Inform security of his presence. They will no doubt remove him from the premises.
from what i heard 2 weeks before the event they did a “bum sweep” of atlanta for something and arrested most of the swindlers and stuff. but they obviously had to let most of them go and they drifted back into the city
Haha, are you seriously suggesting that we throw all the homeless people in jail for the weekend just because we’ll have a bunch of high school kids in town? Also, what is FIRST going to do about security throughout the entire city of atlanta?
i didnt like the security they had their… the rent-a -cops i had to run from the GWCC to the dome to get into the first pratice match for curie… and none of them knew where to go. and they all told me the wrong way to enter the feild contridicting one another
either get rid of the hobos or increase security or both. FIRST isn’t the only one responsible here. The city of Atlanta also is. Maybe have cops stationed in the main part of the city where alot of the teams were. or have a passing patrol car every so often or something.
Also more security at the venues. It seemed that anyone could walk in with just about anything they wanted. I know metal detectors wouldnt be any good, but i remember in previous years like in 2003, they checked all the bags that went into reliant stadium, and it didnt seem to create a traffic jam or anything.
I know there were some issues with the volunteers this year but there could have been more people directing traffic and more people around to answer questions and stuff.
So… I’m gonna be the one who is a realist and break the cycle of all the bad rep that I’m guessing you are getting for that radical statement.
Yes, this could happen. In our perfect little FIRST community this is not something we often think about, but sporno seems to be a realist.
When you travel in a big city such as Atlanta, or NYC, or Chicago, or Boston, or any other big city on this globe things like this can happen.
Will it? Hopefully not!
Was living in fear and carrying the the knife the best (and safest) way to deal with this? Probably not… but I applaud if not admire you for realizing that this kind of thing could happen.
All of “real life” is not a FIRST event. I know we all would like it to be and for everyone to get along with everyone else, but you can’t put your guard down just because you are in a city with friends and think you are safe.
You would be foolish if you did.
The buddy system is a great thing. I’m hoping every team and team member (young and old) used this system.
I don’t care if you are 16, 30, or 80… Walking around in unfamiliar territory with a buddy can greatly reduce your chances of bad things happening.
First - my comments -
Crowd control into and out of the pits. I’m sure they had a reason to close the big doors into the pits on Thursday afternoon and Saterday, but not Thursday morning and Friday. But it made for poor crowd circulation. If you are going to run it that way, make the escalators run opposide from the way they were running so you didn’t have 2 steams of people trying to cross over each other. A little more crowd flow management would be good. (The students on my team are waiting for a “When I worked at Sea World…” story, because I did infact work at Sea World doing crowd contro.)
Second - my take on seeding…
Scouting makes all the difference. Lightning Robotics, 862, did not win a single match all weekend. 86 out of 86. No ones fault. We know we did well. The team was in high spirits all weekend. We even had a few teams talk to us about the finals. We didn’t get picked, but we were considered by a few. In fact, I’ve never seen our team happier than we were in dead last place. So much so that I’ll put a post up about it in a few days - it impressed me THAT much.
So don’t worry too much about the seeding - Just work well with your teammates, do your personal best, and have fun - the rest will work its self out.
The route to the competition field from the pit made you walk past a garbage dumpster which smelled horrible. Not really a big thing, but I wished that dumpster would have been sealed off.
Boxed lunches should be available in the pits. It was a pain trying to get food to our 10-odd pit crew and drive team members.
Well, i was extremely disappointed on the amount of teams that left the stands and made so much noise once the final match was over. There were more awards to be giving out like the whole reason for FIRST, the Chairmans award. The event is not OVER when the final match is over, give the teams respect who obviously worked harder then you and see who gets crowned the awards.
Well, i was extremely disappointed on the amount of teams that left the stands and made so much noise once the final match was over. There were more awards to be giving out like the whole reason for FIRST, the Chairmans award. The event is not OVER when the final match is over, give the teams respect who obviously worked harder then you and see who gets crowned the awards.
Do keep in mind that some had planes to catch. We had to get up at 5:00, 2 am for us as we’re a CA team, and catch a plane. We did that so we wouldn’t have to leave at 6:00 pm Saturaday, but other teams weren’t so lucky.
i think that they should give up on food for the party, team 340 did not go this year but last year it was very cold and most of the team left also the food was cold last year. i think they should let some vendors come in and the teams just chill play some frisbee have a band, i’d like justs to talk more to other teams you miss out on that on the pit-crew or drive team
To me, by far the biggest “negative” about the running of the '06 Championship was that the Woody Flowers award was given at a ceremony with almost nobody there, and which many people didn’t even know about. The W.F. award is probably the most prestigious award that an individual person can receive in the FIRST community. The winner should be announced between the matches at the closing ceremony where nearly everyone is present.
The other thing that teams run into at Atlanta and most of the regional venues is nonsensical “crowd control.” People are actually paid money just to inconvenience team members by telling them they can’t go through doors to the pits, etc. Why is that?
In general, Atlanta is a good venue for the Big Event with a nice arena, nearby hotels, etc., but I still miss Epcot, despite the less-than-wonderful setup for watching matches. The atmosphere was fantastic, the food probably better for the money than at the football arenas, and there is all that fun stuff to do on your time off. Maybe FIRST has gotten too big to go back to Disney, but even after going there 7 years, I always looked forward to the Championships at Epcot for the fun atmosphere as well as the competition.
One of my biggest complaints was that i could not understand a word of the pit announcements.
More practice fields would have been nice.
As far as the hobos go, get used to them. Its a problem of any city. If they bother you that much find security. Don’t blame FIRST
My 2 biggest complaints:
- The side door into the pit, with the closest escalators to the Dome, should have been open. With it closed, a 5-10 minute walk (to Archimedes) became a 10-15 minute walk through the main team entrance ©, and they didn’t announce that entrance B would be open for teams.
2)They ran late–again. Qual matches were supposed to start at 9:30. The opening ceremony didn’t end until like 9:45. The closing ceremony didn’t end until 7:00 for the second year in a row. Maybe FIRST should rewrite the schedule so it shows what will really happen, not what is supposed to happen, and/or put a hard and fast cap on speech lengths. (I liked how Dean didn’t give a speech other than an introduction and the homework–saved a lot of time.)
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More security is needed around downtown Atlanta when walking back to hotels or going to restaurants.
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More practice fields, 2 for each division and each field has 40 teams to practice on the field.
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More Guest Speaker that we can related too. Like the Myth Busters or Bill Nye or someone.
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Dean, Woodie and Dave and others should have like a meet and greet and have a opportunity to sign autographs and take pictures.
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A lot of walking. It was a pain for the entire competition.
the homeless were a problem
Maybe for next year FIRST should figure out how they are going to block Einstein off on saturday before people try to sit down and 5 minutes before the matches they get kicked off and have to go sit in a really far away place
I can address the late start. Secretary Guiterrez was added as a speaker at the last minute, as was the Mayor (although her speech was short). FLL schedules were reworked to take care of the late start; they had a coaches meeting Thurs eve where the new schedules were distributed. It would have been a nightmare to try to get new FRC schedules out to all teams.
I agree that far too little time is allocated for divisional finals and Einstein. That only makes the food at the wrap party colder.
I’d like to see the party made an option with the lodging. If reservations were taken through THS all along, they still would know how many people would attend. In fact, they’d probably have a better estimate, as currently they don’t know how many will be skipping the party and only have tickets because they are forced to get them. I stayed in the hotel with the team, but couldn’t have cared less about the party. Although the fireworks were good.