2008 Championships Webcast

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by Bongle

I think they should stick a small camera on the BAE systems blimp that I just saw floating around inside. It probably has the payload capability.

They have cameras on them (or at least available), they are RPI's blimps, they ran into range and interference problems with the cameras in Manchester

[flyingcrayons]

cnn is doing a live broadcast right now on their site!

[yara92]

First of all Good luck to all teams, this year I pepare my self with my team to be in Atlanta, so I wish to all teams good luck, and we'll see you in webcast, anyone can send me webcast so I can watch the Championships.
Mohamed
Israel team 1946

[Bongle]

Originally Posted by yara92

First of all Good luck to all teams, this year I pepare my self with my team to be in Atlanta, so I wish to all teams good luck, and we'll see you in webcast, anyone can send me webcast so I can watch the Championships.
Mohamed
Israel team 1946

You can find the webcast[s] here: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/robotics/

[yara92]

I try many time I recived this masage "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage"

[JamesBrown]

Try http://gameday.soap108.com/

[Bongle]

Originally Posted by yara92

I try many time I recived this masage "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage"

Right click on the link, choose copy link location
Go to media player, do open URL (or open file), paste it in (ctrl-v)
Press open.

That should work.

[basicxman]

for FTC:
is it just me or did "i say thomas you say edison" get really annoying and old really fast?

[Mr. Lim]

Originally Posted by basicxman

for FTC:
is it just me or did "i say thomas you say edison" get really annoying and old really fast?

Andy,

I normally don't comment on things like this because, announcers and MCs are volunteers, they are trying their best, they are all awesome people who are doing something they love. And yes, I would be the first to applaud and pat them on the back for volunteering their time to do this. It is a very difficult job, and I would hesitate to say that I could ever do better.

But, to tell it like it is, there were more than a few moments that I flipped from the FTC field because... well... I was annoyed.

They need to fill time, yes. But the next level for announcing in both FTC AND FRC is to give us more than just FIRST's rendition of MARCO-POLO for 5 minutes.

Tell us about the teams. What are their histories, where have they met before. Why do they love/hate each other? "Every match has a story" - tell it to us.

Call out the team that fought for 20 seconds to try and place TWO measly 5 point rings and failed - all while the entire time a goal right beside could've been nudged into the their zone for a 14 point swing. It was a stupid move, point it out, explain why.

Applaud the team that did nothing but grasp the double goal and shake it violently. They won their alliance a TON of matches, but how? Explain it to me.

Tells us that alliances that pushed the double goals deep in their own zone won almost every match.

Point out when teams fail to do this, when they had perfectly good opportunities to.

They need to add PERSPECTIVE, and it's impossible to do when you do nothing but applaud "good" play, but never admonish mistakes.

Having been an FRC coach on the field, I can personally say I've messed up plenty of times. If an MC or announcer called us out on it, I couldn't be happier. I would take no offense. We messed up - go ahead and point it out for all to see. Point it out for me to see, because maybe I never caught it. If anything, it's more motivation to never mess up again.

But would other teams be okay with this? Because I honestly think it would make all our webcasts and competitions far more entertaining.

[basicxman]

sorry, i really appreciate all the volunteers and what they do i just found it funny that on the webcast they were like you say thomas i say edison but then there was some silence quite a bit of the time

[yara92]

Originally Posted by Bongle

Right click on the link, choose copy link location
Go to media player, do open URL (or open file), paste it in (ctrl-v)
Press open.

That should work.

thanks it is working we have 6 hours more
mohamed

[Steve W]

Shawn I am surprised that you don't understand what announcers try to do. We call the match as we see it and try positive input on all teams. I for one would never call out a team unless it was my own, which I have done, and even then I got spoken to. Positive reinforcement is what FIRST wants and what most teams want and like. As announcers we enjoy the job but it is very taxing. Making sure that you don't give away strategies, tell teams how to play, speak about every team as evenly as possible and make the game exciting. We try to do this all in 2:15 and then we start all over with new teams.

Yes there are announcers that are annoying. Sometimes we get in a place that we don't want to repeat things but we do. We try but we are human.

[Swan217]

Originally Posted by Steve W

Shawn I am surprised that you don't understand what announcers try to do. We call the match as we see it and try positive input on all teams. I for one would never call out a team unless it was my own, which I have done, and even then I got spoken to. Positive reinforcement is what FIRST wants and what most teams want and like. As announcers we enjoy the job but it is very taxing. Making sure that you don't give away strategies, tell teams how to play, speak about every team as evenly as possible and make the game exciting. We try to do this all in 2:15 and then we start all over with new teams.

Yes there are announcers that are annoying. Sometimes we get in a place that we don't want to repeat things but we do. We try but we are human.

While I do not agree with putting down teams for mistakes they make,
I do think that good and bad strategies in general should be pointed out. Good announcers should of course "give away" the strategies of the game - that lets the average unobservant spectator get a better understanding of how the game is played besides running around in circles. No team has a "trademark" on strategy - it's being laid out for everyone to see.

I wish at the rookie regional in Flint that the announcer would've been observant enough to point out that knocking your own trackball off the overpass with 10 sec to go is a "bad" strategy, while "blocking" opponents trackballs was a good strategy. You can point out fairly obvious strategies without being condescending, such as some that Sean points out:

Originally Posted by Dodgeball

"Well the Average Joe's only have 4 players, seems like they're going to have to forfeit"
"An interesting strategy Cotton, let's see how it works out"

The way I see it - I reject and denounce announcers that say catchphrases and play Marco Polo with the crowd over and over again. It doesn't take much creativity and is lazy announcing. If you want to get the crowd into it, try something new. I prefer Dan Green Mad Libs myself. I also like Verbrugge's Stats. I also like Leon's..... um.... whatever you call what he does.

Also, I find that when I'm not trying to pull a Copioli and try to be an announcer AND pitcrew at the same time, AND also try to be a team coach and argue with the refs, it's a lot more enjoyable of a job. (Maybe why I only do Lego League )

[Freddy Schurr]

When does Einstein start?

[Tim Delles]

Woodie is up now