Lessons Learned - The Negative

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by BurtGummer

We, Team 3020, did.

Then I'm wrong....and congratulations on getting so much done in so little time!

We've had to work to get money at least a few months before kickoff.

[BurtGummer]

Also, I think there should have been some normal regolith fields to practice on. After we programmed our gyro, we wanted to test it out, but the practice rounds were already over. We didn't want to compete in a practice round anyways, we just wanted to see it on some regolith.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by BurtGummer

Also, I think there should have been some normal regolith fields to practice on. After we programmed our gyro, we wanted to test it out, but the practice rounds were already over. We didn't want to compete in a practice round anyways, we just wanted to see it on some regolith.

There were. If the practice fields were being run as practice rounds, then I think FIRST made the biggest mistake ever. (<G14> not excepted.)

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by EricH

There were. If the practice fields were being run as practice rounds, then I think FIRST made the biggest mistake ever. (<G14> not excepted.)

Yup, to test auton I had to jump on the field, reset it, risk getting hit, and piss off volunteers.

[BurtGummer]

Originally Posted by squirrel

Then I'm wrong....and congratulations on getting so much done in so little time!

We've had to work to get money at least a few months before kickoff.

Thanks!

Well, we hopefully won't be forced to wait this long again.....it isn't something I'd like to repeat.

[KF987]

3. Districts /// Ovbiously we saw that this is something that either, FIRST needs to limit, or they need to make everything a district next year. There is no doubt in my mind that the #1 reason there were four MI robots in the finals on Einstein was because of the experance their drivers had accumulated by going to their respective events. Just to give an example, here are the match counts for the four MI teams that were on einstein (these numbers are after championships)

217: 85 Matches Played
67: 87 Matches Played
247: 82 Matches Played
68: 79 Matches Played

here are the totals for the other two teams that were on Einstein

111: 46 Matches Played
971: 32 Matches Played

I see a huge discrpeency there, Im srue you see it as well. Districts either need to be eliminated, or FIRST needs to start making Multi-Regionals affordable for everyone else

I agree with you here, FIRST needs to go to district events nation wide, I know team density in some states is too low like Nevada to have district events, they could have a west coast district where AZ, NV, CA, & UT can go and compete in any district event with in the four states and then have a "West Coast Championship" I think that would be really fun and is a possible solution.

-Keaton

[MrForbes]

I doubt the district thing would work so well when it's a two day drive to many locations (like from here to the bay area, for example).

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Yup, to test auton I had to jump on the field, reset it, risk getting hit, and piss off volunteers.

Who said you can't drive the robot back, use the dongle to switch the robot off and on to perform auto mode? numerous teams did this.

[Aren_Hill]

positioning it within the box in the correct orientation and everything just as well aligned as when youd do it on the field is no easy task

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Alex Cormier

Who said you can't drive the robot back, use the dongle to switch the robot off and on to perform auto mode? numerous teams did this.

because the drivers cant reset the robot perfectly?

Either way, the practice field setup was stupid. The fact that teams we're playing "matches" screwed over teams trying to TEST things, which is what the field is for in my opinion. At champs, you shouldn't be playing practice matches on it.

[David Brinza]

The Newton-Galileo practice field set-up was strange (to say the least).

On Sat morning, we were trying to fine-tune and test autonomous modes, which required us to modify code. Even though only two robots were using the field, the drill was put the robot on the practice field for several minutes, then take it off. Even though no robots were waiting to get on, we had to come off the field.

This is a training matter for FIRST to work in their "off-season".

[pyr0b0y]

FIRST could have dealt with practice a lot better. A lot of teams in our area did not have easy access to regiloth. Going back to the carpets would make it a lot easy, especially for testing code. Our team did not really know how traction control would work until we actually got to competition.

[BurtGummer]

I like how they did continue holding the practice rounds, because if everything is working, then all you should be doing is practicing as much as possible. But for just testing something quickly, you could not get on the field. I wanted to test something on Friday 1 hour before the pits closed, but I couldn't because they were holding practice matches that you had to be signed up in advance for.

Practice rounds are great, but a testing field also needs to be somewhere. Something like what I saw at the Las Vegas regional would be great (maybe bigger though).

Rewriting autonomous code without regolith is pretty much impossible if you want the robot to do something other than go straight for 15 seconds.

[Andrew Y.]

Originally Posted by Steve_Alaniz

Oh... Hey Thank you... You FOUND it.

"rookie" year is defined the first season a team competes

and from the FIRST website

"Each year, the FRC season begins in early January with a Kickoff "


SOoooo you've made my point... the rookie year starts in January according to FIRST.

so the way your saying it, a team should not and can not do anything during the off season? shoot....then almost all the chairmans teams and all the teams who go do outreach and put it in their presentations are "cheaters" aka" rule breakers"

[BurtGummer]

I think what he is trying to say is that many rookie teams don't start with FTC. The ones that do already have a "season" going, and fundraising, summer, camps, and other activities are already in place and occurring from being in FTC. By joining FRC they just continued with what they were doing, and won the Rookie-All Star Award largely because of it. They may be rookie in FRC, but their activities aren't. (I don't know if that is true, but I think that is what he's trying to say.)

Now, I don't know when Rookie teams have to be registered by so they can get a KoP, but I know that even the sponsors and teachers who organized our team didn't know about doing this until late 2008. And at that point it was merely a thought in the back of their minds.