Hangin'-A-Round Animation

[Kevin Thorp]

We (myself & FRC Team 342 students) created a 7-minute animation explaining the layout & rules of the new game:

www.vexrobotics.com/animation

Please check it out & let me know what you think. But you'll need a high speed connection. The high-rez version is 44Mb and the low-rez one is 11 Mb.

Kevin Thorp
Charleston, SC

[KathieK]

That was awesome! You guys did a great job with the animation. I can understand how the game will be played out now, and can use this as a tool in recruiting new teams to FVC.

Thanks for all the hard work!

[Morgan Gillespie]

I also agree, very nice. How long did you guys have to create the animation?

[Kevin Thorp]

Originally Posted by Mercury Rising

I also agree, very nice. How long did you guys have to create the animation?

The Vex game design team gave us about 5 weeks. We worked part-time in the beginning but things got real interesting as the kickoff date approached!

[Rich Kressly]

The 342 crew did an AWESOME job with a rather short timeline. Kevin worked closely with a few members of the FVC GDC to provide an amazing product. Today was the first time I got to see it and I was blown away by how entertaining, professional and useful the product is. Kevin, now I know why Griffith and others speak so highly of you Thanks for providing an invaluable resource.

[Richard Wallace]

Props to 342! This pushes the standard to a new height.

[Chuck Glick]

I have to agree with everyone else, great animation. Love the example of gracious professionalism!

[Billfred]

There is a reason why 342's won four AVAs, two AIAs (including an Honorable Mention at the Championship), and two Kickoff safety animation contests since 2003: they just plain turn out great results. (And that's just the tip of the iceberg that is 342's accomplishments over the years, but you can read that for yourself.)

Great work, guys! This'll do wonders for explaining the game.

Anybody notice that the picture of the sweeper robot in the attachment is on the red alliance, when the same robot is in blue in the actual animation?

[nonother]

Wow, that was an amazing job. Thank you so much. I spent a long while on Wednesday reading all the rules, and I definetly understood it, but this explained it just as well in 7 minutes. I showed it to both of my parents, one of whom has no experience with robotics in the slightest. They both entirely grasped the competition.

Is there any problem if my team were to turn this video into a DVD and mail it to our sponsors? I think there is no better way we could effectively communicate the competition to them.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Anybody notice that the picture of the sweeper robot in the attachment is on the red alliance, when the same robot is in blue in the actual animation?

Yep, my six year old saw it right away...I didn't believe him at first.

[Bill_Hancoc]

wow what a cool animation...just curious...who does the voice for all the animations like the kickoff safety one and this one...they do a very good job

[sanddrag]

Absolutely fantastic! What I liked most was it was broken up into clearly defined parts, and was slow enough to understand. The real FRC game animations are just fantastic too, but I kind of wish the real FRC game animations would be more like this one. Maybe it's just me, but they always seem a bit quick for me to grab ahold of. But maybe that is to make us read the manual.

Anyway, nice job.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

Yep, my six year old saw it right away...I didn't believe him at first.

This video appears to be aimed at a more general audience than teams at kickoff. The point is made fairly early (starting at ~2:12) that "you might be on a blue alliance one match and red on another". The detail that Rich's son and Billfred picked up on supports this point.

[Kevin Thorp]

Wow - thanks for all the compliments gang. That sorta make all those late nights worth it! It appears we achieved our goal of making the rules understandable to newbies, friends & family members.

The Vex narrator's voice is mine. I couldn't find a professional announcer who was willing to work for free at 1:00 am. Our 2 safety animation narrators were Mike Conroy (graduated in '06) and Bill Epperson (class of '07).

Dave Lavery does an outstanding job with the FRC animations each year but because they are broadcast live they must be kept very short to fit the Kickoff agenda.

I don't think there's a problem of burning DVDs to send to sponsors but I'll check with the FIRST people (or perhaps they can chime in here).

In the next week or so we should have a revised version posted. Just few minor changes:

• A countdown timer visible during the entire match
• Highlight the goal/robot when a score is added up
• Display the scores a few seconds longer

Kevin

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Kevin342

Dave Lavery does an outstanding job with the FRC animations each year ...

I think there is very broad agreement on this.

... but because they are broadcast live they must be kept very short to fit the Kickoff agenda.

There is room for debate on the word "must" above.

Explaining the game is an important element of kickoff. A few extra minutes of well produced animation might be a better use of the limited kickoff broadcast time.