance" signs out front, forcing them to walk an extra 1/2 mile to get in through the main entrance and then loop back to the dome.

5. Remove unnecessary permissions from the FIRST Championship App. I don't know what the app offers (because I declined to sign over EVERYTHING on my phone, and I haven't found a decent description of it) but all I want are schedule-changes and other announcements. Apps that require everything a stalker could want do not inspire confidence that they use good security practices and will safeguard the data I share with them. Alternatively, they could explain what each of the permissions are needed for and offer reduced-function apps that need fewer permissions.

6. This is a general FIRST comment and not Championship-specific, but Please, please, please let me help you test the UI for your website. Everyone I've ever talked to about your website has had a great deal of trouble navigating it, and it's an embarrassment that I have to warn people about it when they decide to join after hearing all the awesome things I tell them about FIRST. Our Dean's List nominee almost got disqualified because her family got stuck trying to navigate all the way through STIMS.

I love that FIRST's goal is to change the culture to be more inspired by and appreciative of technology. Communication is a huge element in mobilizing that change, and there's a great deal of low-hanging fruit that FIRST can work on to improve it and speed up growth.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by alecmuller

4. Train venue security so they know who they're supposed to let in. I saw scores of people with badges get turned away from entrances close to the team parking lots that had "Team Entrance" signs out front, forcing them to walk an extra 1/2 mile to get in through the main entrance and then loop back to the dome.

Hear, hear.

Two mornings in a row, I got stopped and yelled at by people who apparently thought they were supposed to keep everybody out of the building until the pits opened. The orange VOLUNTEER strip on my badge did not seem to mean anything to them. It took quite a lot of explanation on my part, and some nodding from other nearby gatekeepers, before they would let me through.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Hear, hear.

Two mornings in a row, I got stopped and yelled at by people who apparently thought they were supposed to keep everybody out of the building until the pits opened. The orange VOLUNTEER strip on my badge did not seem to mean anything to them. It took quite a lot of explanation on my part, and some nodding from other nearby gatekeepers, before they would let me through.

During alliance selections on Carson, there was an individual keeping the team seating area empty of teams not in matches who didn't understand that there were no matches until 9:30, and we needed to be closer to the field to help 5254 whiteboard a pick to their field representative.

To his credit, I'm sure people had been giving him a hard time all weekend and he held his ground, but he didn't understand the way the event was to be run. The front set of team seating rows (which was fantastic to have when there were matches, by the way) stayed empty throughout alliance selections, and we did manage to find a few seats for a set of picklisting scouts and a whiteboard, but it was incredibly frustrating for not just 20 and 5254, but also at least a dozen other people trying to sit there for alliance selections.

[Eugene Fang]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

(Speaking as one of the scorekeepers on Hopper)

This was due to internet connection speed issues between the scorpion (field computer case) and NASA (where our internet and backups come through), not an API problem. With sync enabled it would take too long for scores to be committed to the database and backed up (what happens between the head ref giving a thumbs up and the score being posted to the audience screen). It was slow without the syncing issue (supposedly due to FMS changes to allow for two Einstein fields)... but with sync enabled it was so bad that it would time out half the time.

Sorry about that... We at least (AFAIK) updated things over lunch break and after the last match of the day...

From what I gather, sending scores to FIRST's servers required a full database upload from FMS, which was slow due to the limited bandwidth. A match score should only be a few KB. The problem seems to be that FIRST hacked the API to use the data from the full database dump instead of implementing a lower overhead solution.

[David Lame]

Originally Posted by Eugene Fang

From what I gather, sending scores to FIRST's servers required a full database upload from FMS, which was slow due to the limited bandwidth. A match score should only be a few KB. The problem seems to be that FIRST hacked the API to use the data from the full database dump instead of implementing a lower overhead solution.

There's a much bigger problem.

So, the technical solution failed, and someone decided that there was no need to find a backup solution. Those of us who wanted to keep track of our favorite teams were stuck.

Find a whiteboard and a webcam if you have to, but get the scores out. This event is big enough to attract a TV audience (21st century variety). I was just amazed that First didn't think enough of the fans to make sure that the scores were updated.

TBA got it,(thanks again) but didn't have the resources available to do 100% of the areas. Being from the Detroit area, I was especially interested in Hopper, and that was one of the fields they weren't getting updates on most of the time.

[MasterMentor]

Originally Posted by Eugene Fang

From what I gather, sending scores to FIRST's servers required a full database upload from FMS, which was slow due to the limited bandwidth. A match score should only be a few KB. The problem seems to be that FIRST hacked the API to use the data from the full database dump instead of implementing a lower overhead solution.

The way it was explained to me by one of the FIRST guys, what's uploaded is a difference between what's already in the "cloud" and what's on the scoring computer, based on tracking information stored on the scoring computer. In most cases the first upload can be "involved", but every subsequent upload is quite small.