Utilizing breaks between matches.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by SpaceBiz

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.

I can think of a few things:

-Liabilities: Having such a table would be one more person to accidentally say something that would not be in the best interests of FIRST. A hot mic is a powerful tool that can be abused. Not to say such would be likely but I could foresee a well intended comment offending a team or coming off the wrong way, and while most would laugh it off, it could be seen as a risk.

-Perceived bias: This is sorta the same thing as above, but I'll mention it anyway. I could see a team not doing so well not get as much mention in said commentary, and then try to claim that the commentator was "biased" and deliberately didn't give them much mention. If said team nearly missed playoffs (or got picked somewhat low), now they could try to claim discrimination. While such probably wouldn't work as a civil suit, it could become a PR nightmare, and most organizations wish to avoid the risk of such.

-Nothing to say: Let's be honest, many events (and even some fields at champs) don't have all good matches with positive commentary to be made. IRI/Einstein playoffs are never dull, which is IMHO why such commentary tables work there. But some early-week events... *crickets chirping*.

I do think that commentary tables at regionals/districts have potential as an idea, but I don't think it will be a slam dunk like IRI live has been. I don't mention these things because I think it's a bad idea, but because realistically there may be some roadblocks to getting such implemented in an official event.

[CoachC]

Id like to see Team build and motivational videos. The general public (IMHO) would like to see highlight reels from past or existing events. Ive sat in the stands as a fan and as a coach and thats the feedback ive heard over the years.

Jim (Coach C)
Team 5247
Red Devil Robotics

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Bkeeneykid

The problem with giving awards during breaks is a lot of teams work on their robot during the breaks. If everyone but the scouters are not there to accept the award, I feel like most of the team would feel left out. There's so many things that most of the team needs to do during an event, having them go back and forth from the stands to wherever they need to get things done at would be a pain.

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 think the average team, with not a lot of members or that hardly ever wins an award, would have a huge issue with this. There are no current students or mentors on team 2662 who were around the last time this team won an award and I know the majority of them would want to be present for an award, having 8 - 10 people in the pit miss it would be a big deal. That would have been 30% - 60% of our team depending on which recent year you pick.

I'm in support of awards between matches during the Semifinals and beyond at Worlds as all of the pit crews and drive teams are out near the field at that point and could go out for an award, plus the majority of teams there won an award at their Regional already to qualify for Worlds. You could possibly extend this to in between Finals matches at a District or Regional competition where robots don't go back to the pit, but I'm not a fan of awards in the break up until Eliminations start or during the Quarterfinals when a large percentage of a team could be in the pit area which may be in a totally different section of the venue.

[matthewdenny]

Let's assume there are 90 matches or so other than elimination matches.

Show the sponsors video about once an hour (15 times).

Give teams the option to compose a ~3 min video about their team. Maybe half do it. (25 segments)

Game animation every couple hours (10 segments)

Show the chairman awards winner or not (5-10 segments)

A couple videos about the history of first and previous games (5 segments)

Let teams spend Thurs & Friday having to heir media people going around interviewing teams demoing their robot on practice fields making at the event 3 min videos for Saturday. (5-10 videos)

Add in a few dance songs maybe 1 an hour (YMCA, Gangnam Style, etc) 15 segments.

That gets ~75 segments filled. I think if FIRST want events to be a sports atmosphere it needs to look at how stadiums keep the crowds interested during time outs and commercial breaks. You don't want to have multiple 5+ minute breaks every hour with people just sitting there waiting on the field.

[Bkeeneykid]

Originally Posted by matthewdenny

Let's assume there are 90 matches or so other than elimination matches.

Show the sponsors video about once an hour (15 times).

Give teams the option to compose a ~3 min video about their team. Maybe half do it. (25 segments)

Game animation every couple hours (10 segments)

Show the chairman awards winner or not (5-10 segments)

A couple videos about the history of first and previous games (5 segments)

Let teams spend Thurs & Friday having to heir media people going around interviewing teams demoing their robot on practice fields making at the event 3 min videos for Saturday. (5-10 videos)

Add in a few dance songs maybe 1 an hour (YMCA, Gangnam Style, etc) 15 segments.

That gets ~75 segments filled. I think if FIRST want events to be a sports atmosphere it needs to look at how stadiums keep the crowds interested during time outs and commercial breaks. You don't want to have multiple 5+ minute breaks every hour with people just sitting there waiting on the field.

At least at the Greater Kansas City regional (not sure about other regionals), they showed many of the parody song contest songs between matches. We could count this for another 15 or so breaks (1 an hour), maybe even though in safety animations when theres extra time (since they're less than a minute). I think this could be a great idea.

[MooreteP]

Why this need to be constantly engaged with the screen stream?

What's wrong with a little downtime between matches?

Take some time to talk to the people in your proximity.
Take some time to go for a walk outside.
Take some time to to relax.

The match will start when the Robots are ready.
In the meantime.......sit back and enjoy the ride.

[Siri]

I think we're spending a lot of time concentrating on the 'normal' turnaround between matches, whereas most of the lulls I hear folks groan at during events are the...not normal ones.

We can debate the need to do anything with the standard few minutes of field reset, but having a logistical system in place to run team Chairman's videos during those great ten-minute or hour-and-a-half* field failures is nothing but a plus in my book. I also doubt the audience groaning at another dance song will complain much if you have to pause a video midway and finish it during a normal reset. It's not like you can't network or scout or what have you anyway, and it's much, much friendlier to the home audience.

On the crazy idea side, mid-event award ceremonies could include a few judges presenting the team's second trophy in the pits. Do it a few minutes early and offer to lead them to the high five line. I know this still doesn't work if you're desperately trying to fix something, though I feel like I'd love an award memory that involves the judges surprising us in the pits and the whole area clapping as we work away frantically.

Not sure I like the idea of ubiquitous "Behind the Lines" videos. I've definitely heard some coaches over the years (mostly students, actually) with some sailor mouths, and either way it has the potential to really embarrass folks, which can also cause preoccupation (I'm thinking mistakes rather than inappropriate behavior). I guess official and full alliance approval before and after would do it.

*yes, really.

[frcguy]

A fun thing we did during a delay between F2 and F3 at Capital City Classic: Half-court shot contest. We called people down from the stands and they had to throw a boulder in the tower from halfway across the field. Seemed to really engage the crowd while we were working on getting a robot connected.

[Ty Tremblay]

Originally Posted by MooreteP

Why this need to be constantly engaged with the screen stream?

What's wrong with a little downtime between matches?

Take some time to talk to the people in your proximity.
Take some time to go for a walk outside.
Take some time to to relax.

The match will start when the Robots are ready.
In the meantime.......sit back and enjoy the ride.

But you can leave the stream whenever you want to. Those that don't want to should be entertained while they're watching, right?

[Cothron Theiss]

I agree with a lot of the suggestions made in this thread. A few thoughts that I want to give in response to what I've seen so far.

While I would really enjoy in-depth strategy commentary in between matches, I can see that being a pretty difficult task to say something interesting, unbiased, concise, informative, and accurate for every event. Impossible? No. Just a pretty significant drain of resources that many events might not have.

Line dances and fun songs and mascot boxing matches are all well and good, but that should be happening a few times a day, not 10-15 times a day. There's a balance to be struck between silly and serious, and I understand that this can be difficult to achieve in every venue for every person. Another thing to consider is the difference in venue sizes/types. As more and more events move to smaller venues as more areas transition to Districts, we have a chance to mold how future events will be handled and what experience the audience will get.

There's a lot of great community-created content out there, especially the Chairman's videos. I've only ever seen a few Chairman's videos from other teams. I know I could find many of them if I went searching, but that's something I've never done. I feel like this should be the first resource events go to when they need to fill time.

Some have mentioned "Behind the Line" recordings, and others have mentioned the problems with this. I think that taking soundbites from behind the alliance wall, reviewing them to make sure they're appropriate, getting permission from the teams in the soundbite*, and planning to play those soundbites during the next year's competition might be a really attractive and not too difficult solution. The exact names for things might change, but the tension and passion never change.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this thread. This is a lot of discussion about how to improve the quality of events for everyone, from the seasoned veterans to the strangers who just stumbled into FIRST for the first time.


*Does FIRST already have explicit permission to use sound recordings of us? I know we agree to waivers so they can use pictures or videos with us in them. Does that include sound recordings? Could that include recordings?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

But you can leave the stream whenever you want to. Those that don't want to should be entertained while they're watching, right?

If they aren't entertained, why are they watching? [/]

Let's put it this way: There are two sets of people that are affected by the breaks in the action: Live audience, and stream audience.

The live audience can talk to each other, move around, etc. They can also watch the reset action on the field pretty easily and figure out that they need to get back to their seats/stands. I think this is what the OP was mainly referencing, no?

The stream audience often doesn't have the field view, as the stream tends to be whatever is shown on the big screen (sponsors, etc.) and the big screen isn't necessary for the live audience between (or during) matches--better for MCs and awards. But, it's there. And the stream audience tends to not have the "talk to your neighbor" option.

How to reconcile the two...


OH! I got it!

I hereby challenge AndyMark, VEX, WCP, CTRE, REV, and all the other companies that produce FIRST specific parts (or heavily used ones) to produce...

A COMMERCIAL! That's right folks, we can be like every other sport out there, and fill in some of those "dead spots" with commercials! And with those companies being the way they are... Well, I'm willing to bet that they'll come up with something worth watching the Super Bowl of Smarts for!

Spoiler for The Fine Print:

First off, I'm not entirely serious. Second, I would probably actually watch some of those--I remember some quite hilarious VEX trailers about the time the VEX kit first came out. And third...You got a 2-minute time limit, make it count.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Something that is fairly simple to put together could also be a video package for each event showing matches of the event from previous years. If an event is new, maybe just have video from the closest events or just have commercials only. It would be fairly entertaining to newer participants and nostalgic for older ones. Also incredibly easy to implement for as early as this year.

[pmcoburn]

Originally Posted by MooreteP

Why this need to be constantly engaged with the screen stream?

What's wrong with a little downtime between matches?

Take some time to talk to the people in your proximity.
Take some time to go for a walk outside.
Take some time to to relax.

The match will start when the Robots are ready.
In the meantime.......sit back and enjoy the ride.

THIS.

[Jonny_Jee]

Originally Posted by AlexanderLuke

Here is something relevant, but not really something easily possible to put on at official events:

EDIT: After they determined that the robot's problem could not be solved in time, one the the referees even started to juggle on the field as that robot was getting pulled off the field.

Creative solutions.

Glad to hear people got a kick out of this. I've already started training for field delays at Sac regional 2017

[Bob Steele]

Something simple would be a video replay of the previous match.. That takes up most of the time between matches.... It would need a dedicated individual who could go back and make the replay.... technically it could be done but would require someone doing it. Of course it COULD NOT be used by the officials for scoring. If you watch sporting events... much of the deadtime shows highlights or different angles.

Many matches go by very quickly and many would be fun to watch again. Some not so much...

Old game videos from older games could also be played.... nostalgia

highlights of other regionals.... etc etc.

There is quite a bit out there if you look