pic: Monty Illuminated

[petek]

loading photo ...

[Kristian Calhoun]

Originally Posted by petek

Too bad they didn't run any matches like this.

There was almost one occasion: They started the match with the lighting on when a couple of us questioned as to whether or not it would throw off the camera values for autonomous mode. This was shortly followed by the infamous field reset sound.

Other than that, the light show was rather nifty.

[Schnabel]

Does anyone have any video/ more pictures for those of us that couldn't go?

[Rohith Surampudi]

The Lighting was part of 3 spectacular Light Shows that Bob Kazan Put together specifically for Monty Madness, The True effect of the shows couldnt be captured on camera, but a few of us tried...

there are a few pics in this album, take a look, you should see quite a few familiar faces

[Joe Matt]

The lights were interesting too say the least...

I would have liked to see a few matches played where they used more of the mood lighting, but the one time they did the reset was when the house lights were turned off, and were then turned back on.

My only complaint with the lights was that they took precident over some of the teams. One time everyone started dancing on the field and they turned the lights off, ignoring the team fixing their robot. A few flashlights and cell phones helped fix it till they turned the lights back on. It would have been nice to have skipped some of the light shows and get back on schedule (we were 90 minutes late at one part.)

I think they should have done the finals with dimmed down house lights with the mood lighting. I don't want to say that it was this totally stupid, but this is cool idea that needs to be worked out more...

[robostangs548]

That looks like a good time.

[zc923]

Originally Posted by Joe Matt

My only complaint with the lights was that they took precident over some of the teams. One time everyone started dancing on the field and they turned the lights off, ignoring the team fixing their robot. A few flashlights and cell phones helped fix it till they turned the lights back on. It would have been nice to have skipped some of the light shows and get back on schedule (we were 90 minutes late at one part.)

Just to clarify some things, there were only 3 light shows that were programmed, the others were on the fly, put to the music for the dances.

The lights were intended to keep the audience entertained, as well as lighten the mood among strong competitors.

The specific incident you are talking about, I believe a team was working on their robot on the field while the dance party was going on. It was very difficult for the organizers on the other side of the field to see what was going on. It was a case of misunderstanding and miscommunication. Had they been informed that a team was working on their robot, they would not have turned off the lights. To be fair, the refs allowed more time to the team to compensate for the light issue.

We hope they understand that everything was done in good spirit and not with the intention to cause harm to any team.

[Rich Ross]

Ever since seeing the lighting at the Championship Event this year, i've thought of a cool little trick for an offseason. What if someone had lights set up with a switch such that the color of the field synchronizes with the score on the rack. what im saying is basically:

Red with more rack points: Red field
Blue with more Rack points: Blue field

I think this would make the spectator interest in the game increase

[mtaman02]

you couldn't have any more light combos then what they had at monty, though they they had 3 shows and also put them on for dance music. I would have liked to see a couple more strobes with a dedicated light pointed at the home zone (for teams to work w/o hearing too many complaints of it being dark). Bob was so creative that he even integrated the green lights on the rack into all the shows and dance songs.

[Elgin Clock]

I have video of the first 2 times they did the light show I'll upload and link here later tonight.

I missed the Wizards in Winter show cause we were out getting lunch at one of a bajillion diners in NJ.*


Why the heck does NJ have so many darn diners?

[kazand]

Originally Posted by Kristian Calhoun

There was almost one occasion: They started the match with the lighting on when a couple of us questioned as to whether or not it would throw off the camera values for autonomous mode. This was shortly followed by the infamous field reset sound.

Other than that, the light show was rather nifty.

This was a bit a paradox since we had determined before the competition that the only lights that would possibly throw off the camera values were when the gymnasium overhead lights were on. The robot mounted cameras did not see any of the LED lighting on the field (including the green LEDs when on).

[kazand]

Originally Posted by Joe Matt

The lights were interesting too say the least...

... My only complaint with the lights was that they took precident over some of the teams. One time everyone started dancing on the field and they turned the lights off, ignoring the team fixing their robot. A few flashlights and cell phones helped fix it till they turned the lights back on. It would have been nice to have skipped some of the light shows and get back on schedule (we were 90 minutes late at one part.)...

Actually, there are a few misunderstandings in this quote above:

• First, the organizers did not have direct control over the overhead lighting but the custodial staff did. Unfortunately, they had a tendency to misunderstand the cues for turning on and off the lights. No one told them to shut off the lights during the "dance sequence / robot fix" sequence - they merely misunderstood. To imply that we were doing anything other than to get the lights turned back on quickly during the fixing of the robot would be a great disservice to our efforts.

• Second, Monty Madness was not really behind schedule despite some of the posts to the contrary. The schedule was the one printed in the program, not the match listing, and it was designed to be extremely "buffered" with quite a bit of leeway. Alliance Selection was designed to be the pivot point of the schedule and was the target all day long. In fact, we ended Alliance Selection within just a few minutes of the stated times on the agenda. We would have been a half hour ahead of schedule, but four teams hadn't arrived yet when the matches were supposed to begin early in the morning. But since we had the agenda buffer, this delay didn't really impact us. The end of the day went long due to a longer than expected set of elimination matches. Perhaps we should have listed the end time as later to account for the competitiveness of the matches and the use of time outs.

By the way, the three light shows took only a total of eight minutes.

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by kazand

Actually, there are a few misunderstandings in this quote above:

• First, the organizers did not have direct control over the overhead lighting but the custodial staff did. Unfortunately, they had a tendency to misunderstand the cues for turning on and off the lights. No one told them to shut off the lights during the "dance sequence / robot fix" sequence - they merely misunderstood. To imply that we were doing anything other than to get the lights turned back on quickly during the fixing of the robot would be a great disservice to our efforts.

• Second, Monty Madness was not really behind schedule despite some of the posts to the contrary. The schedule was the one printed in the program, not the match listing, and it was designed to be extremely "buffered" with quite a bit of leeway. Alliance Selection was designed to be the pivot point of the schedule and was the target all day long. In fact, we ended Alliance Selection within just a few minutes of the stated times on the agenda. We would have been a half hour ahead of schedule, but four teams hadn't arrived yet when the matches were supposed to begin early in the morning. But since we had the agenda buffer, this delay didn't really impact us. The end of the day went long due to a longer than expected set of elimination matches. Perhaps we should have listed the end time as later to account for the competitiveness of the matches and the use of time outs.

By the way, the three light shows took only a total of eight minutes.

Thanks for the clarificaton. Again I don't mean to be a jerk, but instead looking for areas of improvement. I love MM, I only want it to be the best off-season out there. The times I asked/heard about the schedule I always heard that we were behind schedule, and was basing my judement on that.

Again, the lighting was great and cool, but I just wanted to point out some issues I found with it. While the shows combined only took 8 minutes, the additional downtime of getting people away and then brining the lights back up was my only complaint and I should have noted that more in the origional post.

Again, this is the best off season in the land and I love this off season, I only want the best for it, I'm not trying to smash it for anything. For these small issues I found that it had no technical glitches, great crowd controll, and some great matches.

[kazand]

Originally Posted by Joe Matt

Thanks for the clarificaton. Again I don't mean to be a jerk, but instead looking for areas of improvement. I love MM, I only want it to be the best off-season out there. The times I asked/heard about the schedule I always heard that we were behind schedule, and was basing my judement on that...

Okay, I got you there, but what you heard was quite inaccurate. There were plenty (yes, plenty) of places for improvement during the event, but you hit upon areas where we actually did well. Team players would be more gracious, humble and would not defend bad posts.