disaster in israel regional

[DCA Fan]

It saddens me to hear the frustrations of so many participants of the Israeli regional, and in particular reported cases of extremely un-GP behavior on the parts of students and adults alike. I hope that they will be able to re-evalulate their behavior and realize their wrongdoing; we need to remember that this competition is more about the learning experience in build season than it is beating opponents on the field (Kudos to the team who petitioned to keep another team from being disqualified).

That said, I am extremely disheartened by the comments being directed at the staff and crew. As a long time volunteer, I've been through events that have run an hour ahead of schedule to three or four hours behind schedule. All I can say is in both cases, the effort put forward by the field crew is always the same, they are undoubtedly the hardest working volunteers that you will find.

I ask that teams that have faced frustrations and challenges this season to take a breather, collect their thoughts, and send messages to FIRST via your regional committee/regional director. It is important that your say be included in the event analysis. If FIRST is anything like the organization I have come to know in the past nine years, they will work hard to correct it, and I like many others here hope that FIRST will consider hosting a "repeat" event.

I applaud the FIRST Israel staff and volunteers for continuing to push through despite so many set backs. My sympathies go out to the students and mentors who worked so hard for an event that just did not seem to go in anyone's favor.

[Isaac501]

Originally Posted by brianelite

What do you mean teams couldn't test the cRio/Driver station until kickoff?

The REAL issue here is that FIRST continues to put amateurs in charge of developing the programming environment. Total disaster this year with C++, our code was blowing up for WEEKS into build season before the WPI guys fixed their library... absolutely inexcusable that these guys who cannot even compile their own library are given the task of providing the programming tools for hundreds/thousands of teams using C++... It is simply outrageous that after 2 years deployment FIRST had to scramble to put out a working cRio image/ robotics library in the final week or so...

This is completely un-called-for, completely ungracious, and completely unprofessional, and simply not true. Our team used the Beta on Beta system that WPI created for Java, never mind C++, and had ZERO problems, as did several winning robots at several of the regionals, using vision tracking with the Java.

I also saw winning teams using C++ at the BAE granite state regional and the St Louis regional. Blaming failure on libraries when other people are succeeding ... well, I'll leave it at that.

[TubaMorg]

Originally Posted by Isaac501

This is completely un-called-for, completely ungracious, and completely unprofessional, and simply not true. Our team used the Beta on Beta system that WPI created for Java, never mind C++, and had ZERO problems, as did several winning robots at several of the regionals, using vision tracking with the Java.

I also saw winning teams using C++ at the BAE granite state regional and the St Louis regional. Blaming failure on libraries when other people are succeeding ... well, I'll leave it at that.

Ha, maybe Gary should have left this thread closed.
A few things:
1. I agree that Brianelite's assessment of the WPI libraries is incorrect.
2. I DO NOT agree that he was either ungracious or unprofessional. He may have been wrong, but that doesn't mean he was ungracious or unprofessional. Being upset about a perceived under performing product in this case is understandable. Forgive me for being hypocritical, but calling people names is probably a more egregious example of being ungracious and unprofessional.

3. I think there should be a 3 day moratorium on ChiefDelphi posts from teams that have just attended a regional. It seems that a large chunk of heated posts occur in the aftermath of regionals from teams that for whatever reason feel that they were wronged in some way. Believe me when I say that I know how they feel. I am by my very nature very competitive and find myself still fighting even after the regional is over. It takes a day or two to evaluate the season with clear headed perspective.

[EricH]

I think I'd agree on leaving the thread closed.

Brian, there are two things I think you should know. The first is that the libraries were created and beta tested by volunteers. They don't have to do this. If a lot of people make comments like the ones you've made here, the volunteers might just quit. Then the quality of the competitions will really go down, because there isn't a codebase other than the one out there now.

The second is that maybe instead of criticizing, you should try either constructive criticism or just plain trying to help them. That comes off much better than what you've been doing. ("I noticed these problems and would like to help you work on a fix for them" as opposed to "You guys stink because I don't like your work".)

TubaMorg, I think the ungracious part sticks. "...floored by your continued arrogance/ignorance...it's all WPI's fault for making bad libraries"--and that's only from the last post he made. If that isn't ungracious, I don't know what it is, other than quite possibly bitter and annoyed. Also see the one that was quoted for further inflammatory language.

But ditto on the short moratorium on posts from teams that just attended a regional. I see more posts that raise the blood pressure in the 1, 2, or 3 days during or right after a regional...

[Jon236]

A positive post on YouTube needs to be seen by all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpfJz3Lgmc

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by lynca

I believe this also stems from not allowing all the teams to test the Driver Station / cRio code until Kickoff. Out of the fifty Beta teams with access to the 2010 system only a handful posted documentation on the system. The Lunacy Beta test model was the best implementation of Beta testing so far.

Feel free to blame whichever topical thing to dislike about FRC you want, but no beta test team tested or anticipated the need to test the system the way Israel had to run it due to government regulations.

[Lil' Lavery]

I'm curious to hear from 1662 and 1836 (the two Californian teams) about this issue. Their perspective would be interesting given their frame of reference to American regionals and their viewpoint as a competitor (and one from a foreign nation, at that).

[gvarndell]

Originally Posted by yarden.saa

israel regional was a complete disaster.

I would like to hear from some adults on this.
Clearly, some bitterly disappointed teams came out of it.
But one student (I guess) has already indicated that some of the problems may have been self-inflicted.

[Stephen Kowski]

Originally Posted by yarden.saa

israel regional was a complete disaster.
there was a problem of communication with th router that they couldn't solove.
in the first day the problem was in low level and we played on the field 5 times.
int the second day the communication with some of the robots on the field stopped a lot of times. the judjes dind't know what to do because some matches workd aqnd other not. there was a lot of disappointment for all the teams. the final 20 seconds were not exist. the router didn't work at this period.
in the third day first organizers didn't know what to do so they cakk to a captain's meeting. in this meeting the captains decided to cancel all the games from day 2.
when we were at the third day on match 2 the clocked stopped at the middle od the game and all teams on this match were musgt to reset their robot and started again. match 2 was reseted 7 times.
at day 3 it we couldn't hang on the tower beause the final 20 seconds were shorter.
the finifh matches were after 3 rounds only. we got to the qurter by being selected by another rookie team. in the final we were 3 rookie teams in the same alliance.
my team robot was the only one who could hang at the all regional but we couldn't hang because of the communication problem. we won in the rookie all star award. it waqs a completely disapointment for us. the competition's ranks were not reliable.

You aren't alone. Sounds a lot like Bayou.

[Armon]

That's not all, some prizes was not given due to series time trouble. I don't recall seeing the Woodie Flowers Award, Industirial Design Award and Website Award being given.

All the points from the qualification rounds that was played on the second day were canceled within a democratic choice between all captains. The ranking was concluded from three games total for each team.

The video of the Chairman award winners wasn't presented along with the Imagry award animation (which was stopped in the middle!), again due to time trouble.

The Semi-final which my team was concluded in a toss of a coin, there was no time for best out of three matches in the finals.

In the final game two bots weren't working, one of our alliance robot (the striker) had communication problems which has nothing to do with the code (their robot worked perfectly well in the semi-final and the quarter finale with the same program). We end up losing the game (#3075).

With that said, and the rest of the problems that the guys mentioned in earlier posts, I can say it was a disaster.

[JaneYoung]

It is good that you have CD to discuss some of the issues that affected your regional. I'm not sure if it is ok to discuss the particulars of the teams but I leave that to your judgment. It sounds like there were tremendous pressures for everyone involved that were compounded by problems.

Perhaps those of you who have posted in this thread could work together to write a letter outlining the difficulties in the different areas and how they culminated into the end result that you are discussing here. It would be good to have as many of your facts straight as possible and to leave as much emotion out of it as you can. You've all done an excellent job in this thread even though you have been able to express the frustration you've dealt with. We can listen to you but we can't do anything to help you other than to offer suggestions such as the one I'm offering.

If you decide to write to FIRST and would like for me to help you with your letter, I would be more than happy to do that with you.

Jane

[Tom Line]

I can't say that I agree with discussing incidents that occurred and naming names like you did, but what's done is done.

I think Jane made the best point in this entire thread - the spirit of first is to acknowledge that bad things happen, and decide you want to make them better.

Make a list of every single thing that went wrong at that regional. Work back to the root cause of each, and then write a letter to first and to the regional organizers suggesting solutions.

Some things I can come up with off the top of my head:

1. Have the teams come out a day in advance with their robots, take them to the field, and work through the communications issues with them.

2. Hold the event in a school gymnasium or other venue that will give you and extra day or two should you need it.

3. Annouce ahead of time that this is FIRST, and political / religious / other affiliations should be left at the door in the spirit of gracious professionalism.

I can't understand the call for more security at a FIRST event. What an incredibly different atmosphere you must be working in that what we have over here in the States.

[Racer26]

I had thought about this some time ago. I wonder if its possible for FIRST HQ to go to the Israeli Government, and request special permission to use the 5GHz Military band (802.11n) for the purposes of the FIRST program, due to the immense benefits it provides to the involved students.

Its not the 802.11n is explicitly outlawed in Israel, merely that the 5GHz band it resides in is reserved for Military use. Whether or not its actually in active use remains open for discussion (I know theres lots of frequency bands reserved like that that sit unused) and I doubt that our 802.11n radios would have any appreciable level of interference with whatever Military equipment they might be running on that band.

[synth3tk]

Regarding the 5GHz band, it may also depend on whatever they're using in the area. For instance, if you're close to a base or outpost, then you may have a harder time trying to get it cleared.

Now I don't know the specifics of your government or the technology used, but that's my assumption.

[Galum]

Leav and Jon explained what happened pretty well, I'll try to give you the FTA's PoV once I get home