Utilizing breaks between matches.

[Bkeeneykid]

Originally Posted by Foster

My experience is there is a pit crew wrenching on the robot. There is a lone, sometimes two, programmers being yelled at by the four person drive team and the pit crew. So lots of people left over to accept awards. Not thinking Chairman, but maybe Safety, controls, website, spirit, GP, build, design, etc.

Poll your team. "How upset would you be missing a design award while you are elbow deep in fixing the robot to win the next match."

Report back what they say

TV sports, dead air is deadly, lets fill it.

I would love to poll my team and tell you, but my guess is the results may be slightly skewed. We never even compete for awards, never the less have we gotten one. Check out TBA, never a single award. How I wish I could convince my team...

I think it'll depend on the team. In the spirit of GP and the general idea of FIRST involving everyone, I doubt this could become officially sanctioned.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Bkeeneykid

I think it'll depend on the team. In the spirit of GP and the general idea of FIRST involving everyone, I doubt this could become officially sanctioned.

Wanna bet? (Don't, you'll lose.)

Seems like back in the mid-late 2000s, FIRST did give awards between matches of elims, on Einstein. Now, they did tend to go over, but I think that was because the VIPs giving out the awards tended to give longer-than-planned speeches.

Now, that being said, for that particular setup, they had 2 reps per team. I think that can be brought to the regional level, IF someone wanted to go that route.

[GeeTwo]

Hasn't been much of a problem at Bayou. When our announcer and emcee both run out of things to say, they put on line dance music. When they decide to put on the video loop with the sponsors in spheres instead of music, someone brings out an enormous ball or six and we start batting it around the stands.

Hmmm... maybe we'll bring our air cannon this year. As long as it has an arduino controlling it, it can't look like a second competition robot to the canonical "astute observer". (JK)

[Whatever]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

The match analysis desk that we've seen on Einstein

In fairness, a lot of people were filling time between matches on Einstein doing aeronautical experiments.

At the 10k regional they filled the time between matches with the exciting game of seeing if the field reset personnel could balance 6 boulders on the mid line at once. I don't think that was planned though.

My daughter's experience running the scout team this year was there really wasn't any down time between matches. It was a sprint to keep up with collecting data from the last match and getting ready for the next match.

[Roger]

Originally Posted by Whatever

At the 10k regional they filled the time between matches with the exciting game of seeing if the field reset personnel could balance 6 boulders on the mid line at once. I don't think that was planned though.

I usually start a game of hot potato with a boulder in the long late afternoon pauses, that time when the field crew begin to slow down. It starts with one or two, and eventually everyone joins in. If I get the Refs you know we needed the stretch break. Hopefully the field is ready before it turns into dodgeball and ends in tears.

One long break at Mainely Spirit this year I managed to get the entire audience doing the wave without saying a word.

[C.Lesco]

I would absolutely love to see this. Especially having someone interviewing the drivers and such. Showing videos would be more rewarding to only the people who had time/resources to make the video whereas everyone's team could cheer when their drive team is on the bigscreen

[Tyler Olds]

Originally Posted by Bkeeneykid

I think the IRI stream was done really well, but compare that to the champs stream, I think you can see a big difference. The champs stream wasn't really on top of when match started and stopped, sometimes going into a match after it's already started and sometimes staying there for much longer than necessary.

So to add a little bit of input from the last two year at IRI. This has a lot to do with the IRI Live desk (Collin and Nick/Danny) and myself (emcee) coordinating this setup. The first year I would wait for the IRI Live people to get done and it was great for those watching the event via webstream, but was a bit daunting for those there in person who had to awkwardly wait with no audio even when all robots were connected and we were ready to start.

This past IRI things were positioned where there was a communication channel that would give the wrap it up part to Collin and Nick when I was ready to start. This kept things moving smoothly with minimal interruptions/overlaps on this. On a championship level this could be coordinated as well but that is up to FIRST where at IRI it was up to the planning committee.

[BMiller2559]

I agree, although expensive and difficult to coordinate some "Behind the Line" videos of the last match would be very entertaining and could even give the people in the stands a feel for the driver's view of the field and what that little robot looks like 50 feet away behind two rows of obstacles. Of course if it came with sound it might be problematic for some of the more intense "adult" drive coaches.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Not many high school football games have analysis desks to handle downtime between plays. While having something like that at every event would be ideal, I don't think it's a realistic expectation.

Let's be fair though, six to seven minute gaps aren't present between every play in high school football, and each play isn't a new set of players on both sides. There's a lot of reasons this would be more appropriate for FRC than football.

I agree that it's not something we can make into an expectation or requirement right away, but I think a simplified version of the Chezy Champs style analysis isn't out of the realm of possibility for many events. Pictures of the six robots coming up onto the screen, along with each team's record and 30 seconds - 1 minute of very basic analysis. Here's a simple example:

"It looks like the red alliance this match has 2 hanging robots! But the blue alliance as a whole is more consistent on breaching, and auton looks to be a tossup. Robot A is currently a top ranked team, so they need to win to hold their position, but Robot B has the potential to jump them in the rankings with a win here. How will this play out? Let's meet our teams."

30 seconds of analysis all possible by looking at the robots and reading the rankings. This would require additional volunteer commitment (either a dedicated analyst to collect photos and take notes, or an additional Game Announcer volunteer), but it would certainly help. Plus this idea wouldn't physically interact with the field at all, which is already quite congested.

The script for how an FRC match cycle goes in terms of the audience hasn't been significantly changed in well over ten years. I don't think it's unreasonable to brainstorm alternatives while minding the many constraints.

[Whatever]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Let's be fair though, six to seven minute gaps aren't present between every play in high school football, and each play isn't a new set of players on both sides. There's a lot of reasons this would be more appropriate for FRC than football.

I agree that it's not something we can make into an expectation or requirement right away, but I think a simplified version of the Chezy Champs style analysis isn't out of the realm of possibility for many events. Pictures of the six robots coming up onto the screen, along with each team's record and 30 seconds - 1 minute of very basic analysis. Here's a simple example:

"It looks like the red alliance this match has 2 hanging robots! But the blue alliance as a whole is more consistent on breaching, and auton looks to be a tossup. Robot A is currently a top ranked team, so they need to win to hold their position, but Robot B has the potential to jump them in the rankings with a win here. How will this play out? Let's meet our teams."

30 seconds of analysis all possible by looking at the robots and reading the rankings. This would require additional volunteer commitment (either a dedicated analyst to collect photos and take notes, or an additional Game Announcer volunteer), but it would certainly help. Plus this idea wouldn't physically interact with the field at all, which is already quite congested.

The script for how an FRC match cycle goes in terms of the audience hasn't been significantly changed in well over ten years. I don't think it's unreasonable to brainstorm alternatives while minding the many constraints.

Think about how much time and energy teams put into scouting. You just suggested the people running the tournament do at least that much work to supply a snippet of talk between matches. Teams at IRI/Cheesy have a track record so you can talk a bit about them. Teams at a week 1 regional are more or less unknowns.

[Andrew_L]

Some thoughts in bullet points because too busy to actually write paragraphs:

- Fillers with videos / play by play analysis / audience interaction are cool during elims. They help keep the energy up when the downtime is more expected.

- You really don't need anything between matches in quals. People are going over scouting data, taking a break from the match, going to the bathroom, getting lunch, etc. Even if there's a long downtime, people will entertain themselves. Events work just fine when you don't try and squeeze anything in - just let things be.

- Dance songs are the reason people still call robotics competitions "dork fests" as if we were back in a 1980's high school drama show. They make us look lame. Just don't.

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by Andrew_L

Some thoughts in bullet points because too busy to actually write paragraphs:

- Fillers with videos / play by play analysis / audience interaction are cool during elims. They help keep the energy up when the downtime is more expected.

- You really don't need anything between matches in quals. People are going over scouting data, taking a break from the match, going to the bathroom, getting lunch, etc. Even if there's a long downtime, people will entertain themselves. Events work just fine when you don't try and squeeze anything in - just let things be.

One thing we tried at a recent competition (GRITS) was very brief field-side interviews with mentors and students between matches, starting immediately after the score was announced. While the implementation wasn't the best (spontaneous idea, music wasn't always relatively quiet to allow for the audience to hear clearly), I think the idea is a solid filler every hour or two.

But mostly let things be. There's enough chaos with scouting as it is.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Let's be fair though, six to seven minute gaps aren't present between every play in high school football, and each play isn't a new set of players on both sides. There's a lot of reasons this would be more appropriate for FRC than football.

Football plays also don't last 120-135 seconds each. Typically only a few seconds. In fact, many people have seen the article that cites there's only about 11 minutes of actual football being played during a 3+hour football game broadcast.

But this isn't so much about the applicability of the analysis booth as the realistic expectation. While I think there's a definite expectation of better broadcast and analysis at premiere events (basically events that are the equivalent of nationally broadcast high school competitions), most FRC events would fall along the spectrum of local high school athletics. Nobody really expects a full broadcast team or replay booth for a high school football game.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Whatever

Think about how much time and energy teams put into scouting. You just suggested the people running the tournament do at least that much work to supply a snippet of talk between matches. Teams at IRI/Cheesy have a track record so you can talk a bit about them. Teams at a week 1 regional are more or less unknowns.

I definitely didn't suggest that at all! From the post you quoted:

30 seconds of analysis all possible by looking at the robots and reading the rankings.

Also in that post was an example of the kind of depth of analysis I was talking about. Let's look at it again. The provided example blurb would be:

- Mentioning physical features of the robots present (you just look at them)
- Checking the percentage of matches the blue alliance robots have breached in (collected by FMS, so automatically supplied)
- Checking the auton averages for the two alliances (this is in the rankings)
- Looking at the places of the robots in the rankings

You can gather plenty of data and insight from a combination of looking at the robots, looking at data the FMS could just spit out for you, and some minor notes / memory / notable events. It isn't data strong enough to make a rigorous pick list with, but it doesn't have to be at all. It just has to be vaguely accurate and worth talking about, which isn't hard to do. I expect other than software this would require about 1 additional volunteer per event, which isn't trivial but isn't impossible either.

[SpaceBiz]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I definitely didn't suggest that at all! From the post you quoted:



Also in that post was an example of the kind of depth of analysis I was talking about. Let's look at it again. The provided example blurb would be:

- Mentioning physical features of the robots present (you just look at them)
- Checking the percentage of matches the blue alliance robots have breached in (collected by FMS, so automatically supplied)
- Checking the auton averages for the two alliances (this is in the rankings)
- Looking at the places of the robots in the rankings

You can gather plenty of data and insight from a combination of looking at the robots, looking at data the FMS could just spit out for you, and some minor notes / memory / notable events. It isn't data strong enough to make a rigorous pick list with, but it doesn't have to be at all. It just has to be vaguely accurate and worth talking about, which isn't hard to do. I expect other than software this would require about 1 additional volunteer per event, which isn't trivial but isn't impossible either.

So If Chris is right and it only takes one extra volunteer per event to do something like he is talking about, can some of the people who think it is not worth changing the current event cycle explain why?

I know making more software is not really easy, but if having this extra announcing is only optional for event organizers, what are some other disadvantages this? I don't see how more noise over the speaker for an extra minute can make scouting harder, because scouts can just ignore it.