Championship 2010 - Atlanta - Your Thoughts Please?

[dangerousdave]

Please tell us what you liked or what could have been done better, concerning the 2010 Championship's that ended on Saturday. Perhaps it could help the planners of the next Championship event in St. Louis next April.

Thanks First participants for coming to Atlanta for the past 7 years. We have enjoyed hosting the Championship's and I am sure St. Louis will be as good or perhaps an even better host. I hope everyone has enjoyed coming to Atlanta and I was so happy that the weather was so beautiful for the final Championship in Atlanta.

[Tom Line]

I had meant to start a thread like this. As it was my first time there, I observed quite a few things that I wanted to mention.

1. Regarding shipping: when our team of 5 came into the pits, they saw our crate there ready to go. They started to pull the front off, only to find stuck in one corner on the back side of the crate a sticker saying we were 10 pounds overweight.

For us to ship we have to put labels all over the crate, all 4 sides, in specified positions. At a minimum a very simple precaution could be taken - wrap any crates that are overweight with a piece of caution tape to make it more obvious. This is one of those 'will prevent this from ever happening again' solutions that there is absolutely no reason not to use.

2. Seating. I don't understand why it was done, but the fields were pushed up right against the seats. Basically you could not see the close 1/3 of the field because of people's heads.

3. Saving seats. FIRST needs to reiterate this - perhaps make it the #1 item on the form people sign to come to competition. It isn't allowed. There simply isn't enough room at each field for people to tape signs on a huge block of seats and then have many of those seats go unused.

4. MC's / announcers. Some were very very good. Some were very very bad. I hope that there is some group somewhere that is asked to give feedback on the announcers at each field so that we can improve the event.

5. The practice fields. We were surprised (and the volunteers confessed that they were surprised too) when the fields were shut down during elimination alliance selection and disassembled! A number of robots (I counted an easy dozen) came to the fields to check their robots or make small fixes but were turned away.

6. The food rules around the venue. This is not a pro-football game where people paid $75 a ticket and can afford $4 for a hot dog and $3.25 for a small bottle of water. I know, FIRST probably didn't make this decision and there was probably little they could about it, but I still wanted to mention it. We ended having to leave the venue and walk to other locations (trailer, CNN food court, etc) to get food.

7. The judges need to post a schedule and stick to it for pit visitation. We had to keep members in the pits where they missed our matches. These kids worked hard to generate thousands of dollars to get us there, and they missed a good portion of the time we were playing (even when we were rotating them).

8. Turn up the volume on closing ceremony speeches. We could barely hear!

All in all, the complaints were minor and the event was excellent. The volunteers were friendly and helpful, and we enjoyed our time immensely and hope to earn our way back as soon as we can!

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

3. Saving seats. FIRST needs to reiterate this - perhaps make it the #1 item on the form people sign to come to competition. It isn't allowed. There simply isn't enough room at each field for people to tape signs on a huge block of seats and then have many of those seats go unused.

This needs to be stressed, emphasized, and very strictly enforced. My team does not like to save seats at all; if spectators or anyone wish to sit near us we let them. But it seemed at Championship we absolutely needed to sprawl our stuff everywhere in order to get some of the worst seats in the division, when several teams laid towels, signs, or even roped off huge sections of the stands before their team got there. Why does my team get punished for following the rules and they get rewarded for breaking them?

I had a few more but I forgot them.

[alicen]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

7. The judges need to post a schedule and stick to it for pit visitation. We had to keep members in the pits where they missed our matches. These kids worked hard to generate thousands of dollars to get us there, and they missed a good portion of the time we were playing (even when we were rotating them).

I agree, for our team we didn't have very many people there, and we only saw three judges on friday morning, none any other time. I understand that there are a lot of pits to visit, but i was concerned when we were only able to talk to three judges.

I do want to thank everybody who did come by our pit and compliment the robot or our pit set up

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

4. MC's / announcers. Some were very very good. Some were very very bad. I hope that there is some group somewhere that is asked to give feedback on the announcers at each field so that we can improve the event.

All the announcers and MCs at the Championship are typically those considered the best in FIRST. I have a feeling I know which announcer you're talking about and he is a bit of a polarizing character. Personally I don't care for his announcing style, but many consider him their favorite announcer.

[GGCO]

7. The judges need to post a schedule and stick to it for pit visitation. We had to keep members in the pits where they missed our matches. These kids worked hard to generate thousands of dollars to get us there, and they missed a good portion of the time we were playing (even when we were rotating them).

I didn't know that this was normal for judges to do. In fact, in the 3 years that I've been participating with FRC you ALWAYS should have at least 2 people in the pits.

[Tom Line]

By no means is it 'normal'. But I can't think of a single good reason why teams should be forced to keep students in the pit unable to see the World Championship when it could be remedied by simply posting a schedule and adhereing to it.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

By no means is it 'normal'. But I can't think of a single good reason why teams should be forced to keep students in the pit unable to see the World Championship when it could be remedied by simply posting a schedule and adhereing to it.

I'm beginning to like this idea. Every team could get 15 or so minutes on Friday, then Saturday (or Friday afternoon) could be used for the extra attention they give teams when considering them for a major award. This also prevents people (myself included) from questioning whether or not a team was given enough time to present at a regional.

[Andrew Schuetze]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

I had meant to start a thread like this. As it was my first time there, I observed quite a few things that I wanted to mention.


6. The food rules around the venue. This is not a pro-football game where people paid $75 a ticket and can afford $4 for a hot dog and $3.25 for a small bottle of water. I know, FIRST probably didn't make this decision and there was probably little they could about it, but I still wanted to mention it. We ended having to leave the venue and walk to other locations (trailer, CNN food court, etc) to get food.

All in all, the complaints were minor and the event was excellent. The volunteers were friendly and helpful, and we enjoyed our time immensely and hope to earn our way back as soon as we can!

Thanks for mentioning that these are minor complaints. As a FIRST event organizer here in San Antonio, Texas, I get this very same or similar input. However, I have no control or bargaining power to negotiate venue food prices. Those are very much written in stone by contractors with the venue where the venue gets a piece of the pie as part of that contract. In some venues the contracts are written such that one can bring in outside venders but then one has to pay the venue their contracted percentage... So this is always an issue a team must prepare for in advance. Tailgate if it is allowed, have staff who can do the lunch run, purchase the pre-event meal package ... not something FIRST can control as much as we all would like to be able to do so

[MagiChau]

I guess it is always expected for outrageous food prices at these venues. I would like the final part of the webcast (after all the divisions emerged with a victorious alliance) to be uploaded online because yesterday my internet connection just went boom - dead right when all the Divisions were finished so I couldn't see the world championship semi-finals, finals, the speeches, and the award ceremony.

[fuzzy1718]

A few people on my team were suggesting during the finals, moving einstein to the middle of the arena and lowering the curtains. That way people can sit on either side of the arena and see/hear better.

[ttldomination]

Water and what not are always $4+. It's ridiculous, but that's what it was at Peachtree, Palmetto, and I didn't expect Worlds to be different.

I for one really liked the field transition. Robots for the next round were turned on 20 seconds before the previous match ended. Then, the robots going in were immediately allowed to go in, while the teams who were exiting left after the robots moved in. It got a little confusing at times, but it was quick, efficient, and fun.

The only other thing that I really got to experience was the Dean's List event, which, I believe should've been held inside. There were A LOT of people, and it was extremely hot. I know it was the inaugural year, so hopefully next year we'll see a grand ceremony inside the dome.

[GGCO]

Overall, I thought that the level of competition was less than what I experienced in the Michigan State Championship. You can definitely tell which teams only played one regional, and they were the ones that really hurt your alliance.

The crowd was just dead Thursday and Friday. When ever my team mates tried to stand and cheer, they would constantly get yelled at by another team (who by the way, wasn't even scouting). Seriously, lighten up guys. These matches are much more fun to watch when the crowd is wild.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by GGCO

Overall, I thought that the level of competition was less than what I experienced in the Michigan State Championship. You can definitely tell which teams only played one regional, and they were the ones that really hurt your alliance.

The crowd was just dead Thursday and Friday. When ever my team mates tried to stand and cheer, they would constantly get yelled at by another team (who by the way, wasn't even scouting). Seriously, lighten up guys. These matches are much more fun to watch when the crowd is wild.

I had forgotten to mention that. For those that were not there, we had NO opening ceremony prior to the start of qualifications on Thursday. Practice matches were being run, and they switched over to qualifications. The announcement on our field literally amounted to "This will be the first qualification match of the day. 3...2...1... Go". Very anti-climatic and didn't get anyone interested or jumpstarted. The matches on Thursday just seemed like more practice matches after that until the official kick-off Friday.

On another note, Dean should be thanked for making himself as available as he does. He stopped by the different fields and a number of our students got to talk to him and shake his hand and get their shirts signed. It was a memorable experience.

Also, I know that arguments about who should be allowed at worlds can be made for both sides, but I'm all for having teams earn their way in via a point system of some sort. There were a shocking number of robots on the field who could barely drive (or this may have been limited to just our field). The number of cards (red and yellow) handed out to teams on Thursday was shocking.

[E. Wood]

It would be nice if FIRST would find a way to make all the divisions evenly matched. Also a lot of teams work hard to earn their way to the championship event. I believe that it is not fair to these team to allow open bids to the same event. In my opinion this can lower the over quality of many of the matches and often leads to one sided alliances (1 good robot with little or no help against two or three good robots) in the qualifiers. If one team happens to get unlucky enough to have many of these match they are all but out of the running to get a seeded position no matter how good they are.