Championship Event Improvements

[Don Wright]

After attending my second championship, I am still blown away at how amazing it is. I can't imagine the time and effort it takes to pull something like this off. My admiration to all those that worked on it. You did an incredible job.

On the bus ride home last night with 469, we were discussing some things that we think might make the event a little more crowd friendly. These are not all my ideas, but I like them and I thought I would post them to see what everyone thinks.

1. Have three other monitors above the main monitors for each field. These monitors will be showing the action from the other fields. This will allow us to see what is going on over there so that the first time we see the robots from the other fields isn't on Einstein. Plus, it will allow the crowd to watching something during field reset.

2. Have a monitor with the current standings along with upcoming matches.

3. Sell programs and put a match list in the programs.

4. On the match list that each team gets (including the above match list in the programs), include a list sorted by team number so you can immeditely see when your team is up as well as other teams you might be interested in seeing.

5. OK...this one is a stretch... Move the elimination rounds to Einstein and one of the fields next to it. Then, you play matches on one, then the other, back and forth. When one field is being reset, the other field is going. This way everyone can see how the teams that make it to Einstein got there and can be part of the excitement. When we figured this probably isn't possible, I came up with the field monitors idea above...

6. For the awards...take pictures of the technological things they are getting awards for so that we can see it. If the team is using a neat OI controller, show a picture. If a robot has a cool device on it, winning it an award, show a picture on the screen.

Any comments? Other ideas?

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

I think you present some great ideas. The monitor one seems feasible, although I feel it would be pretty distracting at times. I.e., a score posted on both fields at the same time? Stuff like that that you can say "Oh, we can tell the difference" but really if it's so fast it can get cluttered. So maybe something like that could be available in the landing above the stands so as your'e walking between divisions you can look at it.

I was quite happy with most of the other organizational stuff...but I have only one request for next year. Whoever covers this stuff...please please help me get it worked out.

Have crutches available. Crutches. Not wheelchairs with $250 deposits that you have to return before the team party and limp around. Loving, beautiful usable crutches. :-D

- Genia

[Ian Curtis]

It would be a lot more interesting to the general public if they didn't hand out awards "during" field resets in the einstein finals. I had a couple of people who just came to see what it was about, one of whom was fairly high up in the georgia department of education, and left before the finals becuase his kids were bored. Even though if they didn't those ceremonies would be longer than they already are...

[Kevin Sevcik]

Position the screens better in the pits. Atleast a quarter of archimedes couldn't see the screen from their pits. Which makes it rather annoying to keep up with what match is being played so you can know when to leave. Maybe two screens at opposite ends, or double sided screens where they were.

[Jill1022]

Although the competition was amazing, here are my ideas for improvements:

- Instead of having that boring time when judges are tallying the score and reseting the field, give awards during that time. They would wait until the score was settled and the field was reset and the robots were on the field and THEN give awards. Much time could have been saved.

- Move the big party to Saturday because many teams had to leave immediately after the finals Sunday.

[chaoticprout]

Originally Posted by Jill1022

Although the competition was amazing, here are my ideas for improvements:

- Instead of having that boring time when judges are tallying the score and reseting the field, give awards during that time. They would wait until the score was settled and the field was reset and the robots were on the field and THEN give awards. Much time could have been saved.

- Move the big party to Saturday because many teams had to leave immediately after the finals Sunday.

The big party was on Saturday ^^

Originally Posted by chaoticprout

The big party was on Saturday ^^

I think she ment move it to Friday, since some teams had to leave on Saturday

[Jill1022]

Originally Posted by D.J. Fluck

I think she ment move it to Friday, since some teams had to leave on Saturday

Yes, I meant to say Friday

[Carol]

I like the staggering of awards. When they gave out all the awards after the finals, the closing ceremonies dragged on even longer than they were this year (all right, the speakers could have been a little less verbose also.) One gripe I had was the real time scoring. The scoring was good, but it blocked a lot of the monitor so you couldn't see all of the action.

[Steve W]

Can't make programs with match schedules as they are not generated till late Thursday night.