Championship 2010 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please?

[ChristopherSD]

Originally Posted by GGCO

When ever my team mates tried to stand and cheer, they would constantly get yelled at by another team (who by the way, wasn't even scouting). Seriously, lighten up guys. These matches are much more fun to watch when the crowd is wild.

In my opinion, standing up during the introduction of the alliances is fine. Once the match starts, the team should sit down to make it easy for others to scout.

[Cuyir]

Originally Posted by ChristopherSD

In my opinion, standing up during the introduction of the alliances is fine. Once the match starts, the team should sit down to make it easy for others to scout.

I agree. Especially with it being almost impossible to see the near corners of the field even when everyone is sitting down.

[lproxster]

About people sitting down --

I agree, our scouts wake up early and are sent to the arena before everyone else simply because we need good seats to scout well. When teams stand up during matches, especially when they're sitting in the front, they're hurting not just their chances to be deemed as a worthy competitor, but also our own team--what if we have a match with/against the team later? We need to know what the weaknesses and strengths of said team is.

[alicen]

Originally Posted by E. Wood

I believe that it is not fair to these team to allow open bids to the same event. In my opinion this can lower the over quality of many of the matches and often leads to one sided alliances (1 good robot with little or no help against two or three good robots) in the qualifiers. If one team happens to get unlucky enough to have many of these match they are all but out of the running to get a seeded position no matter how good they are.

I disagree about no open bids to champs.
My example; my team had not won either of the two regionals we went to and we hadn't necessarily done amazingly, but we still paid our way to champs.
At champs, we were on Curie, and in our last match were against 1114 (and others). We very nearly bested them. We would've won if there hadn't been DOGMA's. On the way back to the pits, on of the 1114 drivers said to us that they hadn't expected to have to really fight for that match.

point is, we were able to do really well (against all odds) even though we didn't "earn our way in" to champs.

[GGCO]

Originally Posted by alicen

I disagree about no open bids to champs.
My example; my team had not won either of the two regionals we went to and we hadn't necessarily done amazingly, but we still paid our way to champs.
At champs, we were on Curie, and in our last match were against 1114 (and others). We very nearly bested them. We would've won if there hadn't been DOGMA's. On the way back to the pits, on of the 1114 drivers said to us that they hadn't expected to have to really fight for that match.

point is, we were able to do really well (against all odds) even though we didn't "earn our way in" to champs.

Sure, but you're an exception. There are plenty of teams that buy their way in and aren't an asset to their alliances.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by E. Wood

It would be nice if FIRST would find a way to make all the divisions evenly matched. Also a lot of teams work hard to earn their way to the championship event. I believe that it is not fair to these team to allow open bids to the same event. In my opinion this can lower the over quality of many of the matches and often leads to one sided alliances (1 good robot with little or no help against two or three good robots) in the qualifiers. If one team happens to get unlucky enough to have many of these match they are all but out of the running to get a seeded position no matter how good they are.

Many could argue that if you consistently need good partners to dominate, then you don't have a Top 8 caliber robot...

[Jared Russell]

I wish that they would bring back video feeds to the pits.

A large segment of our team wasn't able to watch more than a handful of championship matches because of their commitments in the pits.

[LWakefield]

Originally Posted by ChristopherSD

In my opinion, standing up during the introduction of the alliances is fine. Once the match starts, the team should sit down to make it easy for others to scout.

I have to disagree. We were yelled at for not sitting down. So much for gracious professionalism. It is the championship. You should be able to stand up. If a team is mad, they can move where they sit.

[Tanner]

Having the Dean's List ceremony outside was nice, because it was a nice day, though it was quite hot. Myself and a few other finalists were wondering if a fan/spray bottle was included in the bag of goodies given a way just to cool down.

The practice field was a bit crazy sometimes. One time we were on the practice field, there was eight robots I believe. Sometimes the waits on the practice field were crazy (or at least it seemed like it). Repairing a robot should be done off the field, so others can enjoy their practice field minutes. Sometimes even the wait time was crazy, though I don't think theres much to fix there as its just due to requests to practice.

I can't think of anything else, though an elevator in the parking lot gave me and a friend quite a scare with its bumpy start/stop.

-Tanner

[Shishkaa585]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

2. Seating. I don't understand why it was done, but the fields were pushed up right against the seats. Basically you could not see the close 1/3 of the field because of people's heads.


4. MC's / announcers. Some were very very good. Some were very very bad. I hope that there is some group somewhere that is asked to give feedback on the announcers at each field so that we can improve the event.


6. The food rules around the venue. This is not a pro-football game where people paid $75 a ticket and can afford $4 for a hot dog and $3.25 for a small bottle of water. I know, FIRST probably didn't make this decision and there was probably little they could about it, but I still wanted to mention it. We ended having to leave the venue and walk to other locations (trailer, CNN food court, etc) to get food.

7. The judges need to post a schedule and stick to it for pit visitation. We had to keep members in the pits where they missed our matches. These kids worked hard to generate thousands of dollars to get us there, and they missed a good portion of the time we were playing (even when we were rotating them).

I agree with these points also idk why but our team wasnt visited by the safety judges because they said that our safety captain had bad posture and was dressed bad.
Also the teams that bought there way in a few were very rude and un-FIRST like which was sad.
Overall tho the competition was a blast as is the entire robotics experience. Cant wait till next year!

[Holtzman]

Originally Posted by LWakefield

I have to disagree. We were yelled at for not sitting down. So much for gracious professionalism. It is the championship. You should be able to stand up. If a team is mad, they can move where they sit.

You're calling a team out for not being graciously professional when you’re preventing potentially hundreds of people from seeing the match? There are 80’ish other teams in the division who have just as much right to watching as you do. It’s not just “your” match.

If everybody sits down, everybody can see. If your team stands, then nobody behind you can see. If you absolutely have to stand during your match, then sit at the back where you won't block anyone's view. A little common courtesy can go a long way.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Holtzman

You're calling a team out for not being graciously professional when you’re preventing potentially hundreds of people from seeing the match? There are 80’ish other teams in the division who have just as much right to watching as you do. It’s not just “your” match.

If everybody sits down, everybody can see. If your team stands, then nobody behind you can see. If you absolutely have to stand during your match, then sit at the back where you won't block anyone's view. A little common courtesy can go a long way.

I agree with both sides. I want to be able to stand and cheer my team. But I want to be able to see!

Perhaps they could open the second level to scouts only. In many district events we put our scouts upstairs where they could sit closer together and work. Then they can always see, and people downstairs can stand and cheer. I don't like the idea of splitting teams up though, but really our scouts don't have the time to cheer much .

There's no way to change the seating - it's a fundamental flaw in using a football arena with flat seating when you should be using a basketball or hockey arena with sharper seating. It's a question of the size of the fields - the angle of the seating is in direct relation to the size of the playing field in most pro sports venues. Unfortunately having 5 fields plus vex etc on the same floor requires a footprint that venue with better seating simply doesn't have.

So I guess there's no way to fix the seating, other than moving the field further from the interior wall, and potentially moving scouts upstairs.

I have to admit, expecting a team that is in a major match not stand and scream their heads off is a bit unreasonable. In fact, I can't think of a single professional event where people don't stand during an intense exciting moment. This isn't chess. The problem is in the field arrangement, not in the spectator's emotions.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Shishkaa585

Also the teams that bought there way in a few were very rude and un-FIRST like which was sad.

No, there may have been teams that were rude and "un-FIRST" but I doubt there was any particular correlation between teams that bought there way in and teams that act like jerks.

[Shishkaa585]

Originally Posted by GGCO

Sure, but you're an exception. There are plenty of teams that buy their way in and aren't an asset to their alliances.

Winning isnt the only goal of FIRST though. Its about spreading FIRST's ideals so to me any team should be allowed to go if they can pay for it.

[kstl99]

I think the awards should be given between the division play-offs and Einstein. That way the matches could be held one after another without the long delays which tend to stop the build-up of excitement.

I also wish that Einstein was in the middle of the arena as there were very few seats that could see the whole field. I ended up watching the Einstein matches on the screen despite the fact I was sitting at the front because I was off to the side.