2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[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.

[PurpleNinja88]

Originally Posted by KosmicKhaos

please, I am begging you FIRST with all my heart, please have a professional company do the stream and the audio. For those of you that were not watching the stream you have no idea what it was like.

1. Awards for so grainy and washed out you didn't even know who was talking
2. we were lucky if we got audio at some parts
3. During Einstein, we saw more of the human players and drivers than the actual robots
   
4. the cameras kept cutting back and forth between individual robots and missing the action so when it was over your like "huh, when did that happen"
5. please for the love of "bot" just show us a full field view that's what the people want
6. You were lucky if you got a whole match without it freezing.

I could continue in with this list but you get the point. Even if you didn't get pros to do the audio and video at least get the kids from PNW that were doing it. Shout out to the PNW A/V crew you guys were the best. High quality streams and never missed the action.

I second what you said completely. Establishing a standard for AV quality at worlds is a MUST to encourage growth and recognition of the sport. You don't see grainy promo photos on the banners that drape the entrance to the dome nor do you have to struggle to hear Dean speak through an sporadic microphone. The AV quality online should be the same offered to those at the event in person.

The same can be said for districts and regional events. Mentoring the students in pre-scouting worlds this year the number one complaint was low quality video or no video footage at all of the teams from the smaller regional events.

Encouraging these lower level events to try and achieve quality video as a goal would be great. Talking with the AV crew from PNW several times, I know it is a lot of work and acquiring the quality equipment they have is not necessarily cheap either. But if FIRST could help support teams in finding the funding, resources, and volunteers to pull it off would be a good start.

I know at the school we mentor some of the teachers that support the team will stream our teams events live during class sometimes. Having quality video of matches makes FRC look truly awe inspiring when presented to a novice of FRC. It makes it easy to show your school, sponsors, and parents what we are all about. Not to mention recruiting mentors or volunteers.

In short...yes it is not easy or cheap, but putting the resources out there for teams to improve it would be a major step in the right direction for ease of scouting and most importantly, promotion of FRC teams.

[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.

[tam1957]

I skimmed 9 pages of responses and did not see my favorite negative mentioned: the sideline reporter at Einstein. Since she knew nothing about the game, every question was the same and her reaction to every response was "awesome!". C'mon First, if you really need an Erin Andrews sideline chick, at least require her to do her homework.

For all the complaints in the previous 9 pages, lighten up - it was a great time.

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by tam1957

I skimmed 9 pages of responses and did not see my favorite negative mentioned: the sideline reporter at Einstein. Since she knew nothing about the game, every question was the same and her reaction to every response was "awesome!". C'mon First, if you really need an Erin Andrews sideline chick, at least require her to do her homework.

YES!

I especially liked how in the very first interview she started off with "I'm here with... uh... I don't even know your team number" and she grabbed the interviewee's name badge to check.

And asking 1114 how they were doing immediately after they had been eliminated, seemed insensitive... except everyone already had a sense that she had not been versed at all in the game. The freshman student sitting beside me picked up on this right away and couldn't take her seriously after that.

I liked that they brought in Team 1448 to present the FRC Rhapsody, too bad it was so obvious they were lip syncing to the video. Would have been fun (though difficult, I know) if they could have performed it live.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by tam1957

I skimmed 9 pages of responses and did not see my favorite negative mentioned: the sideline reporter at Einstein. Since she knew nothing about the game, every question was the same and her reaction to every response was "awesome!". C'mon First, if you really need an Erin Andrews sideline chick, at least require her to do her homework.

For all the complaints in the previous 9 pages, lighten up - it was a great time.

The subtle misogyny here is my favorite part.

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by Madison

The subtle misogyny here is my favorite part.

For a counter-example to the on-field interviewer at Einstein, I call attention to this video of the 2014 FIRST In Michigan video that someone linked to in one of the other threads as an example of excellent presentation and camera work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYh_F0eDaxU

[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.

[rkgoyankees]

Others have said it, but I wish the endgame would return. I thought that it made matches more exciting by allowing teams to turn the tide towards the end of a match. I thought that 2013's was balanced well. It allowed for alliances to make a comeback if they were behind but it wasn't an insta-win at higher levels.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

For a counter-example to the on-field interviewer at Einstein, I call attention to this video of the 2014 FIRST In Michigan video that someone linked to in one of the other threads as an example of excellent presentation and camera work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYh_F0eDaxU

Not sure why you think this counters the misogyny in the original post. That would be something more on the lines of:
Derogatory words like "chick" aren't necessary to criticize poor reporting and suggest you have a poor view of women in technical roles like this. Perhaps you meant something less sexist like "sideline reporter" instead of "Erin Andrews sideline chick".

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Not sure why you think this counters the misogyny in the original post. That would be something more on the lines of:
Derogatory words like "chick" aren't necessary to criticize poor reporting and suggest you have a poor view of women in technical roles like this. Perhaps you meant something less sexist like "sideline reporter" instead of "Erin Andrews sideline chick".

Ah, I was thinking more along the lines of assuming that women sports interviewers don't/can't know what they are talking about, not specifically the wording in the post you quoted.

(Though, very possibly, shame on me for not picking up on the derogatory "chick" phrasing.)

[EricAnderson191]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

• Without W-L-T or any form of (non-canburglar, non-noodle throwing) defense, outgunned teams have nothing to cheer for but for their competitors to mess up. I will never forget how it felt to look up and see several thousand people and dozens of teams standing and cheering when our alliance knocked over a couple stacks en route to our quarterfinal exit. I do not blame them (and take the cheering as a gesture of respect for our robot), but it was a little hard to swallow and to explain to our students. I wish the incentives did not align this way.
  

Many people had 254 making it to the finals and I was shocked to hear that the team did not make it out of their division. I checked in with your team later in the day and they said that could go wrong did. This has to be especially galling after so many matches played at a high level.

Perhaps something to add to planning and practice for a similar game is to predict what happens when disaster strikes and how to recover from it.

Eric

[Andrew Y.]

Originally Posted by PurpleNinja88

I second what you said completely. Establishing a standard for AV quality at worlds is a MUST to encourage growth and recognition of the sport. You don't see grainy promo photos on the banners that drape the entrance to the dome nor do you have to struggle to hear Dean speak through an sporadic microphone. The AV quality online should be the same offered to those at the event in person.

The same can be said for districts and regional events. Mentoring the students in pre-scouting worlds this year the number one complaint was low quality video or no video footage at all of the teams from the smaller regional events.

Encouraging these lower level events to try and achieve quality video as a goal would be great. Talking with the AV crew from PNW several times, I know it is a lot of work and acquiring the quality equipment they have is not necessarily cheap either. But if FIRST could help support teams in finding the funding, resources, and volunteers to pull it off would be a good start.

I know at the school we mentor some of the teachers that support the team will stream our teams events live during class sometimes. Having quality video of matches makes FRC look truly awe inspiring when presented to a novice of FRC. It makes it easy to show your school, sponsors, and parents what we are all about. Not to mention recruiting mentors or volunteers.

In short...yes it is not easy or cheap, but putting the resources out there for teams to improve it would be a major step in the right direction for ease of scouting and most importantly, promotion of FRC teams.

but guys...it's not about the robots. it is about the students....