PCH 2017

[martin417]

I agree with Mike to a point, in that a "farm system" would help get the kids up to speed and ready to participate more quickly and with less instruction. As a mentor for Mike's teams and others, I can say that the kids were almost never the problem or a hindrance to creating an "elite" team.

If you look at the parks and schools around GA, you will see millions of dollars' worth of athletic fields and infrastructure for sports. The campus of the two schools with which I have been involved in FRC have far more land dedicated to athletic competition than to scholastic education. I am not saying athletics are bad, but if the school had dedicated 1% as much time and budget to the FRC team as they do to the football team, we could have built a dynasty.

In fact, I have found the school to be the biggest enemy of the FRC team. They contribute no money to the team, and other than a place to work, offer nothing to the team (the county is a different story, they do contribute). If a teacher wants to volunteer his or her time great, but teachers do have lives to live and classes to teach. I would be willing to bet that the "elite" teams, like 1114, 2056, 148 etc. either have great school support, or are entirely separate from the school (that would be my preference).

Imagine if there was a job like the coach of the football team, where his or her job is to go out and win the state championship, but for FRC. A paid, full time position, perhaps with assistants. Access to the work-space would be assured so that students could access and work on the robot when needed, instead of when the school was open.

Mike worked hard and was building an elite team:

• In 2008, his team made it quarterfinals on Archimedes, and won the world championship creativity award.
• In 2009, his team was on the first seed alliance at Peachtree, Palmetto, world championships (Galileo), IRI and GRITs. They won Palmetto and GRITs.
• In 2010, his team won Peachtree and competed in the quarterfinals on Galileo
• In 2011 Again won Peachtree, and was the #1 seed on Galileo, and made it to the semifinals at world championships.

After that, Mike moved to a different school, and support from the school got even worse, the team was competitive in 2012, and in 2013 and 2014, they didn't even have a team. The kids wanted it back and re-entered FRC in 2015, but again, school support was pretty much non-existent.

If you want teams in GA to be competitive there are several things that would help:

• Either get the teams out of the schools (expensive) or get more support from the schools.
• Recognize the achievements made by the kids, reward excellence.
• Keep in mind that this is a competition, outcomes are important, and should not be decided by judicial fiat.
• GA FIRST needs to follow the rules and guidelines set forth by FIRST.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by martin417

• GA FIRST needs to follow the rules and guidelines set forth by FIRST.

I may have missed this part of the discussion, but what rules and guidelines are GA FIRST not adhering to?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Karthik

I may have missed this part of the discussion, but what rules and guidelines are GA FIRST not adhering to?

Astroturf under the fields should probably be on that list.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Astroturf under the fields should probably be on that list.

As someone who has never participated in a venue selection committee, is that actually a rule from FIRST, or something that simply slipped past without anyone actually considering its impact?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

As someone who has never participated in a venue selection committee, is that actually a rule from FIRST, or something that simply slipped past without anyone actually considering its impact?

To my knowledge it's not in the venue rules from FIRST but it should be filed under "common sense"

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

As someone who has never participated in a venue selection committee, is that actually a rule from FIRST, or something that simply slipped past without anyone actually considering its impact?

The story I was told and have no reason to doubt... The Columbus district was held in a multi purpose ice hockey arena. Bottom layer is always ice. The assumption was that the regular covering would be sufficient to keep the ice ice and separate from the field turned out to be incorrect. IE spots of water here and there. The issue was discovered too late to change venues. The only option was to cover the ice with the arena football field and then to cover that with carpet. Solved the water game problem, but made for a bouncy field. The Columbus district has a different venue this year that does not start with ice. Large areas of ice in south Georgia is some what of an oxymoron. The best place for ice in south Georgia is in tea.

[Munchskull]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

The story I was told and have no reason to doubt... The Columbus district was held in a multi purpose ice hockey arena. Bottom layer is always ice. The assumption was that the regular covering would be sufficient to keep the ice ice and separate from the field turned out to be incorrect. IE spots of water here and there. The issue was discovered too late to change venues. The only option was to cover the ice with the arena football field and then to cover that with carpet. Solved the water game problem, but made for a bouncy field. The Columbus district has a different venue this year that does not start with ice. Large areas of ice in south Georgia is some what of an oxymoron. The best place for ice in south Georgia is in tea.

Ice is sketchy for many other reasons. The Autodesk regional used to be held at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland. It's a hockey rink no they would put a hard plastic cover over. The thing is ice and plastic are both insulators which caused the feild to act as a giant capacitor. This really became a problem in 2009 when the static charge the robots created eventually discharged frying the FMS. From then on when ever Memorial Coliseum was used for a Regional or PNW DCMP it is in the contract to remove the ice from under the plastic. So that is my horror story of why ice should NEVER be under the feild regardless of if it is melting or not.

[BenDSterling]

As someone who was a part of the planning for Columbus, let's talk about that venue. The ice is always the bottom layer. They don't remove it for events. On top of the ice was a layer of thin plastic, then plywood, then another layer of thin plastic, then the AstroTurf. The venue would not remove the AstroTurf for our event. I do not recall exactly why they wouldn't remove it, but either way it wasn't our decision.

AstroTurf makes an awful floor for the pits. The little plastic beads would have gotten into every part of the robots and good luck pushing carts on it. So because of this, Georgia FIRST bought all the carpet to go ontop of the AstroTurf. Everyone saw that this ground would be bouncy, it was just something we would have to live with. (In fact some peoples saw it as a good thing, the lost robot parts bin at Columbus was almost empty). Now this season we are using a different Columbus venue. This seasons venue is almost identical to KSU.

Now as for KSU and the plywood floor. KSU refused to remove the basketball court floor. They also required us to protect the floor from damage (the thin plastic cover they usually use wouldn't be enough protection). So, Georgia FIRST went out and bought all the plywood to cover the basketball court. This wasn't really ideal, but also wasn't really our decision.

[NoahMinter]

Now as for KSU and the plywood floor. KSU refused to remove the basketball court floor. They also required us to protect the floor from damage (the thin plastic cover they usually use wouldn't be enough protection). So, Georgia FIRST went out and bought all the plywood to cover the basketball court. This wasn't really idea, but also wasn't really our decision.

Can confirm, laying the 600+ pieces of OSB with a team of only 7 was a pain. But it taught me a lesson in hardwork. Only took us 5 hours.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by BenDSterling

Now as for KSU and the plywood floor. KSU refused to remove the basketball court floor. They also required us to protect the floor from damage (the thin plastic cover they usually use wouldn't be enough protection). So, Georgia FIRST went out and bought all the plywood to cover the basketball court. This wasn't really ideal, but also wasn't really our decision.

Being a stickler for accuracy

1) The KSU floor was not removable, it is built in permanent. It isn't a situation of people saying no just to inconvenience teams.

2) A decision was made to adequately protect the floor. Six months was spent investigating other events world-wide, from cost, protection levels, and risk of liability, and the most cost efficient method was 7/16 OSB, not plywood. Plywood is a very different material. There were events that had much higher cost flooring systems, with lower performance, and in some instances, significant facility damage. All things considered, the KSU solution was the best that was available. Even if the floor would have been removable, it would cost more to remove it than cover it.

4) and sticking to the facts, it was less than 500 sheets, about 470+ if I remember correctly, Just the facts ma'am, just the facts !

3) As Noah said, the system went down in 5 hours, but now that it is engineered with a lot of custom cut pieces, the whole thing could go down in half the time, if needed.

[NoahMinter]

Originally Posted by ebarker

3) As Noah said, the system went down in 5 hours, but now that it is engineered with a lot of custom cut pieces, the whole thing could go down in half the time, if needed.

It came up in under half that time. It was actually rather efficient the way we were operating.

[JohnFogarty]

I'm usually still in hibernation for another 2 weeks. :yawn:

I think the largest issue I've seen in my brief 10 years in FIRST is that teams lack a good financial, mentor, and recruiting foundation to be successful in FRC. If the gap between teams is so large in that respect it generally lowers the competition in a given area. Teams need to be more creative and helping other teams understand the best ways to become sustainable and to help generate new ideas for fundraising. I think just doing those two things would raise the bar significantly over time for not only the PCH district, but FIRST teams across the country. I've heard the announcements from judges at regional events in the past about the budget that Kell Robotics had and that didn't make me salty...it made me want to learn about how they got to that point.

[jman4747]

Some solutions:

1. I think one of the best ways to increse the available mentor base and funding would be to encourage current sponsors to talk to their business partners about getting involved. They can also make a point of making sure their employees are aware of the opportunity to mentor teams and even incentivize it if they have the recourses.

2. A focus on getting business professionals working with teams to develop longer term strategic plans would help too.

3. GA teams probably need to do more of season development and training. I think a lot of people still see FRC as a Jan-April thing.

4. While it certainly isn't isn't incumbent on them; I would like to see a push by the two big engineering schools in Atlanta to make more of the faculty, students, and alumni aware of FIRST and much like in point 1 incentivize participation some how. GA Tech/Kennesaw state grads run and work in a lot of business around here.

[DonRotolo]

Part of the problem is the way schools view FRC: administration sees this as a club. The mentor doesn't get a stipend, and other than build space the school and the county offer no additional resources.

It becomes a marketing problem: marketing the value of FRC and other programs to school administration. A farm system would also help.

And I agree: schools here don't seem to cooperate with each other. At all.

[alicen]

Just wanted to say thank you for giving me a fun read this evening

Being pretty heavily entrenched in GA FIRST, it's funny to me the assumptions about us making decisions based on maximum potential misery, but of course without knowing everything that goes on behind closed doors, it can feel like we're out to get you!

On a bright note - this year again we aim (as always) to give all of our GA teams the best possible experience we can at each and every event.

Much love,
Your GA FIRST Volunteer Family