**FIRST EMAIL**/Competition Manual Q & A System Live on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

[Mark McLeod]

Greetings Teams:

FIRST recognizes that teams may have questions about game rules, robot construction, event logistics, and more. FIRST will offer a Question & Answer System (Q&A), on FIRST Forums, which will allow teams to post questions pertaining to a specific section within the 2009 FIRST Robotics Competition Manual <http://www.usfirst.org/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=452> . Your posted questions will be reviewed by the appropriate moderator and answered in a timely manner. The 2009 Question & Answer System, http://forums.usfirst.org/, will go live on the FIRST Forums Wednesday, January 7th at Noon EST.

In order to access the Q&A system, your team’s specific login info can be found on the Team Summary page in your TIMS record. Please assign one individual from your team to act as the Team Rules Expert and only share your team's unique User Name and Password with him/her. This Team Rules Expert should be the only person responsible for posting questions to the Q&A System.

Before posting a question on the Q&A System, we encourage teams to look for the answers to questions first within the 2009 FRC Manual and Team Updates. You can review these documents here: http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc...nt.aspx?id=960.

Go Teams!

[Nate Smith]

You know, at first I looked at this and thought, "what about all the questions the first couple of days???" Then I thought about this again, and realized...this will make sure that people actually read the manual before asking a question...

No real point to this post, but I'm sure other people were having the same thought about this as I did at first, so I thought I would post...

[Stu Bloom]

Originally Posted by Nate Smith

You know, at first I looked at this and thought, "what about all the questions the first couple of days???" Then I thought about this again, and realized...this will make sure that people actually read the manual before asking a question...

No real point to this post, but I'm sure other people were having the same thought about this as I did at first, so I thought I would post...

How I wish that were true. As an experienced FIRST referee one of my pet peeves is people not knowing the rules ... and even worse - when the drive team shows up at the field and doesn't have a clue !! Happens all the time.

This year, for the first time, our team members will have to pass a rules test if they want to travel.


Sorry ... I know this is O/T ... can't help myself ...

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Nate Smith

You know, at first I looked at this and thought, "what about all the questions the first couple of days???" Then I thought about this again, and realized...this will make sure that people actually read the manual before asking a question...

No real point to this post, but I'm sure other people were having the same thought about this as I did at first, so I thought I would post...

On that note...

I was wondering if CD's Rules/Strategy forum could be "temporarily unavailable" for the 3rd and 4th of January. It's too often used as a substitute for the official Q&A...

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Nate Smith

You know, at first I looked at this and thought, "what about all the questions the first couple of days???" Then I thought about this again, and realized...this will make sure that people actually read the manual before asking a question...

Bah. They'll just ask them here.

Originally Posted by EricH

On that note...

I was wondering if CD's Rules/Strategy forum could be "temporarily unavailable" for the 3rd and 4th of January. It's too often used as a substitute for the official Q&A...

Naah. If Rules & Strategy is closed, they'll just ask them in General or some other inappropriate forum. Then Brandon will have to move them all back to the right place.

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Naah. If Rules & Strategy is closed, they'll just ask them in General or some other inappropriate forum. Then Brandon will have to move them all back to the right place.

Agreed. You're never going to get rid of the problem completely. Also, it isn't a section for just Q&A, people discuss rules and strategy there, and people bring up things like YMTC. I don't know if there will be that much strategy or YMTC going on in the first two days, but people are definitely going to want to discuss the rules.

One thing we can all do to help is to remind our own team members (especially newer members who haven't been through the process before) is to let them know that if they have a question, they should check the relevant manual sections, check for manual updates, and discuss with other teammates before they go posting questions on Chief Delphi and the Q&A. I'm sure people will still ask things that are blatantly in the manual, but it will probably be a little less frequent.