Lesson Learned: The Negative

[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.

[Phyrxes]

Originally Posted by EricH

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.

I had the same issue, I ended up walking through all of the FRC pits just to create a list of teams and their divisions that I wanted to watch. Thankfully most of the them had very identifiable clothing/bots so I could see when they were queued.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Phyrxes

I had the same issue, I ended up walking through all of the FRC pits just to create a list of teams and their divisions that I wanted to watch. Thankfully most of the them had very identifiable clothing/bots so I could see when they were queued.

I printed off the division lists in advance and highlighted the teams that I wanted to follow and to try to meet. Walking through all the pits on Saturday was so fun, I met so many neat people. The rookies rocked! Total.

Oh wait, this is a negative thread. *drums fingers on desk* - hm... needed: bigger boxes of popcorn for the front row seats. With diet coke.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Phyrxes

I had the same issue, I ended up walking through all of the FRC pits just to create a list of teams and their divisions that I wanted to watch. Thankfully most of the them had very identifiable clothing/bots so I could see when they were queued.

This is FTC I'm talking about (Franklin and Edison). I had the FRC division lists--and spent my webcast time on Galileo because that's where the teams I wanted to see were.

[Phyrxes]

Originally Posted by EricH

This is FTC I'm talking about (Franklin and Edison). I had the FRC division lists--and spent my webcast time on Galileo because that's where the teams I wanted to see were.

Ah, I was there for FTC so I had our division lists handy but not the FRC lists.

[Anne Shade]

Here are a few things I can remember off the top of my head:

1. The awards/finals were way too long!!! (Enough said)

2. It would be nice if the volunteers checking the teams in during load in were actually provided with the proper requirements. We were almost not let in on Wednesday night because we didn't have the "required" student with us. Did I miss something?

3. There was one very rude GWCC employee who yelled at everyone entering the pit each morning. Something about all of us having to stay to the left or she would report our team numbers and get us in trouble. I'm not even sure why we had to walk to the left....

4. There were several stair cases to the club level that were closed prior to the start of the awards/finals. The employees at each all had different information. One told us they would open up the staircase in ten minutes, then didn't. One told us that no one was allowed up in the club level at all. Can everyone have the right information please?

5. At one point the dome employees decided that no one was allowed to bring flag poles onto the dome floor. Where did that rule come from?

6. The walking paths for the drive teams were different than the one released on the map a week prior to the championship. That made for much confusion on Thursday morning.

7. Late inspection start. From what we were told, no inspection sheet had been printed before Thursday morning. It would help the inspectors if teams that are ready could get inspected first thing in the morning. Would reduce the back log on Thursday afternoon.

8. Too many people on the field. I've said this many times before. It looks extremely unprofessional and chaotic to have that many people on the dome floor. There are many people down there who shouldn't be especially during the finals/awards. The dome floor should get cleared prior to the start of the ceremony.

[Kevin Sevcik]

My only real gripe with this season is the insane load that was put on the refs and that they clearly weren't completely capable of shouldering. I think the GDC needs to accept the fact that the majority of our refs are mere humans volunteering a small amount of time to officiate these events. Expecting them to learn the nuances of when a robot is "impeding" or when they are interfering with a hurdle is simply unrealistic. Professional sports refs get to deal with the same rules year in and year out over much more total game play. They still miss calls, and the most often miss judgment calls. The fact that every major league umpire has a different conception of the strike zone, and that it often changes from game to game even for the same umpire, should clue us in to the fact that subjective penalties are pretty much doomed to inconsistency. I'm not saying that all subjective penalties should go. The non-violence penalties should obviously stay, but these should be finalized at this point and set in stone so they are the same from year to year and the refs can at least depend on developing a consistent standard for them. But the GDC should minimize game-specific judgment calls as much as possible. Especially if these calls need to be made on the fly in highly dynamic situations.

Basically, if during the course of the game design process, the GDC feels the need to suggest that Woodie is going to need to warn teams to be patients with the refs because they have even more responsibilities than ever before.... Then they should just stop working on that concept and pick a simpler one with less reliance on fallible humans to penalize teams into playing the game the way the GDC wants it played.