2005 BTB ~ The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

[Erin Rapacki]

What did you think of this year's Beantown Blitz? What did you like? What would you like to see changed? You're feedback is much appreciated.


Thanks!

[Elgin Clock]

The Good: Another great event put on by Northeastern, and the Boston (And the quad-state-area (MA, CT, NH, NJ) FIRST crew. Excellent competitors, and great food. A vex kit to test, and check out.. Sweet.

The Bad: I didn't mind, but the day was long. I know some things couldn't be helped, but some people just wanted to go home by about 7 or even 6!!! Me, I plan on being at a FIRST event I got to all day, so it didn't really bother me. And, thankfully this year I didn't have to drive.
Oh, and the weather on the drive back home.. Would somebody please make a weather changing robot for next years competition please..

The Ugly: Can you say Parking Tickets?? I feel bad for those who got them. I know I stated this last year, but can the parking situation be (if not changed) then at least modified? I have not ever paid for parking at a FIRST event until last years BTB, and I wouldn't mind doing so as long as I knew that at least half the proceeds were going back into the event, and not the parking garage/school and/or town of Boston (parking tickets.)

Also, what the heck was going on in that area around 8-8:30? Was there another event in the Gym? There was an awfully hard time trying to just get out of the lot, never mind onto the main road.

All in all, more good times in MA.

[camtunkpa]

The good: Great competition as always. We got to play with some bots we normally don't run into during the regular season. Good spread for lunch and most importantly good natured people (Erin don't kill me....it was Henry222) All in all a fun time and well worth the road trip.

The bad: Only one thing from the competition, and that was running late, but as host of an offseason ourselves, we completely understand. Oh yeah, one other thing I suggest would be generating the match list the morning of the competitions in case some team no shows.

The Ugly: All things out of Blitz jurisdiction, our hotel, our ramp was closed in the morning, and doing circles around Boston thanks to mapquest.

We had a great time and got to train some newbs on the sticks. We're just waitin for the Blitz 2006 Good luck to all in the off season & next season!

[Pin Man]

The Good- haha what is there not to like about Beantown Blitz??? Last year I went right from the Junior Prom after party to it and I was so tired... Well this year I got a bit more rest... We had so much fun there... We got the same seats as last year and Ryan McGowen and I were sitting front row heckling people... sorry if we were annoying...

The Bad- Flipping robots...

The Ugly- It took so long to reset the field and it ran much longer than expected... Though it is understandable... We still had soo much fun... We look forward to coming back next year...

[Rosiebotboss]

Originally Posted by Erin Rapacki

What did you think of this year's Beantown Blitz? What did you like? What would you like to see changed? You're feedback is much appreciated.


Thanks!

The Good: Great event. Matthews Arena is a perfect size for an off season. Kudos to Don G. and the crew. Thank you Raytheon for lunch. Robot flow in and out of the pits was good. Plenty of room in the pits. I espicailly like to be able to drive the truck right up to the pit table and load/unload right there. Robot competition was excellent.

The Bad: Timing. I realize there were field issues in the morning. (We were a victim/cause of the dely. I don't know which) But, it seemed to me the officials, (define "officials" as the people who were in charge of on field operations.) were slow. The extra few minutes the referees took after every match to make a call, add up a score or talk about a decision added hours to the length of the competition. Scorers table, and I say this hesitantly because I do not want that job, was slow in putting up the scores once they got them. It just seemed field operations moved faster at the Regionals and it was many of the same people.

The Ugly: Boston traffic. Being from the area, I should be used to it.

[Erin Rapacki]

The field operations were a little slow, but there is reasoning behind that...

I recruited both Tom Schindler and Mike Dessignue to field manage and score the event (jobs that need a lot of previous experience). Tom returned from Europe last week (as planned) but he became very sick on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (horrible timing... we know ). The real hero of this year's Beantown Blitz is Dez. He stepped up to the plate and applied his knowledge to both the scoring and field operations (two jobs for one person). He dedicated a lot of his personal time to the BTB on both Friday & Saturday to make the event possible.

Thanks Dez!!!

[Rosiebotboss]

Originally Posted by Erin Rapacki

The field operations were a little slow, but there is reasoning behind that...

I recruited both Tom Schindler and Mike Dessignue to field manage and score the event (jobs that need a lot of previous experience). Tom returned from Europe last week (as planned) but he became very sick on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (horrible timing... we know ). The real hero of this year's Beantown Blitz is Dez. He stepped up to the plate and applied his knowledge to both the scoring and field operations (two jobs for one person). He dedicated a lot of his personal time to the BTB on both Friday & Saturday to make the event possible.

Thanks Dez!!!

I'm not sure who Dez is, (the spike hair kid?). If you had issues, and were short staffed, say so. I'm sure somebody from a team would help out. I did not hear anything, annoucment or rumor, that you were short staffed and looking for assistance.

But overall, the event did come off well.

[Koko Ed]

Does Boston charge like $20+ to park downtown? Or has it gone up?
I haven't parked in downtown Boston since I ended up paying $22 for a 3 hour visit to the New England aquarium ( I paid $12 admission). Now I just take the train in from Medford from my grandad's house when I'm in town or from Mattapan from my sister-in-laws. It's a shame Boston citizens have to held hostage and pay such outragous prices to park.

[Rosiebotboss]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Does Boston charge like $20+ to park downtown? Or has it gone up?
I haven't parked in downtown Boston since I ended up paying $22 for a 3 hour visit to the New England aquarium ( I paid $12 admission). Now I just take the train in from Medford from my grandad's house when I'm in town or from Mattapan from my sister-in-laws. It's a shame Boston citizens have to held hostage and pay such outragous prices to park.

$20 is a bargain...........some charge $50 to park around Fenway Park during a Sox home game.

[Jeff Rodriguez]

Well, I was charged $55 dollars, but that was in ticket form.
Hey, the road wasn't marked clearly or anywhere near my car.

[Koko Ed]

Looks like I'm going to be taking the train all over Boston when I visit again ( I don't like driving around Boston anyways. Too much traffic and too easy to get lost).

[Erin Rapacki]

It's too bad the parking information didn't get out to everybody... one car for each TEAM was allowed to park in the Matthews Arena parking lot. Everyone else was supposed to go to Renaissance garage where parking was only $5 a day on the weekends (my brother was happy to hear that, he parks at NU when he goes to red-sox games). Yea, NU knows the BTB needs a website.

Field managing is not necessarily a job you can teach somebody to do in five minutes and experienced people are capable of making the fixes faster... which is why I didn't ask for additional help from teams. I do want to thank Tom Calef from Hatch for being there though and helping us out in the morning. The field had some last-minute electrical issues because it came from two FIRST events before it arrived in Boston, and Tom's quick response to the field issues were very much appreciated.

Last year I wrote an ARENA digital simulation about FIRST match turnover times and how to improve the process. The program analyzed that a match goes over its time limit for two main reasons: the referees take to long or the MC talks too much. Well, I know I can be a talker but in addition, the referees wanted to make sure every call was fair and accurate.

Also, I think the time delay wasn't so much a matter of match-turnover times being slow... we got a late start with those field electrical issues.

Well, thanks for your feedback and please keep posting it. I'll relay this information back to NU and the BTB planning committee in hopes that they will address these situations for next year.

[Corey Balint]

*curls into defensive position*

I thought we, the refs, did a decent job keeping on time. Yes, some rounds we did take longer, but after lunch(20+ matches left), we were getting scores done fast. We broke it down to 3 refs to each side, and 2 to the center, and we all met in the center, copied down the scores, and handed it in. From what i knew/saw, we were hitting our time exactly every match.

The only real negatives i saw were; the Lunch Line(couldnt prevent that), Practice matches running late, Field reset being short handed, and Dez having to do both things at once(he did the best he could, but it did add time onto every match).

[Erin Rapacki]

No worries Corey... all the volunteers did great! I thank you and all the volunteers for their help. Issues with operations and being short staffed should be attributed to me. I also should have known more about field managing & scoring so I could have helped Dez better, but now I know.

All in all, the event ended an hour later than planned (7pm instead of 6pm) so I don't consider that too bad. Twelve hour days are long though. Yes, match turnover was within spec (7 min) but we were approximately an hour late with starting opening ceremonies due to field issues during practice matches. If I could go back in time I would have eliminated those two teams because they didn't show up before 9am (I wasn't sure if they were caught in traffic or whatnot... but that would have only eliminated one match anyway) and/or start afternoon matches more during lunch (I didn't want to cut lunch short like we did last year though, I feel the volunteers need that break). The refs and field reset crew were working within the time allotted.

Haha, if I could have one wish... I wish for a FIRST field that's easy to operate and reliable!!!! (keep dreaming )

[artdutra04]

The Good: BTB has been a great event, and I really enjoyed it. Thankfully the lunch line was less of a wait this year! The awards were really cool, and overall it was a great offseason competition!

The Bad and the Ugly:

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Too much traffic and too easy to get lost.

'nuff said.

Suggestion: *thanks Koko Ed for the idea* I noticed that a block or so down from the arena was a light rail station. Maybe as a suggestion for next year, can some sort of train pass be set up for the teams, like the FIRST subway pass in Atlanta? It would probably be cheaper and easier for teams to park in the suburbs and take the train in (except for the car unloading the team stuff, which would be covered by the parking pass).