Championship 2007 - Atlanta - What Needs To Be Improved

[s_forbes]

Being one of those who is only able to watch matches from a dorm room, I'd really like to see an improvement in the webcasts. The quality doesn't bother me as much as the camara choice; it seems that whenever a robot is disabled and not moving the camara has an urge to zoom in on it while robot X on the other side of the field does a backflip and scores 5000 points. I'd really like to see some better choices in camara angles next year.

[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.

[FIRST Rocks]

Originally Posted by pythagoras

the only thing that I had major problems with, was poor judging. For example, while in the semi-finals on curie their was a lot of commotion near the rack and 1114's arm was broken, we only got a 10-point penalty. Later on Einstein 71 got knocked over and the refs declared a red card. I have seen issues similar to this one and would just like some clarification on the topic.

Indeed there were some very poor calls by the referees. On Archimedes, in semifinal 1-2, team 254 was tipped over by the opposing alliance, and no penalties or DQs were called. Then, in the very next match, 254 was tipped again by the same robot, and still no penalties were called. Watching the same thing happen to 71 on Einstein, only the aggressor being disqualified, made it even worse.

Here are some other things I noticed this year. There were no "special effects" for the Chairman's Award; in the past they've had the aforementioned confetti balloons or fireworks. Why nothing this year?

Lastly, I wonder why Dave didn't wear a suit for the finals this time.

[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

[Chris Fultz]

Originally Posted by VanMan

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

mixing in the awards with the matches keeps it interesting and makes the event shorter. FIRST used to do the awards after and it was a very long afternoon, because there has to be a lot of time between matches for teams to get ready.

yes, i know this is a positive in the negative thread, but just responding to the previous post.

[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.*

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by FIRST Rocks

Indeed there were some very poor calls by the referees. On Archimedes, in semifinal 1-2, team 254 was tipped over by the opposing alliance, and no penalties or DQs were called. Then, in the very next match, 254 was tipped again by the same robot, and still no penalties were called. Watching the same thing happen to 71 on Einstein, only the aggressor being disqualified, made it even worse.

As for 1114, I heard they were also pinned for much longer than 10 seconds, and the referees didn't start a count, make the aggressor back off, or call a penalty.

Here are some other things I noticed this year. There were no "special effects" for the Chairman's Award; in the past they've had the aforementioned confetti balloons or fireworks. Why nothing this year?

Lastly, I wonder why Dave didn't wear a suit for the finals this time.

About the semifinals on Curie and 1114. First, since I was the human player I didn't get a good view of what happened, so I don't know if it was legal or not. I do know that 48 did get a 10 point penatly, but that was after it was challenged by 1114. The 10 points didn't matter since we still won and moved on.

[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!

[ebarker]

interlacing the awards with the matches is a great idea. It saves a ton of time because you don't sit there doing nothing waiting for the next match and then having to start the awards from scratch.

Signs need to be posted and people reminded that the FIRST protocol is NOT to save seats. I went to Newton and there were a ridiculous number of seats claimed with no one in them. We only needed a few seats for a short period of time to watch our match and leave. I talked to a woman that was trying to guard 50 seats and their team wasn't in sight when I arrived and later when I left.

So please everyone be a little respectful and take it easy on the seats.

[DougW]

On Curie, if there is not a match or the score posted there are commercials, the same ones played over and over. I would rather see my kids setting up the robot or there team in the stands cheering for them. Most of the time they don't make it back to the match before announcing the teams and you miss seeing the kids all together.

jw

[Caio]

one of the perhaps most frustrating occurrences during the competition was that at one point they were AHEAD of schedule on Friday. It was very awkward when we showed up 15 minutes before our scheduled match time, and nearly missed our match. We had to run out onto the field. When you have that much noise in the pits, and an announcement about things being ahead of schedule is known to just be considered white noise, they shouldn't do that. I'm all for being on time, or ahead, but they should have sent someone to our pits and told us "we are ahead by 10 minutes, be out there extra early..."

but hey, they were trying not to run late, but they should be careful about making people almost miss their matches, especially when you only get 7 of them.

[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!

[Luckyfish05]

Originally Posted by DougW

On Curie, if there is not a match or the score posted there are commercials, the same ones played over and over. I would rather see my kids setting up the robot or there team in the stands cheering for them. Most of the time they don't make it back to the match before announcing the teams and you miss seeing the kids all together.

jw

That is totally agreed! I understand the need for the commercials! But get some crowd shots!!!! It's just as much about those kids in the crowd as the robots on the field!