Lesson Learned: The Negative

[Amanda Morrison]

Originally Posted by Joe Matt

[/list]I think this is an easy thing to fix. Most people by then are hungry, tired, and want to get out of the seats. Why not move the giving of metals to teams at the wrap party right before the fireworks? Right there up on stage, with banners and trophies, then everyone can scream "GO FIRST!" and the fireworks will begin. Get Dean, Woodie, and everyone up on stage for it too.

Joe,

I don't believe any of the three teams on our alliance went to the wrap party. I know one team had dinner reservations and our team literally grabbed the medals and hopped on the bus due to arrangements already made with the coach company months in advance. We certainly did not expect to be on Einstein, much less to win, so to spring this on next year's teams may prove to be just as unsuccessful as it was for us this year.

I do think it's easy to fix, too - but I think the problem lies in the planning and length of the closing ceremonies/finals rather than in where the teams can be recognized.

I hope this is something FIRST will consider.

[Bongle]

This may not be possible for a lower-cost program like FTC, but having schedules and results online would make for a VAST improvement. I had a team I was trying to watch, but I had zero information about when they'd be on. I didn't even know approximately how long the gap would be between their matches. In fact, I didn't even know how many matches they'd be playing. It really hurts the spectator friendliness of the program if you can't find out basic info like that.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Lavapicker

4. The Finals this year went WAY too long in Atlanta...I know bots need time to get back in shape but we started with only 3 matches in one in a half hours! Half hour between matches....cmon...less talk please, please!

Possibly the second-funniest moment of the entire weekend (surpassed only by President Bush's "FIRST is like WWF ... but for smart people!" line) was when Woodie was opening up the Einstein field and introducing the activities for the afternoon. He started with the line "the 2008 FIRST competition season will be completed in just two short hours." I just started laughing and laughing...

-dave




.

[OScubed]

Regarding the wrap party: I think the idea of forcing everyone through a 5 foot wide hole as the only entrance to the park was both dangerous and silly. Of course thousands of people are going to show up - have at least a couple entrances for people into the olympic park so that you don't end up with a crush of people.

[OScubed]

Originally Posted by Joe Matt

[/list]I think this is an easy thing to fix. Most people by then are hungry, tired, and want to get out of the seats. Why not move the giving of metals to teams at the wrap party right before the fireworks? Right there up on stage, with banners and trophies, then everyone can scream "GO FIRST!" and the fireworks will begin. Get Dean, Woodie, and everyone up on stage for it too.

Excellent idea. I agree that being able to step on stage and receive a medal is a great moment, not to be underemphasized. I also agree that getting hungry kids to food should take precedence over pomp and circumstance.... This idea sounds like it satisfies both needs.

I love Dean but he could have said what he came to say in about 1/2 the words. He definitely needs an editor on his speeches....

[OScubed]

One final thing. Again - THE SOUND WAS TOO LOUD (yes I'm shouting - probably because I'm still deaf). You had to have earplugs in to even survive the noise, the sound was SO LOUD that it drowned out the cheering - this just discourages team spirit - what's the point of cheering if no one can hear you. I have NO OBJECTION to cranking the occasional tune, but - like at the Philly Regional - the sound was loud enough that you could not hear people yelling to you 5 feet away - OSHA deems sustained volumes of that sort as dangerous. I didn't even TRY to talk to the FIRST crew about it - they should have gotten the message from previous postings on the subject.

[James1902]

When I first saw this year game I was very underwhelmed. Since then it's grown on me some and i've come to appreciate it, however i'm not that bummed to see it go. Mostly becuase, even though there were many ways to score in the game there was much less stratagy involved then in previous games. For example in 07 there were alot of different approches to how you placed tubes on the rack, where to place them, where to put spoilers, when to play spoilers, it just seemed like it was much more of a thinking game.

The only rule that bothered me a little was R16.(the 80 inch rule) It just seemed like it was a very hard rule to call and alot of events I didn't notice any calls of it at all. It seemed to me that because of this the rule was overlooked.

Please don't think I am mad or upset about this year, it's probably been one of my favorite years involved in FIRST. These are just some things I have been noticeing.

[Kirk]

Once division finals were over for some reason all the lights in the dome were shut off. For the remaining 12 teams that went to Einstein we had to do all our repairs, system checks and match preparation in complete darkness. Fortunately we had a few people with headlights and flashlights but regardless it was still very unsafe and made it very difficult to fix any problems in a timely manor.

Another problem we had was by the time we got our pit cleaned up, tools packed and all the stuff back to our van our kids had about 40 min to enjoy the Finale (basically all they saw were the fireworks). This is the second time in the last two years that we have been to Championships that this has happened (both times we were on Einstein). I don't understand why we can't have the finale on Friday when all regionals have their parties. On Friday competition ends at 6pm which gives plenty of time and the students aren't exhausted from another day of competition especially the teams in finals. When people pay for something year after year and are not able to attend and enjoy it its kind of discouraging.

As for the volume of the speakers, I noticed someone from one of the teams with a dB meter going around the event recording volume levels. I don't know if anything came of this but when we asked our drive team to have the FTA turn down the volume they promptly did the next time our team was on the field. I do however agree that there needs to be something done about setting up the sound system. They need to setup the speakers so that the people in the front do not have to go deaf to so that the people in the back can hear.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Bongle

This may not be possible for a lower-cost program like FTC, but having schedules and results online would make for a VAST improvement. I had a team I was trying to watch, but I had zero information about when they'd be on. I didn't even know approximately how long the gap would be between their matches. In fact, I didn't even know how many matches they'd be playing. It really hurts the spectator friendliness of the program if you can't find out basic info like that.

I'm with you there. I was hoping to watch one particular team. I didn't even know which DIVISION they were in, let alone when they were up.

[DUCKIE]

FIRST needs to modify the Championship schedule.

There are a number of things that could be done. Ideas I think with the most possibility include moving wrap party to Fri. evening and running as late as needed on Saturday.

or

Uncrate Wed. Morning and move Practice Matches to Wed. afternoon and early Thurs. so division finals can begin earlier on Sat., which would move up Awards and Finals on Einstein and leave time for enjoying the wrap party Sat. night.

These are just a couple of the other things I noticed this year that could use improvement...

• Poor Welding / Little Reinforcement on Mounting Plates for Center Wall. If a part of the field is going to be hit by robots it needs to be more robust and sturdy. We countersunk Nuts and Bolts into the Field that arrived broken to Drexel, and had no more problems with that field.
• Commercials. Was anyone else saddened that they've invaded championships?
• Cutting Screen Feeds to FTC (who already had their opening ceremonies) for FRC opening ceremonies.
• Few field reset-ers. At one point I was the only one on my field randomizing trackballs... and I'm kinda short so I'm sure a few people got some laughs off that. Best part was that some other alumni who had been working FTC who went to volunteer for field reset and were turned away because they "had enough people".
• Bottleneck at entrance to party unsafe and poorly planned. Need more than 2 people checking for wristbands.
• Dome workers not opening 2nd level in a timely manner. It's not like sitting up there for awards is a new thing, FIRST and Production company should have made sure this was ready way before awards started.
• Too many awards between each match on Einstein. Drivers ended up just sitting there waiting. Getting matches done should take precedence so we do not have to sit through later mandatory cool-down periods with out the welcome distraction of awards. If the matches end before awards... great!... we can finish the rest of awards after the final match.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Kirk

As for the volume of the speakers, I noticed someone from one of the teams with a dB meter going around the event recording volume levels.

We had two of our EHS members collecting sound data. We did not have have as much instrumentation as we would like to have had and didn't get as much data as we would have liked but we did collect some pretty good data.

One interesting outcome is Dean Kamen's initial clap loudness is twice that of every other clap event, at 103 dbA

some data is here: http://www.kellrobotics.org/files/Sound_2008.pdf

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by EricH

Really. I don't recall anyone saying this was no-contact, no-defense. Not even the GDC.

Now, about the ref training--So you want last year's Curie-Einstein difference? At least they were pretty consistent. Pinning is legal for up to 6 seconds, so I don't see what's up there, unless it wasn't called after 6 seconds.

I was very disappointed that the refs on Einstein called outside the bumper zone penalties against bots that were constantly pinned against a wall. The contact appeared unintended after watching replays and I doubt it could have been avoided. There were also pins where the defensive bot would back up 2-3 feet only to go right back in to pin without an impeding penalty. This happened to any bot, including the slow hurdlers like us.

I also had a huge problem with the announcer saying "N robot assessed 2 penalties for outside the bumper zone contact and 2 G37 penalties". Aren't those the same rules? <G37> encompasses a alot of situations, isn't it possible to be more specific? Who in their right mind knows what a G37 penalty is?

[hallk]

I think that the inspectors should have some sort of training like the refs do. I inspected at 3 regionals and all of them had slightly different rulings which was frustrating.
I would also like to see the game animation displayed at the competition more frequently. This is an easy way to explain the game to visitors and it might be nice to have to playing by the VIP/volunteer check-in table.
I didn't like how some of the traditional FIRST songs, example "Thunderstruck", were no longer allowed to be played (even though they sometimes were).

[DUCKIE]

FIRST has always been safety concious. Requiring eye protection in the pits and on the fields for all students, visitors, and crew. More so in the last couple years with the addition of the Safety Captains, Safety Awards, and Safety Judges.

Why do they not enforce it with the official photographers then?

It seems like they need safety glasses the most... (I don't know about you, but I've never met a blind photograher)... along with hard hats. There was one lady this year who stood closer to the field than the refs (nearly getting hit by a couple robots that she did not see because she was looking through her camera at the other end of the field). When some of us on crew mentioned that she should be wearing safety glasses that close to the field she blew us off rudely. She also kept going into the player stations during matches (which I know some of them were not expecting), and even onto the field after a match before the head ref. cleared anyone to enter the field. One of the robots was even still moving when she hopped the gate.

The fact that FIRST did not enforce safety rules with people they actually pay to represent them makes me question what the message is that they are trying to send to the students... who were also out there with media passes taking pictures of their teams.

[casualobserver]

I found that a disappointing aspect of the competition this year was the lack of enforcement of certain rules. In particular, the 80" rule, perhaps the biggest constraint this year in design was rarely enforced throughout the competition. Teams were occasionally penalized when they fell over and ended up being far out of the limit, however some designs were, when functioning normally, outside this limit. The fact that a yellow sticker was placed on the inspection tag, alerting the refs to the fact that the robot was capable of extending past the 80" was not enough. Rules like this, which are designed to specifically create a difficult design constraint (and thus make the game more complex and challenging) should be enforced on the highest order, as they are in essences why we play the game. No one expects to get away with a 140 pound robot that has a 40"X50" base. However, once the match starts, it seems that this concern for playing the game the way it was designed is lost. A team whose robot was ~87" long by diagonal measurement during normal (not fallen-over) game play, was never once penalized during a match. This leads to a more general disappointment in FIRST.

If/when such things happen, teams who are aware of this are put in a strange situation. Is it GP to report a rule violation by another team? Is there a way to do so that is GP, as well as officially acceptable? Can it be done efficiently? How will it affect the other team? Such questions are raised which have no real answer in the FIRST community/competition. An exception, Team 190 (Team 190 Legality Thread). Their robot had a unique hurdling technique which eventually was determined to be illegal after 2 regionals of acceptable play. There was a discussion on CD about their design and legality and it was all handled with care and professionalism. However, this is not usually the case, and a fear often arises that silences teams because they may be 'black-listed', if you will, for reporting these types of things. I feel it is FIRST's responsibility to design a system where a team can raise a legitimate concern about another team's robot without fear of any tarnish on their reputation. Centrally, it calls the question, "Is it alright to not report cheating?" No one wants to be the team that is always telling on other teams, but it is simply not fair to teams who took into consideration all of the rules when designing their robot.
On that note, those are my 2 cents, take them as you will. The season was otherwise great! I look forward to next year's game, and to a time when such situations will be resolved in a gracious and professional manner.