Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative

[sporno]

the alliance paring was bad. we had a good team 540 and we had a good bot we did our part in allicanes scoring an average of 31 points a round , we came in 85 and only won out last match.

[Ricky Q.]

Originally Posted by DanielBCR

Please, please, please hold the WFA ceremony after all practice matches are over.

Agreed, having stuff still going on took away from the ceremony.

Also, the WFA display in the Hall of Fame was not what I expected. I know better can be done, perhaps by the teams with the winners.

I'm thinking the WFA ceremony and display were a late addition, I expect better things in the years to come.

[JoeCallahan]

Originally Posted by sporno

the alliance paring was bad. we had a good team 540 and we had a good bot we did our part in allicanes scoring an average of 31 points a round , we came in 85 and only won out last match.

I saw that happen to a lot of good bots... we scored an average 40 points per match but since our alliance partners didn't score any, we still lost and ended up with an undesirable record :-\

But I suppose that's the luck of the draw.

[sven]

1. Move the projector screens in the pit to the side, maby even have a seating/standing section roped off. Its hard enough draging a robot around, let alone avoiding other card, inspection stations, and people randomly stoping to talk at intersections while 30-40 people take up the rest of the isle watching the screens.

2. Clean up the dumpsters! Sometimes the smell was enough to make you puke going through that hall.

3. I second bum patrol. Very few of them are genuinly down on their luck. Most are addicts/lazy/mentaly unstable and not the kind of people you want around students. One came right up to us while we were taking our pics with Ford in the park area between the pits and the dome and would not leave untill our team couft up "bus fair." He even went as far as insulting our lower offerings (the few that gave money should of stod up to him then, but just wanted the guy to leave).

[Adam Shapiro]

Originally Posted by JoeCallahan

But I suppose that's the luck of the draw.

Precisely. It's happened many, many times in the past and it will certainly happen again. It sucks to get bad pairings but there's no way to know who will turn out to be a bad partner, nor is there a fair way to selectively pair. A big part of this competition is cooperation and teamwork. If you are unable to convince a team to strategize it sucks but it's just how it goes. Everyone has bad luck sometimes, the best thing to do is hope it doesn't happen again next year.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by sven

1. Move the projector screens in the pit to the side, maby even have a seating/standing section roped off. Its hard enough draging a robot around, let alone avoiding other card, inspection stations, and people randomly stoping to talk at intersections while 30-40 people take up the rest of the isle watching the screens.

2. Clean up the dumpsters! Sometimes the smell was enough to make you puke going through that hall.

3. I second bum patrol. Very few of them are genuinly down on their luck. Most are addicts/lazy/mentaly unstable and not the kind of people you want around students. One came right up to us while we were taking our pics with Ford in the park area between the pits and the dome and would not leave untill our team couft up "bus fair." He even went as far as insulting our lower offerings (the few that gave money should of stod up to him then, but just wanted the guy to leave).

Inform security of his presence. They will no doubt remove him from the premises.

[K.Shaw]

from what i heard 2 weeks before the event they did a "bum sweep" of atlanta for something and arrested most of the swindlers and stuff. but they obviously had to let most of them go and they drifted back into the city

[Ian Jones]

Originally Posted by K.Shaw

maybe some more increased sercurity in the city. maybe even a "hobo round up" before the competition. some people may feel bad for them or think this is cruel but its been done. most are trouble. in one night walking from the omni to hooters over by the westin our group of 5 people were rushed by bums begging for money, offering services, selling things, one even attempted to pick pocket a kid.

Haha, are you seriously suggesting that we throw all the homeless people in jail for the weekend just because we'll have a bunch of high school kids in town? Also, what is FIRST going to do about security throughout the entire city of atlanta?

[sporno]

i didnt like the security they had their... the rent-a -cops i had to run from the GWCC to the dome to get into the first pratice match for curie.. and none of them knew where to go. and they all told me the wrong way to enter the feild contridicting one another

[K.Shaw]

Originally Posted by Ian Jones

Haha, are you seriously suggesting that we throw all the homeless people in jail for the weekend just because we'll have a bunch of high school kids in town? Also, what is FIRST going to do about security throughout the entire city of atlanta?

either get rid of the hobos or increase security or both. FIRST isn't the only one responsible here. The city of Atlanta also is. Maybe have cops stationed in the main part of the city where alot of the teams were. or have a passing patrol car every so often or something.

Also more security at the venues. It seemed that anyone could walk in with just about anything they wanted. I know metal detectors wouldnt be any good, but i remember in previous years like in 2003, they checked all the bags that went into reliant stadium, and it didnt seem to create a traffic jam or anything.

I know there were some issues with the volunteers this year but there could have been more people directing traffic and more people around to answer questions and stuff.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by sporno

Original Post Removed

So.. I'm gonna be the one who is a realist and break the cycle of all the bad rep that I'm guessing you are getting for that radical statement.

Yes, this could happen. In our perfect little FIRST community this is not something we often think about, but sporno seems to be a realist.

When you travel in a big city such as Atlanta, or NYC, or Chicago, or Boston, or any other big city on this globe things like this can happen.

Will it? Hopefully not!

Was living in fear and carrying the the knife the best (and safest) way to deal with this? Probably not.. but I applaud if not admire you for realizing that this kind of thing could happen.

All of "real life" is not a FIRST event. I know we all would like it to be and for everyone to get along with everyone else, but you can't put your guard down just because you are in a city with friends and think you are safe.

You would be foolish if you did.

The buddy system is a great thing. I'm hoping every team and team member (young and old) used this system.

I don't care if you are 16, 30, or 80.. Walking around in unfamiliar territory with a buddy can greatly reduce your chances of bad things happening.

[Not2B]

First - my comments -

Crowd control into and out of the pits. I'm sure they had a reason to close the big doors into the pits on Thursday afternoon and Saterday, but not Thursday morning and Friday. But it made for poor crowd circulation. If you are going to run it that way, make the escalators run opposide from the way they were running so you didn't have 2 steams of people trying to cross over each other. A little more crowd flow management would be good. (The students on my team are waiting for a "When I worked at Sea World..." story, because I did infact work at Sea World doing crowd contro.)

Second - my take on seeding...

Scouting makes all the difference. Lightning Robotics, 862, did not win a single match all weekend. 86 out of 86. No ones fault. We know we did well. The team was in high spirits all weekend. We even had a few teams talk to us about the finals. We didn't get picked, but we were considered by a few. In fact, I've never seen our team happier than we were in dead last place. So much so that I'll put a post up about it in a few days - it impressed me THAT much.

So don't worry too much about the seeding - Just work well with your teammates, do your personal best, and have fun - the rest will work its self out.

[NoodleKnight]

The route to the competition field from the pit made you walk past a garbage dumpster which smelled horrible. Not really a big thing, but I wished that dumpster would have been sealed off.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Boxed lunches should be available in the pits. It was a pain trying to get food to our 10-odd pit crew and drive team members.

[Alex Cormier]

Well, i was extremely disappointed on the amount of teams that left the stands and made so much noise once the final match was over. There were more awards to be giving out like the whole reason for FIRST, the Chairmans award. The event is not OVER when the final match is over, give the teams respect who obviously worked harder then you and see who gets crowned the awards.