Survey of JnJ Mid-Altantic Regional Teams

[Rich Wong]

It was really great to see so many JnJ Regional Teams hold top spots at the Houston Championship.
JnJ Regional has always been a pre-championship show down.
Congrat to all. Now that you'll caught up on sleep, I need your help.

I'm taking an opinion survey of the JnJ Mid-Altantic Teams. The survey (good or bad) will be collected and forwarded to the Regional Directors so improvements can be made for 2004 JnJ.

The 2003 JnJ Regional was in a new venue (RAC at Rutgers U) so there must be a lot of opinions!
Also think about the parking, the food (or lack of it of Friday), the layout of the pits, the audio system, the registration process, the lines, why am I waiting in the freezing cold rain at 7:30am, the restrooms, the team party & food, the interview room, etc....
(do try to be constructive)

Thanks a million and hold to see everyone next year again.

[Rich Wong]

JnJ teams, Randy (the Director of JnJ Regional)
is looking forward tor some feedback from the
teams.

Please post them or don't complaint next year
when your pit is in the corner behind the curtains
and there is no open snack bar.

[rees2001]

Originally posted by Rich Wong
JnJ teams, Randy (the Director of JnJ Regional) is looking forward tor some feedback from the teams.

Please post them or don't complaint next year when your pit is in the corner behind the curtains and there is no open snackbar.

Are you kidding me, at first we were a bit concerned about being behind the curtain but once we realized how much space we had it was Grreat. Can we put a request to have that end spot again next year? 4 years ago we went to the J&J at the old building, it was awesome. Old, dark, gloomy, small, cramped, … wait compared to the RAC, it stunk. The only thing that was better before was how close food was. We had a good time there this year & we look forward to coming back next year. I again would like to thank 25 & 102 letting us help you guys out. I was pulling for you at nats, still you had an amazing year.
So to sum it up

Setup – good – need more space between the end of the pits, the robot queue, & the FIRST tables.
Seating – best I’ve seen at any regional.
Food – could be better, but not bad. – could use some tables and chairs to sit at & eat
Facilities – plenty to go around.
Pits – a bit confusing on the order but you get used to it.
Parking – not a problem
Access to the RAC – terrible – but it looks like you are working on it.

Nice job on pulling off a great regional.

[SarahB]

The RAC was definitely better than the site last year. The pits were great, very spacious, especially in our end spot next to 25 . The seating was awesome; even way up in the cheap seats we had a great view. I only had two problems. First, the food. Maybe I’m spoiled by the great selection last year, but it seemed the selection was a bit limited(mostly just pizza and hot dogs) and a tad overpriced. Second was the line through security. I understand the need for it, but I didn’t enjoy having to wait half an hour in the unseasonable cold Friday and Saturday to get my bag checked. Other than that I thought you guys did an awesome job. J&J is always a great competition and this year it was better than ever.

[Rich Kressly]

RAC - great venue!
decent pit space
great for viewing the comp
great teams
veteran volunteers and judges
family atmosphere, yet highly competitive
concessions decent, but overpriced - I'm sure this is at the mercy of the vendor however
Team dinner - ok, but not as good as that sit down meal we had in 2002.
"Smile Video" - very cool
better communication with FIRST website for more real time updating

With such a great event in NJ, let's find a way to get a live webcast for the rest of FIRST to know what a quality event we have.

Thanks to Randy, Kim, and all of the NJ locals for putting on a super event!

[Forsaken85]

All in all the J & J regional was really good this year. Although there are some spots that need to be improved apon. First thing was the team party. It was horrible. The food was nasty and the video was way to short. Also the pits were nice but i believe that you could expand them a little more to give more room to the teams. Also i was wondering why you did not put the backdrop with the back toward the pits. Thus then you could have opened the other side and made the arena more open and alot easier for people to find spots close to the main arena. These areas were the only ones that bothered me. I believe that if these are fixed then the J & J regional will be the best one out there.

[Keith Chester]

A- Webcast! Let's see what we can do on this

B- Just a tad more traffic room in the pits. The pit room itself was great. Also, try and keep the layout orderly.

C- Calculate the results real time with the lowest score already dropped- don't wait until saturday morning ;-)

D- Let's fill those stands next year! 70 teams!

[ssjcell]

reformat the fri, party to something like in 2000, if not the sit down dinner is still alot better than this years "thing"

good job with the pits, especially where we were.

food was kinda a problem, but nothing major.

my complaint about music was mostly the dj. in past regionals we've been able to request songs and what not, but this year the dj was a total jerk who wouldnt listen to anyone, we even requested he play a song for us when we went out during our match, and he started bs'ing with me that no one would want to listen to it, and that he'd lose his job if he took requests.

[Ben Mitchell]

I didnt have a good time at the J&J regional. Teams saved entire rows of seats with paper flyers, and wouldn't let me sit down, forcing me to yell at them, so the three kids on my strategy team would have a place to put a laptop and watch matches.

The Rutgers people REFUSED to allow us to use a power outlet in the stand. There was a rack of about 16 power outlets, and they went unused all day, while my laptop could not use even one. They couldn't give me an answer why.

The referees, in our quarterfinal match, altered their definition of "intentional damage" to mean "Touching a disabled robot"

Our alliance versus our opponents in autonmous mode: We managed to cause one robot to flip itself, and another's battery fell out. We used the 1:45 to build a 120+ point round. The ref DQed us because our partner hit one of the disabled robots by accident, and ruled it as intentional damage.

Yet, no damage was done, and it was not intentional. This was after a regional full of the refs standing by, and watching robots smash eachother hard enough to shatter lights, for no reason other than to smash.

To be honest, I felt cheated by the J&J regional this year. It's really lost the spirit it once had. It was very combative, and from the moment the field director yelled at me for correcting his staffers (who told me I "had" to step on the pad") to the moment he told the head ref to DQ us, (that's right, it's my understanding that the refs didn't make the ruling) the atmostphere was very hostile.

If the FIRST regional coordinators read this: tell them to tell thier staff to lose the attitudes, read the rules, and apply the rules equally to all teams.

[tchescow]

Food - more options would be great, and maybe some tables
Some "test area" for the robots would be great either, there was a very large space that could be use, but we had to ask 3 times I guess, only to test our new drill gearbox with the theter.l
Webcast would be greeeat! Just one more thing, it wasn't nice to stand in that line, freeeezzzinng! But it was awesome, if these inprovements can be made, wow!

[Mike Schroeder]

I think that the event this year was good, it was a great improvement then previous years.

I belive while people complain about the staff, that they are just volunteers, they WANT
To Help, I mean FIRST is a non profit organization so all i say to people who complain about the "staff" is Don't take a gift horse in the mouth

[Ben Mitchell]

Them being volunteers does not give them a "get out of jail" free card. Hell, we are all volunteers, doing FIRST on our own time - does that mean that WE should not be held accountable for knowing the rules and abiding by them?

If volunteers want to help, they should understand the rules, and be consistant with rulings, if they are referees. If they are not "informed and competant" volunteers, they are NOT helping.

I should not have had to explain the rules to FIRST staffers at the fifth week of regionals.

Refs in professional sports play with consistant rules - why can't FIRST regionals decide on definitions of rules, or even spell the rules out?

I mean, with all due respect, how can a team be DQed for Intentional Damage, when no damage was done.

They twisted this rule

GM28
Robots may not intentionally:
· Detach Parts (no connection at all to a robot);
· Remove the lids from the containers;
· Damage another robot;
· Tip over another robot;
· Attach themselves to the ramp mesh or framing material;
· Attach themselves to the railings/walls of any field structure.


To mean: "A team can be DQed if they have an intent to do damage, even if no damage was done, and there was no proof of it being intentional, oh, and this rule only applies when the intent is directed towards disabled robots in the finals. Thanks."

Sorry, but maybe FIRST should invest time and energy to recruiting people that know the game, and can make fair judgements. I mean, many teams make potential drivers take tests on the rules of the game - why can't FIRST do the same for their referees?

[Rich Wong]

to collect my survey and go before this CD posting heads in to deep space.

(... now what was Ken L saying about crazy, out of controlled
postings again...)

To all survey contributors, Thanks!
All your suggestion have been collected and forwarded to
the JnJ Director for venue improves in 2004.

[Ben Mitchell]

I hope I didn't make people upset.

[Pin Man]

The thing that I really liked about the old place was the variety of food and it was right next to the building... The old place had pizza, chinese, subs, hamburgers, Dunkin Donuts and more but the RAC only had pizza, and Dunkin Donuts... On a good note though there was a lot of space outside to play ultimate frisbee...