AdamBots.com Feedback

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by lynca

There are many reasons why Visualization and Inventor awards are not given to the same teams in back to back years. Websites are becoming so widespread, we are starting to see similar trends. Your website is amazing and definitely one of the top 5 websites that everyone thinks about in FIRST (remember FIRST topsite ... ) Keep up the great work !

I'm a little confused by this point. The visualization and inventor awards are judged in a different fashion from the website, and even from each other. Visualization is done by a peer vote, for instance.
Also note, 116 has won at least one regional AVA every year since 2003.

[lynca]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I'm a little confused by this point. The visualization and inventor awards are judged in a different fashion from the website, and even from each other. Visualization is done by a peer vote, for instance.
Also note, 116 has won at least one regional AVA every year since 2003.

That is true, AVA teams usually win back to back many years in a row. The Inventor award however does not award as many back to back year winners.

[Uberbots]

Direct your attention towards the bottom right corner of your webpage. Maybe the judges felt they should give someone else a chance for the award?

I can say that i like your site a lot better, both content and design wise (the only problem i have with it is that the header seems too big and very broken... otherwise WOW there is a lot of stuff there). the hammerheads... well... the site is good but its not the best. They still have a lot of content to add and a certain flash intro to get rid of...

[AndyB]

As far as your navigation goes, the "Current Progress" and "Our Robots" kind of belong under the "About the AdamBots" tab and not the "FIRST" tab. That being said, you have a lot of pages to your website and I'm not a huge fan of all the scrolling either.

You have a lot of great information on your site. I suggest you look at the website judging criteria and run through your site to make sure it's optimized to meet that system of grading.

http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...20Criteria.pdf

Each item listed on there is worth 5 points. They are the exact items that are on the evaluation form.

[RyanCesiel]

Originally Posted by Uberbots

Direct your attention towards the bottom right corner of your webpage. Maybe the judges felt they should give someone else a chance for the award?

I can say that i like your site a lot better, both content and design wise (the only problem i have with it is that the header seems too big and very broken... otherwise WOW there is a lot of stuff there). the hammerheads... well... the site is good but its not the best. They still have a lot of content to add and a certain flash intro to get rid of...

If judges award based off of sympathy for other teams that's kind of disappointing and really discourages effort to make a site better.

Originally Posted by AndyB

As far as your navigation goes, the "Current Progress" and "Our Robots" kind of belong under the "About the AdamBots" tab and not the "FIRST" tab. That being said, you have a lot of pages to your website and I'm not a huge fan of all the scrolling either.

You have a lot of great information on your site. I suggest you look at the website judging criteria and run through your site to make sure it's optimized to meet that system of grading.

http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...20Criteria.pdf

Each item listed on there is worth 5 points. They are the exact items that are on the evaluation form.

Because we participate in two seasons, OCCRA and FIRST, it does seem more logical for us if we have the Our Robots and Current Progress under FIRST because we also have similar things under OCCRA when that gets going.

I have gone through the rubric many times. We may have a problem here and there, but I've made sure our site is in line with it.

Thanks again.

[Uberbots]

Originally Posted by RyanCesiel

If judges award based of sympathy for other teams that's kind of disappointing and really discourages effort to make a site better.

And it would be entirely unethical.
but who knows what really happened? i cant really give you advice on what to improve on to overcome the hammerhead's site, because it would seem such improvements have already been made...

[DiscoDancer]

Originally Posted by RyanCesiel

If judges award based of sympathy for other teams that's kind of disappointing and really discourages effort to make a site better.


Because we participate in two seasons, OCCRA and FIRST, it does seem more logical for us if we have the Our Robots and Current Progress under FIRST because we also have similar things under OCCRA when that gets going.

I have gone through the rubric many times. We may have a problem here and there, but I've made sure our site is in line with it.

Thanks again.

I don't believe a lot of it is sympathy, it is more of... did the team this year make the website?
As for OCCRA & FIRST, we have two websites this year, lamar.discobots.org, and 2009.discobots.org. The Lamar one is for all robotics things that we do, you can check it out (but because of the 2009 website, we haven't had time to update it lately). And, the 2009 one is mainly for FIRST, although we do mention VEX a couple of times.

As for the rubric, I was looking through your website a while ago, so I don't know if this is still a problem, but I found some links that didn't point to a real web page... Maybe you found it, but that's a criteria on the rubric.

But, all in all your website is great!

[RyanCesiel]

Originally Posted by DiscoDancer

I don't believe a lot of it is sympathy, it is more of... did the team this year make the website?

I'm not exactly sure what you meant by this, but how I interpreted it was that you were asking if we, the students, made it. The answer to that is yes, absolutely. Students completely designed and developed our website and also wrote the majority of the content. Mentors do contribute to the content though (specifically history, alumni, team meetings, calendar .. ect).

Originally Posted by DiscoDancer

As for OCCRA & FIRST, we have two websites this year, lamar.discobots.org, and 2009.discobots.org. The Lamar one is for all robotics things that we do, you can check it out (but because of the 2009 website, we haven't had time to update it lately). And, the 2009 one is mainly for FIRST, although we do mention VEX a couple of times.

It makes more sense to our team if we have all the content about our team and it's activities in one place rather than having it in multiple areas (subdomains).

Originally Posted by Allison K

I'm not sure what all of the judging criteria is, nor did I go look at what languages you are using on your site, but if they do take language into account that may have made the difference. I've been on hiatus from the team this year so I don't know everything there is to know, but the engineers have said that the student in charge of our website this year is brilliant with web programming (integrating php and such).

In any case, I really like your site as well (I like ours too, but I'm probably biased).

~Allison

While this is helpful, it doesn't win you any points. We have two students doing our website (design/development process) which is constructed using many different languages.

Once again congrats to you guys for winning the award!

[DiscoDancer]

Originally Posted by RyanCesiel

I'm not exactly sure what you meant by this, but how I interpreted it was that you were asking if we, the students, made it. The answer to that is yes, absolutely. Students completely designed and developed our website and also wrote the majority of the content. Mentors do contribute to the content though (specifically history, alumni, team meetings, calendar .. ect).

I don't doubt you guys did it. I was saying that they are probably looking for a website that you guys did this year. Some teams have really good design and content one year, so they keep it. And, the judge's might get tired of looking at the same stuff over and over again.

[RyanCesiel]

Originally Posted by DiscoDancer

I don't doubt you guys did it. I was saying that they are probably looking for a website that you guys did this year. Some teams have really good design and content one year, so they keep it. And, the judge's might get tired of looking at the same stuff over and over again.

This year's website is brand new and much different from last year's design.

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by RyanCesiel

This year's website is brand new and much different from last year's design.

And last year you won two website awards. Think about what you changed from last year's website. Perhaps this is a sign that some things were better the old way? Try to pick the best features of both year's sites and combine them to make something that is even better than 2008 or 2009 alone.

Also, I agree with others that the header is huge. It's good to keep the team identity in the site, but that's all you see on the home page.

[ScottOliveira]

People keep commenting on the large header, but I like it. It has been a big trend amongst web developers, especially towards the end of 08 and into 09. The nav bar on the left does take up a lot of room, and would be nicer if you could fit it in better. Personally I like bars along the top, with a sub bar beneath that you repopulate based on selection. However you have enough items it would be difficult to fit, especially given your large font size. While part of me says you could make the entire page wider to fit everything, I know that's just because I'm running at 1680x1050. With a 920 site, you can't get much larger before you start exceeding screen size for older monitors.

You might want to consider having the page load with the 'Start Here' tab closed, so more of the menu items are visible initially. I think it would also look nicer if you were to extend the fade around the page all the way down, instead of stopping ~340 pixels after the header.

I would also move the awards off the front page, especially if they are from a very different site. You're giving the wrong impression that the site people are looking at has won those awards. And I agree it would be very nice to create a subdomain with your site from last year on it, to showcase how you have been changing.

[bmusser]

Both teams have great sites. While asking for advice and suggestions is absolutely great, I don't think it is fair to compare two teams websites in a forum like this. It is only going to cause ill feelings. In the spirit of FIRST I would suggest this thread focus on the advice and not comparing the two sites. Good luck to all the teams in Atlanta.