**FRC EMAIL**/Announcing Beta Test Teams

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by rfolea

Hey Joe,

Have you correlated which teams are back from last year? Would be interesting to see how many returning decided to do it again ...

- Rick

There were many who I talked to the other day who opted to not even apply this year as well as many teams who should have applied but didn't.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by rfolea

Hey Joe,

Have you correlated which teams are back from last year? Would be interesting to see how many returning decided to do it again ...

- Rick

I count 7 that are the same. It's hard to know how many of those that aren't back are because they didn't apply or didn't get selected. Here's last year's map

[lynca]

Originally Posted by blayde5

It's also weird we're the only NorCal team for beta testing...

I would also like to see how they mapped out the teams. In Texas we have two teams from Houston as Beta testers.

Has anyone made a map of all the different Beta teams ?

Random sidenote:
The DiscoBots (2587) applied but were not accepted. I believe this is because the high # teams get much less respect in FIRST. I would be interested in the number of +2000 number teams that applied for Beta.

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by lynca

I would also like to see how they mapped out the teams. In Texas we have two teams from Houston as Beta testers.

Has anyone made a map of all the different Beta teams ?

Random sidenote:
The DiscoBots (2587) applied but were not accepted. I believe this is because the high # teams get much less respect in FIRST. I would be interested in the number of +2000 number teams that applied for Beta.

2974 Team WALT and 3006 West High FIRST Robotics were accepted as rookies. I do not think that FIRST discriminated against teams by number. 2753 were on Einstein this year and did great. Numerous teams under 500 did poorly this season. If a team is not selected they should be active on the First Forums and learn as much as they can about the system from the beta testers.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by lynca

Random sidenote:
The DiscoBots (2587) applied but were not accepted. I believe this is because the high # teams get much less respect in FIRST. I would be interested in the number of +2000 number teams that applied for Beta.

I doubt it is based on number, but a lot on notoriety and history with demonstrations, quality robots, reliability, etc. FIRST tends to know Hall of Fame teams, long standing veteran teams, etc. will be able to do this (not saying Disco Bots can't, I'm sure FIRST just didn't realize how you guys could help the beta test program). If there is someone with more notoriety in those areas very close to your team's region then they were probably picked over you.

Pardon me for tooting my team's horn, but my team has a long history of building reliably-programmed robots (not necessarily competitive :/) and does hundreds of demonstrations a year, plus my team had a successful year beta testing in 2008, so that's probably why my "high number team" got picked. Other teams likely have much the same story; notoriety in these fields makes them more likely to be picked. It's a shame as there are excellent teams that get overlooked (right off the bat I know team 2502 would be perfect for beta testing).

The short version is that teams don't get respect by their number, but by their reputation. Low number teams just have had more time to establish themselves.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I doubt it is based on number, but a lot on notoriety and history with demonstrations, quality robots, reliability, etc. FIRST tends to know Hall of Fame teams, long standing veteran teams, etc. will be able to do this (not saying Disco Bots can't, I'm sure FIRST just didn't realize how you guys could help the beta test program). If there is someone with more notoriety in those areas very close to your team's region then they were probably picked over you.

Pardon me for tooting my team's horn, but my team has a long history of building reliably-programmed robots (not necessarily competitive :/) and does hundreds of demonstrations a year, plus my team had a successful year beta testing in 2008, so that's probably why my "high number team" got picked. Other teams likely have much the same story; notoriety in these fields makes them more likely to be picked. It's a shame as there are excellent teams that get overlooked (right off the bat I know team 2502 would be perfect for beta testing).

The short version is that teams don't get respect by their number, but by their reputation. Low number teams just have had more time to establish themselves.

It was not about history. It was about the application, the mentors available, the skills available (hell, 1089's main mentor IS a JAVA teacher XD), and resources available( this usually comes with age). History was a small part of this but clearly not a priority.

Lynca, I too am a little surprised your team was not chosen based purely on proven skill of mentors/students and resources but perhaps this wasn't represented in your application, who knows. But then again, a lot of others were surprised as well. You would have been a great Beta Tester btw.

[lynca]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

The short version is that teams don't get respect by their number, but by their reputation. Low number teams just have had more time to establish themselves.

I agree with your statement. However, if you have two teams with equal reputation, most people will give the lower number team the benefit of the doubt.

Sorry about by random sidenote turning into a major discussion point on this thread. My team is very happy to have two Beta Testers selected in our area (Houston), much better than zero Beta testers last year !

Back to my original question ?

Originally Posted by lynca

Has anyone made a map of all the different Beta teams ?

[ttldomination]

I agree that it's tough for higher number teams but I mean there are teams that have done it.

2974 Team WALT
3006 West High FIRST Robotics

But it is harder for higher number teams because it's harder for them to properly establish themselves.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by lynca

I would also like to see how they mapped out the teams. In Texas we have two teams from Houston as Beta testers.

Has anyone made a map of all the different Beta teams ?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...63&postcount=6

[inset comment about reading the entire thread here]

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by lynca

I agree with your statement. However, if you have two teams with equal reputation, most people will give the lower number team the benefit of the doubt.

Sorry about by random sidenote turning into a major discussion point on this thread. My team is very happy to have two Beta Testers selected in our area (Houston), much better than zero Beta testers last year !

Back to my original question ?

Joe Ross posted a map earlier in this very thread.

[rfolea]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

I agree that it's tough for higher number teams but I mean there are teams that have done it.

2974 Team WALT
3006 West High FIRST Robotics

But it is harder for higher number teams because it's harder for them to properly establish themselves.

Hey ttlD - you are welcome to come over and help ...

[Tom Line]

The criteria for picking teams was very well established by the email FIRST sent. Please note, they did not mention team number once .

Of the things they did mention, I can tell you what we focussed on:

As a manufacturing facility we have a number of very large very nice presentation rooms that we can use that will seat 40+ people and in one case 200+ people. Each has projector overheads with computers already present. We also have a 2 dedicated rooms that can easily handle 20+ people each for our First Team, and one of those has 5 programming computers all running labview.

As a Michigan team, we are located within 40 minutes of Detroit, Automation Alley, and about 30-40 other teams. That number rises to nearly one hundred in a 4 hour drive.

We also have received numerous awards from other teams for working with them at competitions to help them fix / maintain their robots.

Finally, we have a sister team that we started 2 years ago, and we are utilizing their controls team a well so we'll have numerous students and mentors.

I'm not saying this is any better (and I'm sure it's much worse) than many other teams out there, but this is a paraphrasing of our application so you have an idea of what worked for us.

I'm drooling over getting the software. I can't wait!

[ttldomination]

Mr. Folea check ur PM.

I don't think team number is a factor at all, but indirectly, team number does kinda help.