Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Negative

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

I merged two threads discussing this topic into a single thread, so if things appear odd, that's probably why.

I had assumed one thread was about the Championship and the other about the season as a whole.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Richard

I had assumed one thread was about the Championship and the other about the season as a whole.

You're right and I missed the distinction, but it's been pointed out to me.

Splitting the threads is a bit more time consuming than merging them, but I'll go through and put things right -- just as soon as I get out of the shower

[petek]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

Splitting the threads is a bit more time consuming than merging them, but I'll go through and put things right -- just as soon as I get out of the shower

So, does that mean you posted that from the shower?

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by petek

So, does that mean you posted that from the shower?

Her little green light is out, so I think she's ignoring us now.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Richard

Her little green light is out, so I think she's ignoring us now.

Maybe it got fogged up.

[AmayaSaria]

My suggestion? I had a great time at Nationals...but it was my first year there so....I don't think there was any, so maybe we could have maps for next year? And another thing, us poor poor mascots! We didn't have ANYWHERE to dance and have fun! We danced on the staircase (in Archimedes) and blocked it up a lot. Also, we had no room to dance to the cotton eyed joe, cha cha slide, and songs like that. Those are what I suggest, if its possible. I know there may not be a lot of room for the mascots, but we'd be really happy if we had our own dancing area!

Other than that, my first time at nationals was a blast.

[StephLee]

The only real complaint I have was the smell of the trash in the hallway to the arena floor; it got a bit intense if you got stuck in a traffic jam.

[Kims Robot]

1. WFA... I have to agree with all of the people that mentioned the WFA award. I dont think many people knew it was going to be then, and it just seemed sad that our team was sitting there scouting and cheering for our field while the WFA was being awarded... It would be nice to at least wait until the matches were over. Plus another addition that would be cool would be if they could take a picture from every WFA mentor and put it up on the screen when they run the names. They have them from the FIRST Awards page submissions, so it shouldnt be too hard to make that addition.

2. Organization... for some reason this year just seemed a lot more chaotic than last year... we didnt know when our awards students had to be out, the alliance selection the same, the classes changed rooms and times/got cancelled throwing off our team schedule (yes we matrixed everyone into scouting and other jobs!), and our driveteam constantly felt more rushed than last year (though thursday & friday actually happening on time was nice!). Maybe give teams a solid schedule at the beginning, and hand out all 350+ copies if there are any changes.

3. Pit announcements... we couldnt really hear them. I was thinking maybe they could have a board or monitor in each divisions pits to place the announcements that were just made so teams can recheck.

4. Pit height... the rule FIRST gave out was that pits "SHOULD" not be taller than 10 feet. Should is not a binding agreement. We got yelled at several times by FIRST staff to change it... when we were really 10'6" (plus there were additional loopholes if you had signs supported by the structure but I will leave it at this). I saw many displays that were MUCH taller, and MUCH more unsafe than ours. There should either be a change to the rule to say "shall" or "must" or be a better way to check the safety of it (we verified that ours was incredibly safe when we first built it). We couldnt find another stepladder to safely change/modify it, and since our pit is the first thing we put up, it was impossibly for us to safely change it without hurting someone, or destroying our workspace.

5. Wrap party food... I still love that FIRST has a wrap party where teams go to hang out with eachother, but the quality has declined. I like the suggestion of just having a ton of different carnival type vendors set up and sell their own foods. They make profit and FIRST doesnt have to pay for it, and it is MUCH less likely to get cold!!

6. Alliance Selections... This goes for all the regionals and every event as well. It would be WONDERFUL if FIRST would do it after lunch... it would allow the scouters to finalize their data and actually get it to the person going on the field. We had to pass a piece of paper over the large concrete barrier to one of our driveteam since they were on the field right before selections. I think teams have the fast strategizing down, because you have to do it in between matches... it would be nice to give less strategy time and more alliance selection time IMO.

7. Food in the pits... I get the no food in the pits, but they do at least need to allow water bottles. Our students and mentors were constantly dehydtrated because of course the robot & team come before getting food or water. We finally stashed a bunch in the back of the pit but felt like hoodlems for "breaking" the rule.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by AmayaSaria

I don't think there was any, so maybe we could have maps for next year?

There were maps. They were on the FIRST site somewhere, I think in the Championships section.

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

Food in the pits... I get the no food in the pits, but they do at least need to allow water bottles. Our students and mentors were constantly dehydtrated because of course the robot & team come before getting food or water. We finally stashed a bunch in the back of the pit but felt like hoodlems for "breaking" the rule.

There were drinking fountains, and I don't think anyone objects to bottled water. (At AZ, I was safety captain for my team, and bottled water was explicitly allowed by the safety people.)

[Andrew Y.]

i didnt not ahve a clue about the bottledwater rule. Does it really exist?

if it does...i broke it about 300 times..each day.


But i do agree taht water should be allowed

[ScottM]

Originally Posted by 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 control.)

Seems like every year the management does something that's completely inexplicable, at least to me. This year it was this situation where they shut the big doors and forced everyone to into the two small doors.

Last year it was forcing everyone to go through the turnstiles when entering into the stadium for a free event.

[artdutra04]

Let me start off with the fact that the Championships are not what they used to be. Gone are the days of just robot matches dominating at the Championships. We now have conferences, presentations, the FIRST LEGO League, and FIRST Vex Challenge, etc. and the list goes on and on. The only problem is when trying to cram everything into three days, some events overlap and you have to decide on which to attend.

I wish I could have over to the Vex more often, but I was almost always involved with my FRC team. I was asked by several prominate FIRSTers to help host a conference about Vex in Atlanta. Again, I had to decline the offer because I would have been to busy with being the operator for my FRC team.

I understand that you only have four years in your FIRST career that you can be one of the drivers, so right now that is where the majority of my time is being spent. But I felt almost jipped that there were so much awesome things to do at the Championships and people to hang out with, but I was always forced to choose among the better of the many exciting activities.

So, here's where I'd love to see the Championships extended at least one additional day to become a four-day event starting on Wednesday morning. Start the FLL, FVC, and conferences on Wednesday, and have them continue into Thursday. That way, people can sit back and enjoy the other FIRST competitions without having to sacrifice them for their FRC team.

FIRST is growing - and so should the Championship Event.

[santosh]

I agree, it was VERY difficult to hear people giving announcements in the pits.

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

7. Food in the pits... I get the no food in the pits, but they do at least need to allow water bottles. Our students and mentors were constantly dehydtrated because of course the robot & team come before getting food or water. We finally stashed a bunch in the back of the pit but felt like hoodlems for "breaking" the rule.

Maybe it was just me, but I very openly brought a Papa John's pizza into the pits, in full view and sight of EVERYONE. I know there have been general rules, but it didn't seem that any inforcement happened. I agree totally with the idea of allowing small amounts of food and water in the pits, especially if bought from the vendors at the GWCC and Georgia Dome.

I agree also with the shortness of the competition, there were lots to do and little time. It seems like I could never hang with friends unless I missed something important! I could only meet Conor, Daniel, Genia, and Krass during the finals on Galileo! Oh well.

[dhitchco]

Hmmmm...a thread about the "negatives" of the 2006 championship.

In the corporate world, we call them "opportunities" or "areas for improvement".

I agree with all the comments I have read here and there are ALWAYS new opportunities. It's vital that and issue you bring up also have a proposed solution...don't simply gripe.

Kim O'Toole's good summary surprised me in one respect about the judges and our "pit height" since I'm the one who led the student team in designing and building a pit to show-off all our accomplishments. It was exactly 10' square and 9' tall except for a small sign above that.....So, yes, the rule book needs to be continually improved (but it's thick-enough as it is) to use words like "shall" or "must".

*** Our pit was INTENTIONALLY that tall since a 60" robot sitting on top of a 30" OSHA-safe-height work cart required that much clearance under the top of the pit.....Think about it FIRST........

Overall, FIRST needs to start to look at the world championship in the SAME WAY that las vegas looks at a major trade show! There are som many events now going on each year at the April championship. Better up-front calendar of events onthe web site will be critical including a "build-your-own-agenda" section.

I also agree that more "visual" signage and video displays are better than voice announcements. The in-house food rule needs to be relaxed in the pits and each team's safety officer needs to take-on the responsibility for cleaning-up spills, etc.

I'd like to see some better student-created ideas for a "mosh pit" for dancing etc that doesn't clog-up the aisles and doesn't create traffic jams for the on-floor robot traffic. I can't come up with any good ones for the Georgia Dome.

The traffic flow in the pit (GWCC hall C) is always tricky, and overhead signage should be more "in-your-face" about safety glasses, especially by lego league visitors etc. Or...maybe a "no-work-time-out" set of periods each day for visitors?

Maybe all robot carts should be required to have flashing lights while in motion to warn pedestrians? We need to all think and observe what goes on in a Home Depot store when they're using the forklift trucks and copy those good safety practices.