Championships for dummies

[Simon Strauss]

This year is going to be my first time attending nationals and hopefully not my last, and as someone on a team that has also never been i am left with many questions about how Nationals operates, how it is different from regionals and how to prepare. Many of these are questions that so far have not been answered by friends and family that have previously attended nationals, nor can be easily found on these forums. So as a solution to this problem that I'm sure many of you share, I've decided that CD needs its own addition of the famous book series, Championships for dummies (n00bs, newbies, 1st timers, whatever name for us you please)

My intention is that this Thread will be able to function as a quick way for those who have any type of question concerning nationals in Atlanta, even if they have already attended, can find or ask for the information that they are looking for. In order for this thread to complete its goal i am going to have to kindly ask all of you to try to avoid rambunctious posts, insanely long answers to simple questions(feel free to extrapolate on any point in a PM if the rest of us don't need to know it) and any type of double answering already answered questions unless you have a very important point to, add, contradict, or if done in a very close time range, and all those other things that i along with most of the FIRST community are often guilty of.

That being said id like to start this off by asking what the deal is with scouting at nationals, in general and in particular for those of us who aren't expecting to go far, but are instead attending for the experience.

thanks,
Simon

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by nycpunk

This year is going to be my first time attending nationals and hopefully not my last, and as someone on a team that has also never been i am left with many questions about how Nationals operates, how it is different from regionals and how to prepare. Many of these are questions that so far have not been answered by friends and family that have previously attended nationals, nor can be easily found on these forums. So as a solution to this problem that I'm sure many of you share, I've decided that CD needs its own addition of the famous book series, Championships for dummies (n00bs, newbies, 1st timers, whatever name for us you please)

My intention is that this Thread will be able to function as a quick way for those who have any type of question concerning nationals in Atlanta, even if they have already attended, can find or ask for the information that they are looking for. In order for this thread to complete its goal i am going to have to kindly ask all of you to try to avoid rambunctious posts, insanely long answers to simple questions(feel free to extrapolate on any point in a PM if the rest of us don't need to know it) and any type of double answering already answered questions unless you have a very important point to, add, contradict, or if done in a very close time range, and all those other things that i along with most of the FIRST community are often guilty of.

That being said id like to start this off by asking what the deal is with scouting at nationals, in general and in particular for those of us who aren't expecting to go far, but are instead attending for the experience.

thanks,
Simon

Scouting will probably eat up alot of your time (about 84 other teams in the division). Use it wisely.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by nycpunk

what the deal is with scouting at nationals, in general and in particular for those of us who aren't expecting to go far, but are instead attending for the experience.

But you never know how far you'll go, so do the scouting as if you expected to win it all.
The goal should be to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of the other (84?) teams, with an eye towards what strategy might work well against or with that team.
Nationals is huge, so spread out the scouting amongst a lot of people, so everybody gets time to just watch, cruise the pits, etc.

Good luck,
Don

[JamesBrown]

If you have a mentor team or if you mentor a team who is in your division then think about splitting up scouting between the two teams.

Also if you have friends (or want to make friends) in another division offer them scouting reports on your division In case they make it to Einstein

[Nuttyman54]

This is what I've come to understand about how the championship works. Is this correct?

There are 5 divisions: Archimedes, Galileo, Newton and Curie for the award winners and preregistered teams, and Einstein for the regional winners. Each division plays like a regional. Each winning division alliance goes on to play to be the National Champion alliance. One thing I'm not clear on is how the Championship Finals play out? How do you do it with 5 alliances?

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

This is what I've come to understand about how the championship works. Is this correct?

There are 5 divisions: Archimedes, Galileo, Newton and Curie for the award winners and preregistered teams, and Einstein for the regional winners. Each division plays like a regional. Each winning division alliance goes on to play to be the National Champion alliance. One thing I'm not clear on is how the Championship Finals play out? How do you do it with 5 alliances?

There are only 4 divisions with all the teams mixed, not a seperate one for regional winners. Einstein is used for the division winners to play the Final 4.

[Dan Petrovic]

There are only 4 divisions. Archimedes, Newton, Curie, and Galileo. Einstein isn't actually a division, it's just a field that FLL is played on as well as the finals with the the division champions.

The Einstein finals are just like regular elimination matches. I don't know which divisions go up against which, though.

One of our mentors counted the steps between the pit and the field. 652 steps, not counting escalators or elevators. It's quite a journey between the two. For the drivers, there's a much shorter route.

[Freddy Schurr]

Is there any good java places?

[Dillon Compton]

There is a starbucks in the convention center, fairly close to the pits; ~5 minute walk.


We also need to figure out scouting at nationals this year.

[blue_crew]

Is there any kind of sack lunch program available?
How and where do you eat your lunches?

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

Originally Posted by blue_crew

Is there any kind of sack lunch program available?
How and where do you eat your lunches?

The CNN Center is about a 5-10 min walk from the pits and has a mall-style food court. I found it to be the best option as far as lunch goes.

As far as scouting goes, make sure to sign up for a CD of all your divisions matches from SOAP. I believe they are going to have a pre-event sign up sometime soon.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by InfernoX14

There are only 4 divisions. Archimedes, Newton, Curie, and Galileo. Einstein isn't actually a division, it's just a field that FLL is played on as well as the finals with the the division champions.

The Einstein finals are just like regular elimination matches. I don't know which divisions go up against which, though.

One of our mentors counted the steps between the pit and the field. 652 steps, not counting escalators or elevators. It's quite a journey between the two. For the drivers, there's a much shorter route.

Are you reffering to last year's Championship or the year before? Compared to two years ago, last year was a breeze getting from the pits to the Georgia Dome. I have fond memories from 2004 of going up 3 sets of escalators then down another looooooooooooong escalator just to get from the pits to the field. It took like 10 minutes! (but sliding pennies down the side of the escalator was fun

Last year's pit location was much better. It was a walk in the park (literally, if you count that grass field as a park) to get from the pits to the stadium. It also made for an easy escape to play some ultimate frisbee.

Mike C.

[Conor Ryan]

Tournament structure:
Lets try to make this simple, if you want an analogy, use NCAA March Madness, 4 Divisions (Archimedes, Curie, Galileo, Newton) then the winners of each Division square off on Einstein. Vex and FLL play on the DaVinci field.

Get Orientated:
The first thing anyone should do is get to know where you are, take a look at some maps (GWCC has a nice Virtual Tour that covers the entire site), look for the quick ways to get from place to place. The Georgia Dome and World Congress Center is no small venue. The path to get your robot to the field is long, so if you have time make your cart a little easier to handle.

Foodage:
Breakfast- If you don't eat at your hotel (I'd advise you do this or make other arrangements) I believe, there is a Dunkin' Doughnuts in the CNN center food court.

Lunch- Don't like arena prices/food? Go to the CNN center, its a short walk, it'll be nice weather, the food court is massive. CNN center will cater to just about any taste you feel like.

Dinner- No CNN center? Talk to the concierge at your hotel, theres a good amount of places to go out to. Just remember there are some bad sections of Atlanta (that doesn't mean theres bad food though)

Transportation:
If TIMS says your hotel is within walking distance, walk it. It's a really neat thing watching a ton of teams pour into the streets of Atlanta. Take the MARTA out of the airport, and thats probably the only time you may need it, a team can be well supported within walking distance of the main hotels. Sneakers are recommended, you do a ton of walking in Atlanta.

Other:
Go in with the mentality that you'll have the time of your life, and you will. Nothing is like Atlanta, its a great experince.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Allow me to go in depth about scouting -

1. Creating a system for pit-scouting
If you already have a good system, you can adapt it to a large environment. It's basically like scouting 2 regionals. If you don't...this applies to you. Decide what is most important to know about each potential alliance partner or opponent. Make a list of those qualities in a simple-to-use format and print a template for each team #. You can fill in the team # by hand or on a computer before printing, whichever you prefer. Since there is so much more ground to cover, and you may have minimal resources, you may want to truncate this list a bit, really focus on the priorities. It's very useful to have photos of the robots as well - you may or may not want to have someone solely taking photos so that when you match scout, you have a reference.

A note on pit-scouting - sometimes teams drop out last-minute from the roster and are replaced by other teams, not exactly in the order you thought they'd be. Relying on order by team # is very unreliable this year, so having a sheet printed for each team ahead of time is increasingly important.

2. Match Scouting
Ideally, you pit scout Thursday and match scout Friday and Saturday morning. Try to get decent seats for your scouts, so that they can see every match. It's very difficult to keep good track of all the amazing teams, so you may simply want to consider taking brief notes about each team, rather than getting tons of data from every match. Teams get less matches in Nationals than they do in Regional events (84 teams per division vs say, 40 teams per regional), so it's easier to simply take notes on each team as you observe. Try to get experienced people doing this, and make sure they're dedicated. But do give them lunch breaks!

3. Deciding a ranking
Scouting can be hard with only 40 or so teams competing, doubling that is crazy! I highly recommend ranking teams on Friday night at your hotel as though Finals selection is at 9 AM the next morning. Have a list of the teams you think you are most compatible with - not necessarily the highest ranked teams, but teams who will play strong defense while you score or will score well while you play strong defense, etc. On your ranking sheet, write down precisely why you chose to rank the team in that spot, so that when you are observing matches on Saturday morning, you can refer back to your list and change things as needed. Again, since there are so many more robots competing, it is very important to get an idea of who is a good match for you early on, and build on that, otherwise you will run out of resources.

Good luck!

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

...
Transportation:
... Sneakers are recommended, you do a ton of walking in Atlanta...

Conor brings up an excellent point. Sneakers are required in the pits. Wear them. You can wear flip flops when you get home.