October 1st, 2004

[PCole]

Sparky is back!

Please come check out the new version of Sparky384.com on October 1st, 2004. We will be opening the site up to the world for viewing. This year the website will have many new features and team resources. I'm looking forward to another great year in the FIRST Competition and good luck to all the other webmasters and their websites.

[Joe Matt]

We have a few new materials and one big new project that we will launch in January. At Sparky, we CARE.

[roninmedia]

I'll be looking forward to check out the competition. Its always great to learn from other webmasters and come up with ideas. Hopefully this year, we can take the National Website Award with a good PHP/MySQL backend site.

[PCole]

I look forward to visiting your website. If there is any preview of your site for this year I'd love to check it out..

[PCole]

www.sparky384.com

Its open!.. please come check it out.. i'm open to suggestions and ideas on the website so please post them here. There are a lot of sections yet to be completed due to the early release of our website, but many will be up soon with our installation of our gallery software.

Thanks

[roninmedia]

I like the nice crisp design. I think the design is enough to win a website award once you get the content up.

I hope you guys put up a form with the mail function enabled so teams can easily submit information or comments under the contact section.

[Arefin Bari]

the site looks nice... everything is laying out very neatly... great job... when are you guys planning on adding pictures and start the forum?

[rowe]

Looks really nice, I really like the layout. A couple suggestions (keep in mind that though I may seem a little harsh, I'm just trying to give you my honest opinions):

• You might try changing the links on the top to rollover images, to make them stand out. Out of convention, people are used to having links change color when rolled over.
• The sponsors page is too long, it should be divided up into 2, maybe 3 pages. Its a lot of sponsors, something I wish we had, but with that comes a lot of scrolling.
• Consistency with the links (especially on the sponsors page). I like the headers being orange on the rest of the site, but you need to distinguish which headers are links and which are not.

Overall, I think its a great layout, not too busy, good color scheme, good menu system. Once you get the content up, you should be in the running for a website award.

[jonathan lall]

I love it. Webmasters take note; some simplicity in design and a professional look does wonders for a site. Maybe I'll be more critical when I get a better look at it, but I doubt it.

[scitobor 617]

Very nice I love the minimalistic design

[PCole]

Thank You All for your comments that has helped me figure out what I need to do to the website, and I look forward to getting our forum up soon so teams can chat. Also our videos and pictures should be up soon.

I look forward to all of the other team's websites and what they are designing

[Denman]

pretty nice

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by rowe

• The sponsors page is too long, it should be divided up into 2, maybe 3 pages. Its a lot of sponsors, something I wish we had, but with that comes a lot of scrolling.

Personally, I don't like clicking page after page for information that can fit on one webpage. (Isn't that the point of a webpage - to scroll?) I don't like online magazines that split one article up into 3-4 different pages.
It's just annoying.

But, that's just me. A web user who surfs at a resolution of 1024x768.
I think I am a minority in that aspect, when it comes to the many different resolutions available as far as I can tell.

Most websites I visit I have 1" gaps on either side of the page (as Sparky does).
Too much wasted space in my opinion.

Also, you may want to separate the FIRST logo and the actual links.
The text under the FIRST logo threw me off. I love how you have the acronym FIRST spelled out to what it stands for, don't get me wrong... but
maybe a simple little horizontal line graphic to separate the two texts (logo text and link text) may look good?

Originally Posted by Roland

Personally I'd love it if some team created a good alternative to ChiefDelphi....

Arghhh.. Captain.. Do we sense a mutiny on the good ship Chiefdelphi.com?

[PCole]

Just to let everyone know now, our forums are up.. the design and colors are in the process of being completed but we will be finishing that up soon. In addition to our forums, the media page is up and running with photos. All the videos and photos should be uploaded soon and ready to go. Thanks again to all the great comments and suggestions.

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

[/list]Personally, I don't like clicking page after page for information that can fit on one webpage. (Isn't that the point of a webpage - to scroll?) I don't like online magazines that split one article up into 3-4 different pages.
It's just annoying.

But, that's just me. A web user who surfs at a resolution of 1024x768.
I think I am a minority in that aspect, when it comes to the many different resolutions available as far as I can tell.

Most websites I visit I have 1" gaps on either side of the page (as Sparky does).
Too much wasted space in my opinion.

You said it yourself, you surf at 1024x768 and are in the minority. A fixed width website like this one is the best compromise between supporting lower resolutions and not stretching all out wierd in higher ones.

However, your fixed width is too small! At 800x600 you get a horizontal scrollbar! Eek!