Three suggestions for FIRST

[archiver]

Posted by Joe Johnson at 03/10/2001 7:13 PM EST


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.



I have two suggestions that I think we should press
FIRST to implement:

#1 publish the match schedule at least an hour before
the match.

Our driver coaches at UTC said most times they had to
tell the robot drivers what we were doing as the teams
were being anounced by Woodie. Often they would not
complete telling the drivers what they would be doing
before the match was started. "Don't worry, I will
talk you through it" became an extremely common phrase
on stage just as the match began.

Little is gained by not giving teams more time to work
out a strategy and much is lost.

#2 run each group at the nationals like a regional in
that 4 alliances should be in the elimination rounds.

To me it seems crazy that only 10 out of 84 teams make
it to the elimination rounds. This is going to mean a
lot of team go home thinking they should have been picked.

#3 Change the tie breaker to time left on the clock not
average score for the 3 match set. At a mininum, put
time on the clock above rank in the seeding rounds. It
seems silly to break a tie between Alliances A and B by
how they played against groups 1 and 2 with no common
teams in the groups.

Comments?

Joe J.