Brainstorm - The Blue Alliance v4

[jblay]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

I am loving these suggestions. These are really helpful for us to figure out how to architect the new system to provide the features that will help teams most.

Can anyone tell stories about how they have used The Blue Alliance to introduce other people to FIRST, show sponsors, or scout for events? We don't have a huge amount of insight into how these scenarios play out and would love to hear your stories!

One thing I do is send out an email to the team targeted at the new members telling them which teams to watch videos of on thebluealliance.net from past years to learn from their robots and strategies.

I also once to improve my strategy watched a whole regional one match at a time never rewinding and took notes on every team. I put together an alliance selection list and a strategy for the top teams.

In addition I do the traditional watch teams attending our events and the best teams in the nation.

[BradMello]

1. Have www.thebluealliance.net/*insertteamnumberhere* link directly to a teams profile
2. I noticed this year that there was quite a lack of videos; provide somewhere examples of how to record footage, whether it be from the streaming broadcast or directly at the event.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

Can anyone tell stories about how they have used The Blue Alliance to introduce other people to FIRST, show sponsors, or scout for events? We don't have a huge amount of insight into how these scenarios play out and would love to hear your stories!

I'd pull up matches from Newton for 1714's demos sometimes. Video quality wasn't very good since that year's video was ripped from the webcast but it got the job done.

I would have used TBA for scouting but there was very little video this year, so I can't really comment on that.

[Jamie Kalb]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

Can anyone tell stories about how they have used The Blue Alliance to introduce other people to FIRST, show sponsors, or scout for events? We don't have a huge amount of insight into how these scenarios play out and would love to hear your stories!

I've used TBA to explain the game challenge (post-season). Often I'll try to explain it with the game animation, but the people I'm explaining to can't visualize actual robots playing it. Then I'll show them a really well-played match from TBA , and they go, "Ohhhhh, that's what it looks like!" Post-season 2009, I showed a lot of people this match. It helped a lot in recruiting for my team.

I've also used TBA during the season to scout teams going into their second regional. It helps a lot to know not just that someone dominated a regional, but how they dominated it.

I <3 TBA! Thanks so much Greg and company!

[BrianT103]

1. Collaborate with 1114 and integrate their excel scouting database into the new website.

2. Provide a profile information page in which teams can talk about the details of their robot (drivetrain setup, end effector, etc.). This would eliminate the need for pit scouting.

[AdamHeard]

My advice is pretty petty, but it'd be really cool if when you use the search bar on the right of any page, and enter a team number, it goes right to that team number's page. Usually the team's page is the first result, but I've noticed it isn't always.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by BrianT103

2. Provide a profile information page in which teams can talk about the details of their robot (drivetrain setup, end effector, etc.). This would eliminate the need for pit scouting.

There's a need for pit scouting?

It'd be cool if there was a user-editable field to fill in stuff like penalties, etc. so that if someone knows them they can add them into the database. For some games, user-editable fields for tubes / hurdles / balls scored per alliance would also be cool. Not to be used in any official database or anything, but nice for reference.

Also an automatic "get a free Pinnacle recorder HERE!" would be cool

[Tom Line]

When I go to a particular team, I'd like to see a button next to each match that says "Add a video".

Generally, my use of Blue Alliance is limited to going to www.thebluealliance.net, then typing in a team number. On numerous occasions I know there are youtube videos of a given match, but there is no obvious way to add the video.

For instance, I know that there are youtube videos from our team for various State Champ matches. How the heck do I attach them to our matches on blue alliance, or suggest they get attached?

[Tanner]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

For instance, I know that there are youtube videos from our team for various State Champ matches. How the heck do I attach them to our matches on blue alliance, or suggest they get attached?

I would have like a "add a video" button for matches that don't have videos, then the page would prompt you if you would like to upload a video or link to a video sharing site with the video. The first option is preferred, but anything is better than nothing.

-Tanner

[Tom Bottiglieri]

One feature that would be nice is a mode for team demos/presentations. Basically this could be something as simple as a looping playlist of your team's best match videos (automatically generated or user selected), and could be grown to have a full screens worth of content, including photos, team stats, etc.

Robot demos are great, but there will always be down time and confusion over explaining the large scale implementation of the game. Videos help with this problem, but right now it's a bit hard to just pull up a demo's worth of content without having to do some work up front or maintain the presentation.

[jblay]

I would include a feature where teams could put a pre-competition video of their robot similar to the picture option because I feel like this last year a lot more teams have videos of their bots before competition than ever before and more and more teams are going to do it in the future and it would be a nice thing to have on that page.

[Joe G.]

Small pet peeve with the current site: If I am watching, say, 2008 matches, and click a team number in-video, it directs me to that team's 2010 page. Directing these links to the "proper" year would be nice.

And a second vote for the team-editable robot-information page.

[delsaner]

Some of my thoughts and recommendations have probably been mentioned before, but I'll list them.

1) A list of awards at the end of the competition.

2) More videos and pictures of different teams.

3) Results of some offseason events (BattleCry, IRI, etc.)

4) A mass list of every FIRST team (along with their number, location, etc.) This could link to their TBA page. Think of it as a "Teams Attending" list, but every FIRST team is on the list.

Sorry if these sound like assertive orders. Just thoughts that I personally would like.

[SavtaKenneth]

I'd like to see a summary of all the awards and placement at each competition the team had on their team page. Apart from that it'd be nice to have a seedings page and alliance selection results and order if possible.

[CalTran]

I think that a "team comparison" section would be much appreciated. Like, you can compare team #vs#vs# or something like that