Championship 2010 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please?

[Tetraman]

What gets me the most frustrated, is play-by-play announcers. Can we clone JonDarr? How is he not Einstein's announcer yet? Announcers should be exciting and engaging, and some are just BORING to listen to. Expecially if you sit at home watching the webcast. You hear the announcer more then the MC; a spirited Announcer is just as important as a spirited MC. Are there try-outs and cuts? Yes I understand that a job such as an announcer requires a person who knows what they are doing, but there can't be a total lack of volunteers with pip in their step and fire in their belly who know the whats what.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Shishkaa585

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.

I disagree. We spend more time stressed about our partners, then we do playing against good teams.
It is still a competition and everyone is trying to win matches.
When you spend as much as we have, you'd expect teams partners that can play the game well and understand the rules. There are a few outstanding teams that pay their way, than the majority who aren't.

[George A.]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

What gets me the most frustrated, is play-by-play announcers. Can we clone JonDarr? How is he not Einstein's announcer yet? Announcers should be exciting and engaging, and some are just BORING to listen to. Expecially if you sit at home watching the webcast. You hear the announcer more then the MC; a spirited Announcer is just as important as a spirited MC. Are there try-outs and cuts? Yes I understand that a job such as an announcer requires a person who knows what they are doing, but there can't be a total lack of volunteers with pip in their step and fire in their belly who know the whats what.

I know each field usually has at least 1 game announcer on it. However, I heard that this year there was one for play by play, and one for team intros/scores in order to save everyone's voice.

I know the 4 usual game announcers are Andy Grady, Dan Green, Don Knight, and (at least when I was there in 08) Greg Needel. These are the 4 most experienced game announcers in FIRST. I also know that there are a few backups that cycle through.

On Einstein, the announcer is usually Blair (the MC of Galileo) and he has been dubbed "the Voice of FIRST) for a reason.

Game announcers are actually a rare commodity. (speaking from the vantage point of a planning committee member) There are way more people signing up to be a MC rather than a game announcer.

Although there is no accounting for taste. I know I talk to some people who rave about certain announcers who others can't stand.

[CY83R W01V35]

i agree with both sides to an extent on the cheering problem and i know who everyone in newton was talking about which is my team (647)
but the first two days we didn't bother anyone we were off to the left side cheering for everyone no matter who they were but then people snatched our seats the third day and we were fine with it so we went and sat in L40 which was near a corner we were then kind enough to move on 4 occasions that day and were yelled at by several teams (mentors/parents) however i am proud of the students for not being so rude as to use vulgar language to several girls on our team which is as far away from gracious professionalism as you can get and were from a military town and for 1 you don't mess with family as our parents are deployed and first occupies our time and secondly there is never any excuse for an adult to cuss out a child and our cheer leader Mrs. dell i am very disappointed with some of the behavior i saw and thanks to code red and 2465 as well as others for cheering with us. and for the scouting aspect i completely understand but there were plenty of open spots towards the front for scouting teams to sit

p.s. some argue this is a sport and i agree 100% but apparently yall don't go to football games where you don't sit down the entire time...

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by WJF2011

4) walking between the G dome and the GWCC was kinda annoying.

I was told the walk from the pits to the field in St. Louis will be only 175 feet.
That is a huge improvement for drive teams.

[EricH]

Assuming that they have the robots/drivers go the back route (short, from Hall 5), I can believe it, for the close fields.

It's more like 100 yards, if that, for the long route, assuming Hall 2 or 3--> the floor of the Dome. (Hall 1 is the longest, but not by that much.)

It's extremely compact in terms of space, but it sure doesn't feel that way. There's a lot of conference rooms and stuff like that tucked in various places.

[Koko Ed]

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.

There are teams who have won regionals who aren't exactly strong. Especially if they were at smaller events where the talent pool isn't as deep.
Not every team is going to be an 114, 469 or a 67.
The actual difference between them and everybody else isn't just the robot but knowing how to use those "lesser" robots to their advantage to win matches instead of just complaining about how crappy they are.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

What gets me the most frustrated, is play-by-play announcers. Can we clone JonDarr? How is he not Einstein's announcer yet?

Who is Jon Darr?

Blair is the best there is. He's the only one that should do Einstein, ever, in my opinion

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Cory

Who is Jon Darr?

Blair is the best there is. He's the only one that should do Einstein, ever, in my opinion

Jon Darr Bradshaw works for NASA in the Cleveland area and works the Buckeye regional and the Finger Lakes regional as an announcer. He was a back up announcer on both Curie and Archimedes last weekend.
He is terrific.

[gvarndell]

My one complaint, the one issue about which I feel strongly enough to sound off publicly.
There is absolutely no excuse for teams roping off and reserving, for their elaborate scouting setups, the handicapped/wheelchair areas behind the seats.
I would have hoped that arena staff would proactively police for and discourage this, but they didn't.

My family and I had a wonderful time at the champs.
We're going to St. Louis next year, even if our team doesn't make it.

[MCarron]

Originally Posted by Cory

Who is Jon Darr?

Blair is the best there is. He's the only one that should do Einstein, ever, in my opinion

AMEN to that!!! Blair is "The Man".

[ayeckley]

Originally Posted by Cory

Who is Jon Darr?

Blair is the best there is. He's the only one that should do Einstein, ever, in my opinion

Then you haven't heard JonDar Bradshaw yet.

2252 had a great time at the CMP. There were a couple of minor things that our team was disappointed in, but the only thing worth mentioning was the apparent lack of judges and the confusion/mystery surrounding the judging process in general at the CMP. For example, we won the Innovation in Control Award at Buckeye and we felt we were a good candidate for the same award at the Championship. We suspect we were never considered for this award at the CMP since none of the judges our kids met asked any questions about our control system and how it worked. Rightly or wrongly, they felt like they were passed over for -- or disqualified from -- even the faintest consideration for some reason, but they don't know why. Was it something they did/failed to do? Was it just coincidence? Did they do something that "unimpressed" the judges? Did the judges stop by when our pit attendant was in the restroom? Do we have to be within the top eight teams in qualification points to even be considered? Perhaps this should be a Q and A system question if the forum is still active [goes, checks]. Looks like it is for now.

I'm sure lots of other teams have similar judging-related questions as well, so my recommendation is that FIRST give everyone a little more insight into how the judging process works at both Regional Events and the Championship. If the answer turns out to be just a question of judging manpower, I'd like to suggest that teams be allowed to "opt-out" of certain award categories; that way judges don't spend time interviewing teams that haven't explicitly pursued an award.

[thefro526]

This year's Championship seemed to go pretty well for me. I only have a few suggestions:

Allow more team personnel on Wednesday night for Un-Crating and Robot Work. I'm grateful that we had the opportunity to do this, this year, but it'd be great if we could bring more people next year. I think a number between 8 and 10 would be ideal, and I'd say that 2 of those would have to be Adults.

Close the Pits later on Friday night. I believe the pits closed at 6pm on Friday, and we were a bit rushed because we were in the first match Saturday Morning.

Create some sort of easy way to get from the Competition Floor to the Stands that's open all weekend to people with the appropriate credentials. (Badges, Media Pass, Volunteers etc...) I never realized how much of a pain it was to get from the Dome floor to the stands in a hurry.

Also, I'd like to see FIRST institute 4 team alliances for the Championship. I don't think adding an extra round of selections would be so detrimental to the schedule that it'd be impossible, and I believe it would bring an entirely new dimension to Eliminations if an Alliance can switch a team out at random. This also allows alliance members to fix their robots and miss a match, without being penalized with not being able to play for the rest of the tournament.

*edit* I forgot to add that 10 Qualification matches are great! I noticed that it really led to accurate seeding and gave teams more than enough opportunity to prove themselves.

[Coach Tom]

Perhaps because the qualification matches were so rushed, I can not remember hearing the MC or game announcers mentioning sponsors unless the team happened to be sponsored by General Motors. Once the tournament moved to Einstein, all I heard was General Motors (perhaps for good reason). I believe Beach Cities Robotics (294) is sponsored by Northrop Grumman. Was Northrop Grumman mentioned on Einstein? Maybe?

On Archimedes, our sponsors were never mentioned. Moreover, I can't remember hearing Miss Daisy's sponsors either (Dow Chemical - formally Rohm & Haas). Again, the General Motors teams on Archimedes were alway recognized.

I am glad that GM is mentioned. Don't change this. Rather, recognize the key sponsor of others.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by thefro526

Also, I'd like to see FIRST institute 4 team alliances for the Championship. I don't think adding an extra round of selections would be so detrimental to the schedule that it'd be impossible, and I believe it would bring an entirely new dimension to Eliminations if an Alliance can switch a team out at random. This also allows alliance members to fix their robots and miss a match, without being penalized with not being able to play for the rest of the tournament.

Oh, you mean have Alliances be composed of the number of robots on an alliance + 1... like it used to be? The rules used to specify that you had to play 100% of your alliance in any given elimination round. If you didn't use a team in one round you MUST use them in the next. At the Championship event it might be doable but at the smaller regionals finding 8 alliances of 4 teams is impossible. Yes doing it just at CMP would be an option but the real question is whether you want to have different game play rules at one event.

(Btw, I like this idea for CMP)