FrankAnswersFridays: October 25, 2013: Safety at Championships

[Steven Donow]

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...idays-10252013

This week’s question is from Joe Barry, Team 987, The High Rollers, from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA:

Question:

Hi Frank,

Now that we have the Championships venue decided upon for several years to come it makes sense to continue to enhance the experience in St. Louis in ways that ensure a fun, rewarding, educational, and safe experience. As referenced in various Chief Delphi posts and a personal discussion with you this past season, it is obvious that much still needs to be done to make the early morning team entry into the dome a more orderly and safe experience. Has FIRST figured out at a safe, workable crowd control plan for the venue yet...like ensuring the same set of doors are clearly labeled and used for ingress, effective roping for a proper que of teams, wristbands, timed intervals for each team's entry, etc.? Of all the planning efforts associated with this awesome event, I am sure we all agree that none is more important than those that relate to the safety of all individuals participating in it.

Answer:

Thanks for the question, Joe.

You are correct that safety is our top priority. For the 2013 FIRST Championship, we added stanchions outside the entryway to help guide individuals safely through the doors of venue, and also had additional individuals assigned to crowd control, reminding everyone to slow down. In the wake of the Boston Marathon Bombing, which happened just a few days before the event, we also added bag checks and security dogs to the event, with the goal of increasing the safety and comfort of all attendees.

We are working now on the security and crowd control plan for the 2014 FIRST Championship. We don’t have details finalized yet, but we’ll pass along information important to teams when the time comes. You can expect, though, that there will be changes to how these elements are handled, and as always, we’ll be counting on the teams do their part to help keep the event safe.

I’ll blog again soon.

Frank

[Chris is me]

I can't tell from the response if he grasps the magnitude of the problem at hand here. Guiding people to the right place and having a few people try and ask people to slow down doesn't change the fundamental problem at hand: Thousands of people have a huge incentive to "get in first" in order to claim seating. This isn't something that can and should be fixed by "hey guys, don't run". A queue line for each division that lets people inside in an ordered fashion would do it. Probably takes the same number of extra people as other methods. You could gradually bring the lines in, let in 20 at a time every 30 seconds or so from each line, etc.

[Cory]

His response is flat out not true. As one of the first 50 or so people in line every day I am 100% sure there was no proper queue formed and that what he's calling "crowd control" was one rent-a-cop that yelled at people for standing on the brick area of the sidewalk while doing nothing to ensure that an orderly line was formed.

There was literally zero effort put into crowd control. Not only that, FIRST staff actually exacerbated the problem by standing at the front of the crowd and counting down to the doors opening, causing what amounted to a stampede.

[PayneTrain]

I came in the door a minute after it opened on Saturday and it was already madhouse getting in and over to the stands, only to see adults rolling out toilet paper in seats and yelling at each other and at children. Either I'm seeing things and need to see a doctor or they just don't see how intense the problem is...

[Wetzel]

I think the entrance to the pits was OK, but I was never over at the opening for seating.

[OZ_341]

Speaking of crowd control.
If they don't do something to fix that after-party, someone is going to get hurt.
You simply cannot fit the entire Championship inside the science center. It was a recipe for a future disaster.
They have now made (3) attempts at an after party with very limited success.
The first two were OK but not great, but 2013 was just flat out unsafe.
I sure hope they are brainstorming on the safety aspects of this issue, as well.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by OZ_341

Speaking of crowd control.
If they don't do something to fix that after-party, someone is going to get hurt.
You simply cannot fit the entire Championship inside the science center. It was a recipe for a future disaster.
They have now made (3) attempts at an after party with very limited success.
The first two were OK but not great, but 2013 was just flat out unsafe.
I sure hope they are brainstorming on the safety aspects of this issue, as well.

My understanding is that they were pinched last year by the weather, forcing everything into a smaller space than planned. Either way, you're right--I was keeping my elbows out at the science center to get a little cushion.

As for the initial seating stampede (and yes, some people really took it like that), I might suggest turnstiles at the door. Pain in the butt for those with things that roll, but for the teeming masses it forces them to go one at a time and not too fast.

[Justin Montois]

I agree with Chris and Cory, I'm not sure the message was received in terms of the severity of the issue and as Cory mentioned, what was in place could hardly be called crowd control.

I think that Joe brought up some good options that I was hoping Frank would respond to like wristbands or timed intervals.

There needs to be a better system in place. Outside the venue isn't as important to me because once a system is in place to improve the initial rush, the outside queuing of teams will take care of itself. Asking teams to 'slow down' is not a solution. A few more stanchions or barriers outside is also not going to solve the problem.

We know Frank is active on CD, can people post some ideas in this thread as possible solutions?

I was thinking if it made sense to give teams blocks of seats in a vertical manner instead of horizontal. Meaning instead of very few teams taking all of the "good seats" up front, teams are given 2 wide blocks so teams can give preference to their scouters up front and rotate the good seats among themselves.

For clarity? Imagine Team numbers 1-7

11223344556677
11223344556677
11223344556677
11223344556677
11223344556677
11223344556677
11223344556677


Instead of...

111111111111
333333333333
222222222222
444444444444
777777777777
666666666666
555555555555

Not sure if it's a good idea yet or not....

[Pat Fairbank]

I would settle for a single, clearly demarcated pair of doors to the dome that will be opening, and a queue enclosed by a rope barrier or something that's long enough for a few thousand people to queue up.

Most of the safety hazards are caused by later-arriving teams skipping straight to the front and pushing through, and the crunch into the escalator and staircase since they are a bottleneck after too many doors are opened.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

Most of the safety hazards are caused by later-arriving teams skipping straight to the front and pushing through, and the crunch into the escalator and staircase since they are a bottleneck after too many doors are opened.

What about using the big ramps to get people in in the mornings? We used them leaving the concert in 2011, and I could've sworn they went down to street level. The extra width would allow for a variety of paces and more throughput during the first hour or so. Just put barricades or staff (or both) at the highest level people can enter.

Still not foolproof, but I'll take people being idiots on a gently-sloped ramp over people being idiots on stairs and escalators.

[Kevin Leonard]

I think the biggest issue with finding seating in the morning isn't teams getting seating to watch the matches, it's scouts getting seating to watch the matches.
That being said, I would love to see a nice area of the stands devoted to scouting and scouting only.

The other thing that I think can be done on a team level is educating your own teams on being professional during the mad morning rush. Don't take more seats than you need, and don't put your 40 students all in prime seating- put your scouts up front, your spirit gang can be in back. This also allows them to stand up without blocking other team's views. It's a win-win scenario.

[Mr. Lim]

Originally Posted by Cory

Given the option I don't think there's a single team that would rather watch the match on a screen rather than live when it comes to scouting.

There are tables to setup servers and printers, power outlets run to every few block of seats, stadium seating in comfortable chairs, and guest Wi-Fi internet access.

The premise is to provide scouts with all the things we wish our own scouts had at the events we've completed at. Of course the video/audio feed has to be good enough at the end of the day, but it needs to be good enough to identify the robots, and what they're doing. Having watched the streams from MI champs, and the HD WatchFIRSTnow streams, they were good enough for this, when they stuck to a fixed, full field view. With those streams and fixed views, I'm pretty sure our scouts could've tracked all the info we had asked them to record on our match scoring sheets.

We're even going to share our own team's live scouting data on secondary a screen off to the side for teams to cross reference their own, and live rankings on a third screen, all right beside the large HD video feed, so you don't need to run to the pits just to see the rankings.

I don't think any other event has tried this before, but I know our scouts will be lining up to set up in the ScoutCentre at the GTRW.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Mr. Lim

The premise is to provide scouts with all the things we wish our own scouts had at the events we've completed at. Of course the video/audio feed has to be good enough at the end of the day, but it needs to be good enough to identify the robots, and what they're doing. Having watched the streams from MI champs, and the HD WatchFIRSTnow streams, they were good enough for this, when they stuck to a fixed, full field view. With those streams and fixed views, I'm pretty sure our scouts could've tracked all the info we had asked them to record on our match scoring sheets.

This is a fantastic idea. While I agree that there is no replacement for watching a match in person, especially at a reasonable viewing distance (and angle, which may be more important) I think that a high quality fixed feed is a appropriate substitute. It would be interesting to see this expand to all events, although more than likely it would require quite a bit of legwork to make it happen.

Just thinking out loud here, but I think it would be amazing if each of the divisions at the championship had the sort of video feed that's being planned for GTRW and it were webcast-ed along side (separate feed) the traditional webcast. At that point, it would open up a handful of different options for scouting, or at least provide a secondary reference for gathering data. I guess the most obvious problem here would be how teams on site would access the cast without some sort of public wifi or a 3G/4G/LTE connection, but even those can be worked around... I know I was able to stream eliminations matches of Waterloo over 4G/LTE while at another event this past season without issue. (There's also the potential of logging the full field stream throughout the day and splitting it for reference later - some teams already do this with personal cameras.)

It seems like some other great ideas are being thrown around in here as well - especially regarding crowd control. Splitting each division/level up into it's own entrance or series of entrances would do wonders for organizing the chaotic 'mad dash' to the stands in the morning - and would hopefully eliminate some of the need to have a group of kids up as early as is needed now especially on Friday, since we know the scouts are going to have a late enough night as is.

Also, last year, and possibly years before, there was a second entrance into the Dome/Center that was immediately across from Starbucks. Out of sheer dumb luck (or an appropriately timed breakfast craving) another mentor and I happened to walk through this door as it opened, and into the pits with a much, much calmer pace than if we'd gone through the main doors.

One last thing, as someone that carries a backpack more often than not during events, I can assure you that I was asked to open mine each time I walked into the Dome/Center complex. The bag check is a necessary process, especially considering the timing of last years CMP, but I think it might benefit everyone if during morning opening, anyone with a bag/box/tote/etc were to go through a separate door than those without. That might help to cut down a bit on the stop and go as people are getting through the doors initially. (Not to mention that it should benefit those who are bringing in carts and things of that nature on Thursday morning.)