Championship 2007 - Atlanta - What Needs To Be Improved

[dangerousdave]

I was very disappointed in the few thousand people that got up and left the dome following the finals last match Saturday night. That was disrespectful of the teams that competed and had not yet received their trophy's and very disrespectful of the 37 teams competing for the Chairmans award. These people were making a lot of noise while they exited and could easily be heard in the stands during the ceremony. Perhaps First should have mentioned not to leave following the last match but most everyone should have known this. There was only an additional 15 minutes of awards following the finals last match

The individual screens on each field showing the video of the game and the scores are very difficult to read the team numbers and scores.

Originally Posted by kawelch

The weather needs to be better.

Perhaps a little more info here? While the weather was not perfect, I saw hundreds of people sunning themselves, playing Frisbee and enjoying themselves in the area between the pits and the dome all 3 days when it reached the low 70's each day. Yes the mornings were chilly but there was no rain until after the awards ceremony Saturday night.

Originally Posted by Bongle

The confetti last year was super-annoying because the balloons it was stored in obscured most of the field for some people in the upper level. I'm happy to hear it is gone. The whole time I was thinking "those balloons had better be REALLY important, because I can't see the near goal or half the field".

This actually appears to be a positive observation and maybe in the wrong thread?
Dave

[Bongle]

Originally Posted by dangerousdave

This actually appears to be a positive observation and maybe in the wrong thread?
Dave

I was showing how the lack of confetti might not be a negative thing. Otherwise you'd have a 2006 negatives thread where I posted about how the confetti balloons were annoying, followed by a 2007 negatives thread where someone said they wished there was confetti. Poor FIRST would be all confused.

I too only watched via the webcast, and was disappointed at the image quality, to the point where I could not read the team numbers most of the time

Seconding this. The only way I could figure out the team numbers most of the time was to consult with the schedule with the digits I was sure of. 6's REALLY look like 8's when the compression is on. NASA has lots of bandwidth, surely they could up the bitrate a bit.

...which reminds me:
It would be really nice to have the match schedules posted in such a way that we don't have to pester poor dangerousdave all friday to get our team's schedule. If you're going to have a webcast, the schedules should be online.

Another thing: The ads on the non-galileo fields were kind of annoying. They were like someone else channel surfing during a show you want to watch. You're never sure if they're going to get back to the field in time to catch the start of the match. The ads during lunch and breaks were fine and pretty interesting because they weren't obscuring something you wanted to watch. Potential solution: keep the ads, but have a little picture-in-picture in the corner showing the current status of the field so that people don't freak out.

[rfolea]

Originally Posted by dangerousdave

I was very disappointed in the few thousand people that got up and left the dome following the finals last match Saturday night. That was disrespectful of the teams that competed and had not yet received their trophy's and very disrespectful of the 37 teams competing for the Chairmans award. These people were making a lot of noise while they exited and could easily be heard in the stands during the ceremony. Perhaps First should have mentioned not to leave following the last match but most everyone should have known this.

Dave

Suggestion: They should do the Chairmans award BEFORE the last match, and finish on time (or at least let folks know the doors won't be opend until the event is over). While it is disrespectful for people to leave early, it is equally disrespectful to take 1 hour away from a 4 hour party the folks paid a lot of money for... respect works both ways ...

[chaoticprout]

My biggest complaint was the announcement of the free for all for the tubes on the field right before the chairmans award. Many people ran for it and didn't come back to see it and it really took away from the importance of the award.

[Billfred]

Some of the things I saw:

1) Something needs to be done about opening and closing ceremonies for FVC. Opening ceremonies are during the FRC lunch break, which is marginally passable from a noise standpoint, but closing ceremonies during FRC matches is just not as awesome.

2) The FVC World Championship as it sits could benefit greatly from being extended or split into its own divisions. With four matches, one bad match could kill a team entirely. (Granted, a truly great scout would catch a team with promise regardless of one bad match.)

3) It would be nice if there was a way to scratch FVC teams that did not show up for the competition, as one of the teams from China did. Not so much for the teams that don't show as the teams who're playing with them.

4) Branding. You've got the Rack 'N Roll logo on DaVinci, folks in FLL shirts on FRC fields, yellow representing both FIRST and FRC in the Championship program (with FLL in blue and FVC in red), and so on. Give each competition and the Championship at large a color, and don't switch them around--this can also be quite useful for other things, such as signs that only apply to one competition. Make the crew shirts intentionally non-competition-specific while you're at it (and perhaps do something with the backs--they don't have that visual appeal that the FRC regional shirts do).

4a) I recall the FRC-specific logo being introduced right around Kickoff, so this year, just as when FIRST changed logos in 2005, I'm not griping much about the signage with the FIRST logo and "ROBOTICS COMPETITION" below it (even if it does push the logo standards). But in the interest of keeping things matched between the three competitions, it would be nice to have FRC-specific signs receive the FRC logo and FIRST signs get the FIRST logo.

5) I agree, I miss the visual flair for the Chairman's Award winners. However, skipping the balloons this year was an improvement for the sake of those up in the stands.

6) To go back to FVC in a way, I was confused a bit with the change in meaning of dots on the operator badges. (For those who weren't on DaVinci, badges with dots were used for drivers, while coaches did not receive the dot.) This became a bit more of an issue when those who coach for both FVC and FRC came out wearing both badges--with the visual distinction between the two limited to black text on a purple badge, it was tricky to distinguish. Keeping this parallel across competitions (and perhaps changing the badge color across competitions) would be lovely.

That's all I can think of, mostly of a nit-picky nature. Overall, I highly enjoyed it--and I can't wait for next year!

[Chuck Glick]

Originally Posted by Billfred

2) The FVC World Championship as it sits could benefit greatly from being extended or split into its own divisions. With four matches, one bad match could kill a team entirely. (Granted, a truly great scout would catch a team with promise regardless of one bad match.)

I agree with Billfred here. 100 teams could be split into 2 divisions of 50 easily(there are already two fields...so ONE field per division, like FRC, wouldn't be that bad.). Since teams only got 4 matches, as Billfred mentioned, teams with one loss (like 1114*) would plummet in rankings, killing their chances to get picked due to lack of scouting (something that should be fiixed). However this wasn't the case for the 3-1-0 team 1114 who still was picked, but the 4-0-0 (with 2 replays and wins of the same match coming to a 6-0-0) team 1712 was NOT picked.... something I still don't understand. Splitting the field into 2 divisions would give teams more matches, and really make the teams that perform stand out.

If divisions isn't the way to go, then have both fields play at once! Alternating fields draws attention to one game at once, but also cuts the amount of matches each team gets.

And if that idea isn't liked, then follow the FRC route, start earlier and play for 3 days. I think that most vex teams weren't watching the FRC championships, so where were they then? The social! If they were to continue playing at the same time as FRC then the whole keep EVERYONE at the dome till matches and awards are done would be easily done.

* I do not mean to be hostile towards fvc1114, you guys and gals have a great team and deserved the win.

[Don Knight]

Originally Posted by chaoticprout

My biggest complaint was the announcement of the free for all for the tubes on the field right before the chairmans award. Many people ran for it and didn't come back to see it and it really took away from the importance of the award.

That was a my bad.. .. I was given direction to do so, but...... I do agree I should have said no and waited until after the Chairmans Award was announced. I did make another announcement asking team to wait but by then the flood gates had opened. My apologies to MOE.

[yodameister]

Originally Posted by chaoticprout

My biggest complaint was the announcement of the free for all for the tubes on the field right before the chairmans award. Many people ran for it and didn't come back to see it and it really took away from the importance of the award.

Ditto

[VanMan]

Don't put the awards in between the Matches. Makes it boring and less energetic.

[AndyB]

Originally Posted by VanMan

Don't put the awards in between the Matches. Makes it boring and less energetic.

Teams must be given some amount of time to fix and repair their robot for their next match. Awards give them this time. You'll notice that in between the 2nd and 3rd finals matches, they didn't have any awards to give out, so they played music and let people dance. They need some sort of buffer between matches.

By doing awards during then, this adds suspense, spreads out the action, gives teams time to fix their robots and alter their strategy to make the finals, as fair as possible.

[seraphim33]

Originally Posted by AndyB

Teams must be given some amount of time to fix and repair their robot for their next match. Awards give them this time. You'll notice that in between the 2nd and 3rd finals matches, they didn't have any awards to give out, so they played music and let people dance. They need some sort of buffer between matches.

By doing awards during then, this adds suspense, spreads out the action, gives teams time to fix their robots and alter their strategy to make the finals, as fair as possible.

thats a really good idea

[Joker[eS]]

This first point isn't really about the championship, but rather a suggestion for the GDC.

On the Newton Field, a red card ended the competition between two teams in the final rounds. I think that it would be nice if the red card meant that the match needed to be replayed without the third robot. Sure, a red card is bad, but if you look at a sport like soccer, a red card penalizes the individual and the team, by having them play with less players. Perhaps calling a red card DURING the match, instead of afterwards, and then replaying the match 2v3 without the robot who committed the infraction.

A point on championships:

I would've found it nice if the pits ran perpendicular to how they were this year, if only because it would've meant less crossing the aisle. I can see where this might be bad for rookie teams, and higher numbered teams, but I would've felt like the divisions (Newton, Curie, etc.) were divisions that way.

Another point on championships:

The sound system. Depending where you sat at matches (I was at Newton) or at Einstein at the end of the competition, the sound system could either be way too loud, or way too soft.

*Props to the camera guys. The on-screen video coverage of what was on the field was amazing.*

[Luckyfish05]

I think we were missing some of the magic this year at the Championships. Yes there were lots of good things, but we were missing much of those things that people have already talked about in this thread thus far. But I'm going to state them again plus add some observations.

1. The Closing Ceromonies-
We're was the specialness of the Chairmans? No confetti? No balloons? Wow, this is suppose to be the most special award and half of the teams left before they even showed Wildstangs movie (which was pretty awesome by the way). It's last because it's the most important, people should treat it as such!

2.In the stands-
It seemed quieter, at least on our field (Newton), this year than past years. IMHO, I don't think teams we're yelling as much. Our team was part of the problem, so I'm not trying to say anything about the teams on our field don't get me wrong here. But, I think that's some of the magic, hearing the team get up and cheer. The few times we did try to cheer there were people back behind us that were yelling for us to sit down. Guys, yelling for your team on your feet is good. Getting excited is good. The music was rediculously quiet, but the announcing and MCing were good. That has me confused. There were times I couldn't even tell the music was on.

3. Random thoughts:
Why weren't the lights on in the consession areas for Saturday??? It seems really weird that they didn't have them on. Then for Closing ceremonies when the upper decks are openned up. The guards on the ends, I understand what they were there for, but where they ended the seating wasn't the smartest. It left our team with only one entrance to the aisle, and to get out you had to walk over every other team in that aisle, when there was another entrance out. Caution tape needs to be used to cut an aisle in half when they don't want people past a certain point, but getting yelled at because someone needs to use the restroom and is trying to be considerate by not climbing infront/over of 20 other people doesn't make much sense.

Just remember these are just my negative thoughts. As usual there are so many more positive thoughts than negatives! I can't wait for next year, and I know that much of the rest of the team is the same way. They want to start tomorrow!

[DeAnnaC]

Our family attended the Nationals though our team didn't, so we moved from field to field to check out matches during all 3 days.

I think the rule that is used during hockey games (maybe in other sports) should be followed - no standing/walking to a seat while a game is in play. We were trying to watch matches and would have a handful of people stand up after their team played and just stand - I don't know if there should be an announcement about that or ? but it was very frustrating for us to try and keep up with the action on the field.

We did find it funny that the speaker from Coca Cola encouraged us to visit The World of Coke, as it's currently closed and will not be opened until late May.

[CJV648]

Originally Posted by Luckyfish05

3. Random thoughts:
Why weren't the lights on in the consession areas for Saturday??? It seems really weird that they didn't have them on. Then for Closing ceremonies when the upper decks are openned up. The guards on the ends, I understand what they were there for, but where they ended the seating wasn't the smartest. It left our team with only one entrance to the aisle, and to get out you had to walk over every other team in that aisle, when there was another entrance out. Caution tape needs to be used to cut an aisle in half when they don't want people past a certain point, but getting yelled at because someone needs to use the restroom and is trying to be considerate by not climbing infront/over of 20 other people doesn't make much sense.

You should _never_ cross caution tape without checking with a person in charge what the hazard is. They were right to yell at you and it would not have been inappropriate to eject you from the event.

That said, I thought the Georgia Dome used caution tape excessively and inappropriately. Caution tape should only be used to signify presence of a hazard and not to, for instance, reserve seats or keep people out of an area you don't want to clean. A different sign/tape should be used. The people who cross my caution tape at my hazardous waste cleanups are risking their lives (and sometimes mine); the Georgia Dome staff seems to be training them to do this.

Also the Georgia Dome staff needs training about how the event is organized. I wanted to volunteer at the event and received correct instructions from staff about how to get to volunteer registration, but that entrance was closed unless you had a badge, but the staff member there gave me correct directions to another entrance that was closed unless you had a badge, but the staff member there gave me correct directions to another entrance that was closed unless you had a badge, but the staff member there gave me correct directions to another entrance that was closed unless you had a badge, but the staff member there gave me correct directions to another entrance that was closed .

Finally I met a bunch of guys from the NASA machine shop who were having the same problem, and eventually we ended up entering a closed entrance, but since I was frustrated and the event didn't seem desparate I didn't volunteer.

Also I think they could put the jumbo trons at the ends of the stadium to good use by displaying, for example, the rankings and match schedule.

I enjoyed seeing all the great teams and robots at the event, but I think the regionals I have attended were about as much fun because the individual teams got more playing time.

Rich Vogel (using his wife's account)