Championship 2007 - Atlanta - What Needs To Be Improved

[Kit Gerhart]

I'm probably in the minority on this, but why is the P.A. so loud? Anyone who cares about preserving their hearing needs to use ear plugs, but if the sound weren't so loud, we wouldn't need ear plugs.

[Mike Martus]

Many great accurate suggestions I hope FIRST is looking at these....

I would also add the "Free Tubes" major error.

I would add one that has not been mentioned:

Sundial - could be great - if it would work. Many problems with it crashing.
There were many teams violating FIRST rules by operating a wireless network. They were asked to shut down but did not. We were told it was all the networks that were causing the problems with Sundial.

Remember an event this massive will always have issues and areas to improve upon.

[Alan Anderson]

The Alliance Algorithm of Doom seems to have done exactly what it was intended to do. I hope we never see it again.

The sound system at the wrap party doesn't need to be turned up so high when the stage is indoors. I could barely carry on a conversation with the person next to me, much less hear anyone across the table.

Did they actually make DS&K perform "on schedule" after the finals and award ceremony were going overtime??? That's unforgivable.

I got complained at by several ungracious adults who were hoarding multiple rows of seats for team members who never appeared while I was watching our team's matches. What part of "do not save seats" is unclear? (My successful strategy for the situation: agree in advance to give up the seats when those students need them.)

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by Mike Martus

Many great accurate suggestions I hope FIRST is looking at these....

I would also add the "Free Tubes" major error.

I would add one that has not been mentioned:

Sundial - could be great - if it would work. Many problems with it crashing.
There were many teams violating FIRST rules by operating a wireless network. They were asked to shut down but did not. We were told it was all the networks that were causing the problems with Sundial.

Remember an event this massive will always have issues and areas to improve upon.

I agree with all of this, but the bold part the most. Our team got a crap load of deflated tubes, but not because FIRST handed them out but because my not-so-smart brother jumped over the ledge (at least 8ft drop) right after they announced that people could go down to get them. They didn't say anything about getting tubes after the matches were done until after the fact (when only the Einstein stairway was open). This was a potential safety hazard for people in the stands. I'm glad to have not seen anyone else jump over the ledge to get down there. I do blame my brother for him jumping and not FIRST, I yelled at him a lot. He was our Safety Captain and worked hard on promoting safety in the pits but he did stupid stuff like jumping over the ledge and not wearing safety glasses on the floor.

I also think that the walk from the stands to the pits has been greatly improved since the last time I was there in 2004. My feet still hurt though, I made several trips from the stands to the playing field in less than 15 minutes without running... that was a chore.


Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I was kicked off of the side of the Archimedes field during eliminations because I was not a member of any teams on the field at that time. However, I had been walking around the ENTIRE stadium taking photos of all teams the entire weekend. It just so happened that I celebrated with members of 107 ("sister team") when they had made it to the finals. That's pretty much my only personal complaint...

Then there's the problem with my FIRST Behind the Design book getting stolen from my seat on Thursday... that wasn't funny.

[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.

[Wayne Doenges]

I would like to see standardized refereeing.
We didn't find, until we lost the first QF match, that the ref had been measuring our lift from the bottom of our wing and not the lifted robots wheel. Someone took a picture, after the buzzer sounded, and it showed that the robot's wheel was a good inch above the line but we only got 15 points for the lift. The match would have been tied.
After our alliance captain protested, and all the refs had a meeting, we got 60 points for the next lift.

I liked Sundial when it worked.

I didn't like the loooooong walk to the arena. My feet are still not talking to me

[Weepy]

All the issues that I would've said have already been noted in this thread except for one...

Now, 2047 is just a rookie team and I'm a senior, so this is my first and last year here as student (hopefully becoming a mentor next year). The matches were amazing, we met amazing people, and the whole event made my whole FIRST experience feel like my life was a comic book.

However, we really didn't enjoy Championships as much as any of the regionals we went to this year. We didn't see nearly as much team spirit or activity in the Newton stands as much as we did in Milwaukee or Chicago, and it was hard to be motivated when we only knew the 10-ish teams that qualified from the regionals we attended plus the handful of other teams we made personal friendships with.

I'm not sure what can be done about it, it's just our setup. Between emergencies, scouting, finding parts, ordering food, and two broken vans, and only 20 people on our team, it's not like we could afford to wander far from where we needed to be. It was a blessing that many of the friends I did make through FIRST had time to come to the pit to talk to me while we were working (I love you, Team C.O.R.E.!).

I dunno, I feel like I would've enjoyed this event 100x more if we actually KNEW the other teams. Scouting was hard to do since everyone else was equally bogged down by the goings.

If FIRST could organize some after-Thursday events such as Ultimate Frisbee Competitions, trivia shows, or maybe some video game tournaments, that would allow everyone in their own division to recognize each other. Small little prizes could be given out like t-shirts too.

Sure, 'socializing' isn't as much a concern as the safety issues and overall logistic issues that were posted in this thread earlier, but it would have totally changed my team's experience at Championships.

(100 secret EXP points to whoever read this all)

[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.

[Dave Scheck]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Did they actually make DS&K perform "on schedule" after the finals and award ceremony were going overtime??? That's unforgivable.

Yes, that was the case. They were told to be ready to go at about 6:00 because there were teams lining up outside. They eventually were told that they were going to start at 6:15 and had until 6:45 to play. As they were taking the stage, there was a power failure on one half of the stage. While they were fixing this, the hypnotist walked on stage and started doing his sound check (which, by the way was scheduled for prior to 5:30). This put the band about 10-15 minutes behind. They were then told that they had to cut their set to 15 minutes to maintain the schedule. They negotiated to have a 20 minute set. When they finally did start playing, the doors were barely open. As they were about to start their final song, the production crew signaled that time was up and that they had to keep their schedule.

I think that it was wrong to open the doors to the team party before the competition was complete. It was very disrespectful to the teams playing on Einstein as well as the teams that won awards. A "wrap party" should celebrate the conclusion of an event, and not begin before all activities are complete.

[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.

[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.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Weepy

(100 secret EXP points to whoever read this all)

Claimed.

I understand your frustration; it has always been much harder for me to enjoy the Championship. I still prefer regionals. Neglecting hiatus years this is my ninth FRC season, and I've been to about twice as many regionals as Championships. I am only now starting to really have a good time at the Championship, and it requires conscious effort to circumvent frustration.

[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.