The first human vs robot off season event - Long Island

[lethc]

Originally Posted by mastachyra

After autonomous, if there are still cans on the step, would it still be unsafe for humans to grab them? I don't think you should assume the cans will be gone in auto.

Also, would humans teams get to play against other human teams?

Humans can't grab the cans in auto, but they can in teleop as long as they're the only ones touching. Add a penalty for the human team if they contact a can at the same time as a robot

[Deneb]

Originally Posted by mastachyra

After autonomous, if there are still cans on the step, would it still be unsafe for humans to grab them? I don't think you should assume the cans will be gone in auto.

Also, would humans teams get to play against other human teams?

I feel it would be safe enough for humans to grab cans as long as a robot is not in the process of grabbing or aligning to grab cans. I also think it would lose excitement for two human teams to compete against each other. I feel like if the red side was strictly humans and blue was strictly robots, each team would alternate through the competition to 50% human and 50% robots. In eliminations, it would probably be best to do each match twice where both alliances compete against the other alliance's robots and vice versa. This could consume time, but would be nice to keep it balanced.

It'll be interesting to see co-op human stacking. Sounds like last year a little bit.

[KyleH]

Originally Posted by Louis_

I would LOVE to do this if it wasn't so far away

I agree 100%. This sound awesome!

[Mark McLeod]

Do you have an idea of when you'd hold this event?

There are two other Fall off-season's on Long Island, one in late September (533 Lindenhurst) and the other in mid-November (3624-Half Hollow Hills).

We have all the key volunteers on Long Island, we'll just need the date to see who is able to make it. Your team leader can email me to get those started and I can get him the key volunteer contact info.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Do you have an idea of when you'd hold this event?

There are two other Fall off-season's on Long Island, one in late September (533 Lindenhurst) and the other in mid-November (3624-Half Hollow Hills).

We have all the key volunteers on Long Island, we'll just need the date to see who is able to make it. Your team leader can email me to get those started and I can get him the key volunteer contact info.

Sometime in october. we wont have an exact date untill we meet with the school board but that should be very soon. Thanks

[Alex2614]

We ran the first ever FRC event in our state as an off-season, and we did a 26-hour endurance event, so we learned a thing or two about "non-traditional event" logistics.

First thing, as your first event, I would restrict it to 24 teams. This is the minimum you need for a competition, and it keeps your numbers low so you can work out the "bumps in the road" at first.

Second, I would go to some other off-seasons, have your students and mentors volunteer, and have them pay attention to the small details that make these events run smoothly. Ask them about how they handle registration, volunteer coordination, etc. The little things are what can make or break an event. Things like having printed schedules for every team (the FMS system can do that for you), having a centrally-located screen to display real-time ranking information (FMS video output), who is running the A/V (FTA can usually help with the FIRST side of the A/V system), floor markings for robot and human directional travel, signs for where things are, concessions, etc. Keep an eye out on all of those things and have your students and mentors write stuff down. This is a document provided by the guys that run IRI. There is a lot of helpful information there. There is also the list of volunteer positions for an official event and FIRST's web-page about hosting off-season events.

I'm not sure about the accuracy on all of those pages, though, because we got our field from AndyMark, which included things that FIRST says are not included. I'm guessing you can get a field from either FIRST or AndyMark? Because ours came with carpet, game pieces, etc. We also got an FTA staff from AndyMark.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Alex2614

We ran the first ever FRC event in our state as an off-season, and we did a 26-hour endurance event, so we learned a thing or two about "non-traditional event" logistics.

First thing, as your first event, I would restrict it to 24 teams. This is the minimum you need for a competition, and it keeps your numbers low so you can work out the "bumps in the road" at first.

Second, I would go to some other off-seasons, have your students and mentors volunteer, and have them pay attention to the small details that make these events run smoothly. Ask them about how they handle registration, volunteer coordination, etc. The little things are what can make or break an event. Things like having printed schedules for every team (the FMS system can do that for you), having a centrally-located screen to display real-time ranking information (FMS video output), who is running the A/V (FTA can usually help with the FIRST side of the A/V system), floor markings for robot and human directional travel, signs for where things are, concessions, etc. Keep an eye out on all of those things and have your students and mentors write stuff down. This is a document provided by the guys that run IRI. There is a lot of helpful information there. There is also the list of volunteer positions for an official event and FIRST's web-page about hosting off-season events.

I'm not sure about the accuracy on all of those pages, though, because we got our field from AndyMark, which included things that FIRST says are not included. I'm guessing you can get a field from either FIRST or AndyMark? Because ours came with carpet, game pieces, etc. We also got an FTA staff from AndyMark.

Thanks a lot. Yea I wish we could use andymark as we wouldnt have to buy game pieces, carpet, tape ect but its 661 miles away costing us 3k for transportation alone.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Thanks a lot. Yea I wish we could use andymark as we wouldnt have to buy game pieces, carpet, tape ect but its 661 miles away costing us 3k for transportation alone.

Contact the people running the NE and MAR districts. They should have a ton of game pieces if they are anything like us. FIRST shipped the PNW district ~800 totes, ~800 noodles and ~30 Recycling containers. We had one tote that was damaged and we have 400 noodles that are still shrink wrapped on the pallet they came on in addition to the ones that survived DCMP. While we gave away a lot of the carpet we always keep 2 sets just for off season events and then get rid of that just before the new season starts.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

How large is your budget? Who's your sponsor?

From AM website-a field is a minimum of $5000 including an FTA (look it up) with zero game pieces.

Full A/V is another $5-7,000 with webcasting.

Is the venue going to charge you rent? Do you have to hire security? (Many schools require police / EMTs to be on site)

How are you going to power the pits? If you have to rent a generator, that's another $1200. (Including Union Electricians fees to run the cable.)

That is just some of the details you need to consider.

If we need to bring in our sponsors we will but you seem to be overestimating the price quite a bit. It's only going to cost around 2k- 3k to get the full Andy mark package. For av we don't have to worry much as we already have all the equipment on hand at school. For web casting I'm going to personally bring my own equipment. It won't cost too much at all. Our school most likely will provide security guards for us along with one of our mentors being a trained nurse.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Basel A

This sounds fun and all, but it sounds more like it would be a fun component of a regular offseason competition, in the same way that an offseason would have mentor matches.

Well since there is already an off season quite close we wanted to put a crazy twist on it for the whole time. In latter years this will not be possible as alliances are not seperate so we want to do it big while we can.

[BHS_STopping]

I'm just excited to see the battle for the center cans...

[Mr V]

For the field and game pieces I'd start by checking with the districts that are near you. I'm not sure if NE or MAR would be willing to do so but the PNW district fields are rented out for off-season events. Last season that is what was used by Chezy Champs and the demo event at the Salt Lake City Comicon, in addition to the two in district off-season events. We included the use of game pieces when the field is rented. For the in-district events a rental truck with a liftgate is used to transport the field. Before the PNW District came into existence it cost around $10,000 for the round trip shipping for the field and FMS.

[cmrnpizzo14]

If this happens I'll make the trip down for it! I would love to show my stuff, I think I could take most of the robots!

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by mastachyra

After autonomous, if there are still cans on the step, would it still be unsafe for humans to grab them? I don't think you should assume the cans will be gone in auto.

Also, would humans teams get to play against other human teams?

Good point. Being there's only 2 or 3 teams I know of in our area there will be bins on the step. Also I don't know about human to human matches we haven't considered that.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

This.

Make these an exhibition match during part of a normal off-season. Don't make the whole off-season humans vs. robots.

We want it primarily humans vs robots but we understand that this is a novelty. We think Elims will be robot vs human and quals, semis, and finals will be robot vs robot along with a second final of the top 3 seeded humans.