Championship 2008 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please

[Karthik]

Overall I thought this year's Championship was a rousing success on the organizational side. Considering the damage from the tornado, I was not expecting things to run so smoothly. This a testament to all the amazing people who work to put this event together for us.

Also, the dome and GWCC staff were amazing. They were all incredibly kind, saying hello and good luck to me each morning. Southern hospitality is alive and strong. It made the event that much more enjoyable.

Some things I loved:

- The confetti and streamers after the final match on Einstein, accompanied by we are the champions. This is a moment I'll never forget for the rest of my life, it gave the competition a true sense of importance and legitimacy. It felt like we had just won the Super Bowl or World Series. This needs to stay.

- Giving the Chairman's Award winners the proper level of respect. The award may have been too early in the ceremony, but it did ensure that no one left before the announcement. Also, the seating on the main stage was a nice touch.

- The concessions in the pits. This was a great idea, and made life easier for all teams.

A few things that I'd like to see changed:

- The seat saving rules need to be enforced. We saw a single student walk into the dome and put tape around 30 seats. That's just ridiculous. If your team wants 30 seats together, have 30 people show up at the dome and sit in those seats. Blocking off groups of seats like that is incredibly frustrating for all teams.

- It would be nice if there was someone to clear the aisles in the seating at the dome. Too often there would be people sitting in the aisle, blocking the entire stairway. This is not only an inconvenience, but a major safety hazard.

- Keep a few of the staircases between the stands and the field open. It allows driveteam members to pop into the stands after a match, without having to go all the way around. They did this by the Vex fields, but nowhere else.

- Better signage between the pits and the fields. Maybe I'm just a moron, but I was completely lost the first few times I tried making the trek between the dome and the various pit buildings.

- Thursday morning load-in. It was chaotic and borderline dangerous. I saw numerous incidents of batteries and other heavy objects falling off of carts, pushing and shoving to get in the doors, and many other unsafe practices. We need to either let teams bring in more stuff on Wednesday night, or find a way to open another set of doors on Thursday morning to help alleviate the bottleneck.

I can't wait for 2009 to see how they manage to top the amazing show that was the 2008 World Championship.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

As near as I could tell, there are NO drinking fountains in the Georgia Dome. At least I couldn't find one.

Law number one of drinking fountain location: Look near a restroom. I know on the main level, there's at least one, around the corner from a restroom. I think there are many more. They just hide them with food carts.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

As near as I could tell, there are NO drinking fountains in the Georgia Dome. At least I couldn't find one.

Around the corner from most bathrooms. Sometimes partially hidden by portable vending booths, but they are there.

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by EricH

Law number one of drinking fountain location: Look near a restroom. I know on the main level, there's at least one, around the corner from a restroom. I think there are many more. They just hide them with food carts.

Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs, boy . I *did* look near the bathrooms, I just didn't think to walk around into unused tunnels behind food vendors to look for drinking fountains. Normal architecture is to put them in front of and near the entrance to restrooms. Perhaps this was marketing -- follow building code rules by having drinking fountains, but make them impossible to find so that people keep spending $25 a gallon on bottled water. That, my friend, is capitalism in action!

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Around the corner from most bathrooms. Sometimes partially hidden by portable vending booths, but they are there.

Ah heck, and to think I just used the water out of the tap in the restroom. Silly me.

Mr. Kamen's water system is sounding pretty cool. It will be awesome to see it develop. We know Georgia and other areas of the south have been dealing with a severe drought - Kell Robotics, FRC 1311, is an awesome resource with all their information regarding water and conservation.

I was able to stay hydrated for several days with minimal cost. We also provided water for the pit crew/drive team - it was up to them to drink it. I think it was the 'lead the horse to water' thing.

[Rory Windrim]

I understand why FIRST changed the CA to the first award on Sat. If you were there last or the year before by the time the elimination rounds were over, most of the people in the stands were leaving or already gone. A lot of people were catching buses (have to get the students home to go to school on Monday) or going to the "party" that started an hour or so earlier. Maybe FIRST needs to look at starting a half-day or day earlier and adding another round or two for qualifying then finish qualifying earlier on Sat. Just my thoughts. As always, it's exhausting, challenging and mind-numbing but we wouldn't miss it for anything.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Karthik

- Better signage between the pits and the fields. Maybe I'm just a moron, but I was completely lost the first few times I tried making the trek between the dome and the various pit buildings.

- Thursday morning load-in. It was chaotic and borderline dangerous. I saw numerous incidents of batteries and other heavy objects falling off of carts, pushing and shoving to get in the doors, and many other unsafe practices. We need to either let teams bring in more stuff on Wednesday night, or find a way to open another set of doors on Thursday morning to help alleviate the bottleneck.

Agreed. Signage is an area FIRST can do better at every event. Wednesday load-in (multiple trips!) is something that in my mind is a necessity. Much safer when there isn't a flood of people all in a rush.

[CzarValvador]

My only issue is the location.

A place where some guy was pestering us because he wanted to give us the tour of the "underground", doesn't seem to be a good place to have a bunch of highschoolers and Lego League kids.

The Atlanta dome is amazing and all, but Atlanta itself...

[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by CzarValvador

My only issue is the location.

A place where some guy was pestering us because he wanted to give us the tour of the "underground", doesn't seem to be a good place to have a bunch of highschoolers and Lego League kids.

The Atlanta dome is amazing and all, but Atlanta itself...

This is like most cities in the United States so I don't reallly see how you can fix that.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by CzarValvador

My only issue is the location.

A place where some guy was pestering us because he wanted to give us the tour of the "underground", doesn't seem to be a good place to have a bunch of highschoolers and Lego League kids.

The Atlanta dome is amazing and all, but Atlanta itself...

I would suspect he meant Underground Atlanta. (Yes, there is a place by that name! I've never been there, but if I remember what I've been told, it's eating and shopping.)

The homeless in the area of the Dome are more of a minor annoyance than anything else. Ignore them and move on is the typical tactic. (Or just say no.)

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs, boy . I *did* look near the bathrooms, I just didn't think to walk around into unused tunnels behind food vendors to look for drinking fountains. Normal architecture is to put them in front of and near the entrance to restrooms. Perhaps this was marketing -- follow building code rules by having drinking fountains, but make them impossible to find so that people keep spending $25 a gallon on bottled water. That, my friend, is capitalism in action!

From my second day notes in MKTG 350, Principles of Marketing, at USC:

marketing: the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.

Hiding a water fountain meets all of that definition except for individual goals, hence we're now no longer meeting the definition of marketing and moving more into the realm of highway robbery. Given the importance of hydration to keeping healthy at FRC events, this topic should be brought up with the Dome and GWCC staff. (Or, alternatively, work with someone willing to hook up a few hundred teams with water as they have at Palmetto in years past.)

[ebarker]

<SOAPBOX>

Long story - We had been looking for ways to help people understand why engineering is relevant to life. After Dean made his comments at 2007 kickoff about water games we decided to build a program about water. After all it is relevant and familiar. Water it turns out is a very complicated and touchy subject and is going to a lot more so.

Fast forward- We were going to do public events to promote robotics and while we were there sell water to fund our humanitarian well effort. Good idea. Right !! WRONG !!!

It was nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find a venue that would allow us to sell water. It’s a free country but when it comes to public events vendors pretty much have things locked down, even water. Eventually we found a great venue that allowed us to sell water at our robotics booth. That is why another high school is listed as a team sponsor, because they had the lock on water sales and gave up revenue for our robotics booth and water effort. Vendor protection - I understand their right to do so at town festivals and other venues and such. But as to how that extends to other permanent standing venues…. More on that in a minute.

Later, I was at a football game in a very old and historic stadium very near the Dome on a hot day. People were lined up 10 deep at water fountains trying to refill water bottles. Only some water fountains worked and the working ones were extremely NOT ergonomic for filling bottles but designed to give a sip of water in the 1930s. It was the definition of non-service.

About that same time that institution announced a conference where they would tell the public about all the sustainability efforts they were doing. Which is fine but they were clueless about the fountains and the issues there.

Here is my observation – permanent facilities, sports arenas, office buildings, malls, universities, etc, etc have water fountains because of building code only. The code describes the frequency of occurrence of fountains, not functionality. Installing these facilities costs money. Putting in vending machines makes money. This isn’t rocket science. The code makes facilities install water fountains because of public and health safety. It doesn’t matter that it takes 15 or 20 minutes to get to a fountain.

So last fall we took a picture of a standard non-refrigerated water fountain and edited it to look like this:



We even came up with a version that is drinkable like a fountain and refills bottles without bumping your head but I can't find the picture right now.

I am told (but don’t know for fact) that bottle refilling fountains are now mandated in Western Europe. As stated before there is not economic incentive here to do that, just public outcry. This is the intersection of engineering, facilities management, public policy, safety and health, and economics. It is an interesting study.

Prohibiting bottled water and water bottles in public venues is intolerable except where it is a health and safety issue – rest areas must be provided, with sufficient refilling stations.

From a sustainability issue – I would much prefer our group use individual water bottles and refill them at filling stations. However since we are still in the dark ages, we travel with water. Our booth was equipped initially with 200 bottles of water for members to consume in the non-pit areas. This is one of the things we learned after Dean suggested ‘water game’ !

</SOAPBOX>

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Adam Y.

This is like most cities in the United States so I don't reallly see how you can fix that.

Have the Championships in Canada.

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Have the Championships in Canada.

All right, none of that, Karthik. The only reason there aren't more homeless people in Canada is that they've all frozen to death.

EDITED TO ADD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Canada

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Have the Championships in Canada.

And trade shorts for parkas?
I'm not sure how the public would take to that.

How about FIRST Ice Bowl 2009?