[BB] 3-21-12

FIRST General Forum
1

Good Afternoon Teams,

If you can’t make to an event, you can still watch the action. Starting this week, links to the live webcasts of FRC events are available on our website. If you know of a webcast that we don’t have listed, send an email to [email protected] and we’ll add it to the list.

Also on our website, the 2012 Trophy and Medallion Order Form is now available at the bottom of the Game and Season Info page. Quantities are limited so if your team needs a third trophy, an additional banner or more pins, order soon.

If you are attending a FRC event this week, you could lend us a hand. We have a limited number of safety glasses on each truck for use by visitors at events. The glasses are loaned out, collected back, cleaned and reused throughout the competition season saving costs for your local event planning committee. We need to get those safety glasses back. Encourage everyone you know who will be attending an event to bring their own safety glasses with them and if you see anyone leaving the building with loaner glasses, remind them to give them back.

I’ve just finished reading the comments teams made on the FRC Week 2 Event Surveys and thank you for your honest feedback. I’ve shared your concerns and compliments with the relevant departments and we’re all making notes for next year. For those of you who mentioned the bumper rules, I have already assigned an FRC engineer to pull together a committee that includes GDC members, Robot Inspectors and team representatives to work on developing clearer, easier to follow bumper rules for next year.

I don’t know if you’ve thought of this yet, but picture this. As the season progresses, teams that earned a slot at the FRC Championship are shipping their robots. At this moment, in an undisclosed drayage facility in St. Louis, FRC robots are gathering in preparation for their shot at Einstein.

And I want to let the Mexico teams know I’m thinking of them and hoping everyone and their robots made it through the earthquake OK.

35 days until Championship
See you soon!

Glad to see the note about the bumper rules.

2

I liked how the note about the bumper rules included:

Identification of a well-known problem

Admission to a lack of transparency and specificity that resulted in the problem

A plan to rectify the problem in the future

Can we get this for everything now? Please?

3

I think at future events we should make signs at pit exits and venue exits telling people to leave their glasses in the box. I might whip up a simple 8.5x11 paper that could be posted at doors, provided we clear it with pit admin first. If the tape we use isn’t gratuitous, I see no reason why they won’t let us post them.

4

Unfortunately these signs (no matter how large apparently), don’t seem to make much of a dent at many regionals. After the refs and queuers, I usually feel worst for the safety glasses attendants. It’s so difficult that you had to sign them out and in at MAR Chestnut Hill. (Not sure what impact that procedure had)

5

In my opinion this years rule book was not clear enough about rules, and definitions as years past. I liked seeing the definition page in the rule books, that way i have a clear definition to reference too, but this years the definitions were part of rules, which didnt make them clear.

I realy hope the bumper rules arent as messed up next year as they are this year, and as strict. I loved back in the day how people made custom bumpers, and were designed specifically for their team. It gave te robot some more character

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