Hits, Misses, & Suggestions -- long message

[archiver]

Posted by Justin.

Other on team Blue Lightning Alumni Association from RWU sponsored by FIRST-A-holics Anonymous.

Posted on 8/16/2000 12:29 PM MST


In Reply to: Hits, Misses, & Suggestions -- long message posted by Joe Johnson on 8/16/2000 9:49 AM MST:



: I have compiled a lit of hits, misses & suggestions in advance of the upcoming Team Forum at FIRST.

: If you have a bit of time, you may want to read through it. Comments are definitely welcome.

: Joe J.

: Hits & Misses & Suggestions

: Hits:

:
: ¨ Opening up of material lists - Aluminum tube/extrusion
: ¨ Opening up of material lists - sprockets, gears, chain, pulleys
: ¨ Innovation First control systems
: ¨ The Dual Ported Field (one group plays, one group sets up)
: ¨ Theatrical Lighting & Staging at Midwest Venue (viewing on 3 sides, black backdrop, excellent lighting & projection TV) - most excellently done
: ¨ Rotating Beacons
: ¨ The indoor arenas at WDW (with the exception of too little seating)
: ¨ Crowd control at indoor arenas (after first day)
: ¨ No reaction against the goal rule - great!
: ¨ No touching balls if you want them to count rule - great!
: ¨ Pits at WDW - WOW!
: ¨ Keeping to the schedule.
: ¨ Rules & updates via web
: ¨ Not making spare parts during the ship time was a double-edged sword. We loved having the time to just relax (what else could we do?) but we hated not having the ability to make a part that we KNEW we would need but could not make at a competition.


: Misses:
: ¨ Not enough time given to picking teams to debate & decide on picks - 6 weeks + a season of events boils down to a dart thrown at the last minute because not enough time was given to teams to decide. This is a very important decision. Please give more time to teams (at LEAST one hour after FINAL qualifying match)
: ¨ Not enough recognition for Chairman's Award teams - too few levels of recognition - See 'Dean's List' suggestion
: ¨ Still too hot on open stage at Nationals
: ¨ Nationals TOO BIG nobody knew what was going on
: ¨ Elimination Rounds Totally different game than qualifiers - skills needed in one may have never been shown in the other
: ¨ Confusing scoring (better but still weird - especially in qualifying rounds - not good for untrained audience, i.e. TV cameras)
: ¨ Still not enough recognition for the teams that are National Champions and National Runners up. While it was better this year than last, with a ceremony and other trappings, it was still a far cry from the celebration that is due to such a fantastic accomplishment. We get what we celebrate. We should celebrate the tourney winners more by letting them get their metals onstage in front of the whole audience.
: ¨ Joysticks - improve model with better return to zero properties.
: ¨ Dead zone in middle range of Victor output. KILLER for feedback loops… makes smooth robot operation more difficult.
: ¨ Pneumatics - The tanks were a good idea, poorly executed, too late in arriving, still too heavy for the power stored. Needs more work. Perhaps consider a weight bonus if pneumatics are used?
: ¨ Not sufficient definition of bumper - scrap it or improve the definition.
: ¨ Rules were insufficient to prevent 'boring' finals at times - Perhaps strengthen the 'illegal defense' rules (e.g. in addition to an anti-pinning rule, consider some sort of 3 second rule for defensive robots in some zone marked on the field)
: ¨ Too little seating at the indoor fields at WDW
: ¨ Poor crowd control at indoor fields at WDW (only first day of competition)
: ¨ Nationals were too big. If FIRST still wants to have a huge event, 'Regionalize' teams. See suggestion below.
: ¨ Not getting your robot for 2 days but being allowed to make or improve replacement mechanisms was very hard on teams. Please allow us to have our robots back after the regionals.

:
: Suggestions:

: ¨ Establish a 'Dean's List' of recognized Chairman's Award efforts, top XX% of teams (e.g. 10%). Still give out the Chairman's Award and the Chairman's Award Finalists, but publish this list as well.
: ¨ Need a method to measure wheel speed (for at least two wheels) in control program
: ¨ Need a method to measure current used by various motors in control program
: ¨ Need a method to measure temperature (of motors mostly) in control program
: ¨ Need a better main fusing scheme - nuisance trips of 60 Amp fuse. 80 Amp circuit breaker? Could be used as an ON/OFF switch.
: ¨ Teams should always be allowed to wire a fuse or circuit breaker that trips at a lower current value in series with (or perhaps even instead of) the required fuse or circuit breaker. This would allow, for instance, using a 20 amp breaker with the Fisher-Price motors which I am told can offer the motors some protection against an aggressive driver in the heat of the battle. It would also allow teams to put a self-resetting breaker in series with the main 60 amp fuse to prevent the fuse from blowing.
: ¨ Open up material list to include steel tubing & steel shafting (up to 2 inch diameter)
: ¨ Open up material list to include wheels (any type - including swiveling casters) - would vastly increase the differences in appearance from one robot to another.
: ¨ Open up material list to include bearings & bushings (any type). This is another step in the right direction. Bearings and bushings are not expensive from hardware stores, the supply from Small parts is somewhat limiting (especially in the flanged ball bearing department - there are none).
: ¨ Open up the wiring material list to allow any kind of fully shielded connector with the proper amperage rating. This would have made our lives a lot easier in some cases. Again, this is a step in the right direction.
: ¨ Open up the materials list to include plate steel & plate aluminum of up to ½ inch thick.
: ¨ Open up the material list to include any plywood up to 1 inch thick.
: ¨ Open up the material list to include any sheet plastic up to ¼ inch thick.
: ¨ Require teams to use number tape on all wiring, motors, Victors, Spikes, pots, etc. Requiring a wiring schematic would be a good idea too.
: ¨ Allow teams to buy more drill motors & transmissions as desired (up a limit if desired). The drill motor is a real workhorse. The transmission is a tough worker too once one learns to love its little idiosyncrasies. The motors & drills are not THAT expensive only about $50 for the pair, not including the housings. By the way, using the housings to hold the drill and motor looks like a slam dunk, but turns out not to be such an easy basket once you actually get into the details of things - I recommend against even including them in the kit. But allowing teams to buy more of the drills and transmissions would be a great addition for serious robot builders everywhere.
: ¨ Allow teams to make their own custom sensor circuits by opening up electrical material list to include a protoboard of XX by YY inches, CMOS Family chips, passive components, and wire. Interface through Analog Sensor inputs or Digital Sensor inputs.
: ¨ Publish the total scores of all matches via the web (pseudo live if possible); not just from Elimination Rounds but from ALL matches. This will allow a type of statistic keeping and data analysis that Baseball, Basketball & Football keep. Best Offense, Best Defense, Winning percentage, etc. FIRST does not have to keep the stats, just publish the raw data. Wacko's like us will tease out & publish the data ;-) This is easily done & will help FIRST to grow. By the way, this is another thing to do to keep up interest during the down times between the ship date & a regional and between a regional and the nationals.
: ¨ Make the Nationals Invitation Only (200 teams max, less is better)
: ¨ Publish team names & team numbers in a useable format (Excel, tab delimited, etc.). This will save teams a lot of typing. Consider publishing addresses & contact information as well (assuming privacy issues can be resolved).
: ¨ 'Regionalize' the Nationals (see attached)
: ¨ Make official use of robo-cams - allow for exciting TV views on screen views

: The Case For 'Regionalizing' teams at the Nationals.

: Consider the following:
: When teams arrive at the Nationals they would be randomly divided into 4 groups - perhaps named for regions of the country (e.g. N, S, E, W) sponsors (e.g. Delphi, Baxter, NASA, DiamlerChysler) or for scientists (e.g. Newton, Einstien, Currie, Edison) or for Atoms (Helium, Boron, Nitrogen, Oxygen) or for Disney characters (Mickey, Goofy, Pocahontas, Tarzan) or whatever.

: Each group would play all its qualifying matches against teams in its group. Each group would have its own picking teams that can only pick from within their group. Each group would have their own elimination rounds and crown their own Championship Alliance. Each Group Champion would go on to the FINAL FOUR.

: The FINAL FOUR would be on the MAIN STAGE with everyone present. AT THE AWARD CEREMONY!!!! Why not? We are only talking about 12 teams here and a MAXIMUM of 9 matches. This would be AWESOME! This would be much better entertainment than Disney could provide. I would really love to see this happen. 15,000 fans all watching the finals! Worthy worthy worthy.

: I believe teams would gladly give up a seeding round to make room in the schedule to allow this to happen: The qualifying matches could end on Friday night. Picking would begin the first thing on Sat. morning with the Elimination Rounds immediately following. Note: with 4 groups and 16 qualifying alliances per group almost 50% of the teams to play in the Elimination Rounds even with 400 teams at the Nationals.

: One more positive benefit would be that teams are more likely to KNOW who the good teams are in their group. This will allow teams to scout more effectively, which is impossible with 400 teams, and to pick the best teams to go forward into the Elimination Tourney.

: Beyond even this, the seeding rounds are more likely to produce more accurate seedings within each group because seeding accuracy is determined by the ratio of seeding rounds to number of teams in the seeding group. By cutting the seeding group to ¼ the size the seeding becomes, statistically, 4 times better (for a given number of seeding rounds).

: The only down side to the as far as I am concerned is that one group might be 'stacked' with good teams by accident. This is really no different than the current 'luck of the draw' teams face. Teams are either lucky or unlucky in the seeding rounds based on whom they happen to be seeded with or against. At least in the 'regionalized' proposal, unluckily seeded teams would have a fighting chance of getting noticed by one of the picking teams, while they are more likely to go unnoticed in a field of 400.

: One final advantage is that it would make a very dramatic, made for TV event of the Final Four.

: I strongly urge FIRST to consider this proposal.

: Side proposal for Regionalization:

: Have a drawing on Thursday night to establish the groupings for Friday. Use a large 'lotto' type barrel with the numbers of each team on the balls. As the balls come out, each team's name & number would be announced along with its group for the Nationals. The announcement would continue until all teams are grouped.

: This drawing could take place on the big stage with all the trappings: lights, cameras, big screen TV, etc. Teams would sit in the stands to see who is in and, perhaps just as important, who is NOT in their group.

: If done correctly, this could be another high drama moment for FIRST participants.

: