Rookie Team impressions from Kettering

[Swan217]

Originally Posted by John Hooper

Being a rookie, all I know is what I was told. This problem was with the arena electronics not being able to communicate with all of the robots. At first, some robots could not be shut down, then some of them in certain positions could not move at all.

If this is a common problem, I am surprised they don't bring backup systems. Rock stars don't stop concerts for a few hours to fiddle around with their sound systems.

The problem was with the transmitters. They do pack extra transmitters, but there was only one spare left for this event and two transmitters failed. The FTA (official FIRST Tech guru) was trying to fix the system instead of work around it. This is not a common occurence and is usually resolved within an hour. In this case we had to get spare transmitters shipped next-day to fix the system (delivered during lunch Saturday), so when the Qualifying matches commenced, they were on a jury-rigged system.

Seperately, the inspectors mentioned that most teams were glad for the shutdown, because though it was boring for the spectators, the pit crews used this valuable time to greatly upgrade their robots, which resulted in a more exciting competition than what would've happened otherwise. Just a point that a waste of time for some was very valuable to others.

Originally Posted by John Hooper

Yata Yata Penalty criticism

The result of all of the penalties being called was more disciplined drivers. As the competition went on, the referees threw fewer and fewer penalties (The finals didn't have any penalties thrown). It's a learning curve that teams work through, and this group of very green teams performed spectacularly in handling the learning curve and other challanges the game presented.

These rookie teams ran the spectrum from decent to spectacular. The rookie hurdlers made for a very exciting elimination round. I think this is the first regional where I can honestly say that there wasn't one useless team. Every team did what it was designed to do very well and efficiently. There weren't any lame ducks on this pond. These teams performed better than many veteran teams that I see.

Originally Posted by dlavery

Apparently, you were not in Portland a few years ago.

I wasn't there, but I saw the webcast and recall two Portlands that had massive delays (one was '04, I think the other was '06). This delay was much worse. At least Mark Leon could keep the crowd somewhat engaged during the shutdown.