Championship 2007 - Atlanta - What Needs To Be Improved

[Nuttyman54]

-Opening Ceremonies: I understand that they want everyone on Einstein for opening ceremonies, but it would be nice if they could put them on the Newton and Archimedes screens so those of us that are watching the team laptops and jackets can see what's going on, instead of trying to listen to the terrible reverb

-Chairman's: I would prefer that there be more celebration. I understand the problems with confetti, but what about something like dropping balloons (I think they did this on 03), or at least some small pyrotechnics or something?

-Chairman's Honorable Mention: It's been said. We like to know where we stand compared to the winners (Congrats MOE 365)

-Match pairings: Random please. No more of this A B C categorizing. If the official manual specifies random partners, we expect random partners.

-Awards: Here's one I haven't seen yet. While the concept of showing video of each team's robots as they received the awards was nice, they picked probably the WORST video clips I could've imagined. Dropped tubes, showing other team's robots, it made people focus on something useless that was playing on the screen.

-Free Tube Announcement: Honestly, I missed this announcement, but I was wondering what the commotion was about. Agreed with the above, please wait until AFTER Chairman's

-DQ's: I believe this is an issue with the scoring software not being able to do this, but for the two red cards that were handed out, I would've liked to have seen the actual match scores. I don't believe either call actually made a difference, but I would've liked to have known who won each match, regardless.

[George A.]

From a Game Announcer standpoint (and I know there's a lot more of you then there are of us) I didn't like that the refs showed the number that corresponded with the amount of the lift, and even worse the score announcer announced it to the crowd (nothing against Don Knight, who's an amazing announcer, it just irked me). I understand the refs need to communicate, but they could just walk over and tell the other ref instead of broadcasting it.

I know from past experiences (3 regionals this year) that during elims the crowd is on the edge of their seat, and if you can build that suspense it really helps the excitement. The crowd can obviously tell who won on the rack just by looking at it, unless the ringers are really scattered that the quick math is almost impossible to tell. The thing they DON'T know, is whether the robots got the 15, or 30 point bonus, which in many cases decides the match.

So by announcing what the bonus was, it totally defeats the purpose of the score slide. Granted you may not know the exact numbers...but you could pretty much figure it out. I think they should've kept it a secret until the slide is projected.

Sorry about the rant, it's just my 2% of a dollar.

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

I believe this is an issue with the scoring software not being able to do this, but for the two red cards that were handed out, I would've liked to have seen the actual match scores. I don't believe either call actually made a difference, but I would've liked to have known who won each match, regardless.

I was one of two people running the scoring and field control system on Newton. This is not a limitation of the scoring system, and in fact it's kind of a pain to zero out an alliance's score... just DQing all three teams doesn't do it. I would have liked to post the hypothetical score in the Newton elims, but the head ref demanded that the scoring screen say 0 before it was posted. I understand this reasoning... no sense in causing a bunch of "what ifs" for the teams involved. Sorry it took us so darn long to figure out how to do it.

[Paul Copioli]

For those of you that had seen my earlier public complaints of FIRST, in general, rest assured the battle is still being fought; but in private. This post will not go over any of the items that I consider general FIRST improvements, but rather Championship specific improvements (except for item 1).


1. Get rid of the algorithm of Doom. For no other reason but what is published in section 9.3.2 in the manual:

9.3.2 Match Assignment
The scoring system will randomly assign each team two ALLIANCE partners for each qualifying match played. All teams will play the same number of qualifying matches except if the number of teams in attendance is not divisible by six; in that case the scoring system will randomly select some teams to play an extra match. For purposes of seeding calculations, those teams will be designated as SURROGATES for the extra match.

Say what you do and do what you say. On that note; before team 217 pays our registration fee for 2008, we will insist that we have reassurance from FIRST, in writing, that the match algorithm is random at all events. It was sad that a first year student on my team could predict the 1st 14 matches on Galileo one week before the event.

2. Please reduce practice day. One round of practices to make sure the field works properly and each team gets the opportunity to practice once. Also have a "first come - first serve" line that fills the missing teams in practice matches. Start opening ceremonies and qualifying matches on thursday after lunch. Get 2 or 3 rounds of matches in on Thursday. Maybe even do FVC and FRC opening ceremonies at the same time on Thursday. The biggest obstacle to this is inspections. If teams know in advance that they will have matches on Thursday, I bet the majority of teams will give up the extra time to get extra matches. The cost for the Championship is almost $1,000 per match ... ouch!

3. Let operators (with badges) use the stairs going from the field to the floor. Only two people are really required to move the robot from the pits to the dome. The other two can stay out of the way by staying in the stands until the time they need to go to the match. I just want an explanation of "why not" that makes sense (not becasue FIRST said so).

4. Publish the correct time for the awards ceremony ending. It has finished at the same time for the last few years. The Chairman's award sure didn't seem like it was the highest award with its cut down time and anticlimatic ending. Moe deserved more than that as they are a great team and deserve better.

For those of you who said teams had to get to places, please explain to me why the after party had well over 2,000 people at it when we arrrived. My wife and I left right after the announcement was made regarding Chairmans and basically ran to the after party (I had an all access badge so we could get there pretty fast via the short cuts). The party was pretty packed at that time. For reference, the VIP area had 0 people at it when we walked by because they were at the awards ceremonies and stayed until the end.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

1. Get rid of the algorithm of Doom. For no other reason but what is published in section 9.3.2 in the manual:


2. Please reduce practice day. One round of practices to make sure the field works properly and each team gets the opportunity to practice once. Also have a "first come - first serve" line that fills the missing teams in practice matches. Start opening ceremonies and qualifying matches on thursday after lunch. Get 2 or 3 rounds of matches in on Thursday. Maybe even do FVC and FRC opening ceremonies at the same time on Thursday. The biggest obstacle to this is inspections. If teams know in advance that they will have matches on Thursday, I bet the majority of teams will give up the extra time to get extra matches. The cost for the Championship is almost $1,000 per match ... ouch!

#1 I couldn’t agree more. When a team can be a picking team at the championship with a robot that is just a drive base there is something major wrong with the way matches are selected.

#2 To help with #1 more matches need to be played to give the best robots a chance to shine. Also a stand in line for practice matches is a brilliant idea.

[chaoticprout]

Sorry but who/what exactly is DS&K? Thanks ><

[Dave Scheck]

Dean Simmons and the Kamens (http://www.deansimmonsandthekamens.com/) is a robo-centric rock band that has been playing at FIRST events since 2004. They are always welcomed warmly, and were brought in to be the opening band at the team party this year.

[JohnBoucher]

I am always impressed by the stature of the judges at the regionals and especially at the Championship. I was very disappointed and I believe it was disrespectable to them, not to have them introduced.