I just wanted to say thanks to Erin and all the people that put on the Convetion, I went to 3 and learned a whole lot. I hope that this event is a continuing thing at competitions, not nessesarily just nationals, but just nationals is cool too. I think that this idea of sharing knowledge is really truely the idea of FIRST bettering the community as a whole really raises the quantity and quality teams in the nation.
Well i didnt get to go to any cause i was in the pits and driving and i was really sad. I was talkign with another team member and like why couldnt you havd the convention at night like after the pits closed so moer people can go, if you figure all the people that really want to go our drivers and mentors taht have to be around the pit. We also talked about what if FIRST let us in the pits like Wed night for a hour, they wouldnt put our robot there but they would let us in to set up the pit and then after we all left then put our crate in the pit so we could open it the next day it would be alot easier for the team cause you figure it takes about 1 to 2 hours to finally get all there tools down there and set up there pit
i second this. is there any videos available of these? i was able to attend a couple, but only got to see the first one in its entirety, since i often got called back to the pit.
This was an amazing service to the FIRST community. I unfortunately could not attend the two I really wanted to (Overall Robot Design and Robot Appendage Design) since I did not arrive until late Thursday. The History of FIRST presentation was very cool and I was glad to attend - I even got a button from 97 for Team 33 (Congrats to the lucky dog that got the Sunny Delight pin!)
-Kev
I appreciate your input, and we (the FIRST Robotics Conference Comittee) certainly learned a lot this year. Although we haven’t yet met to discuss new options for next year; here are some of the observations I have made and ideas that I have for the future:
-Have more robot-oriented workshops throughout all of Thursday (instead of just half-day). I know that people are busy working on their robots Friday & Saturday, and Thursday was the day with the most attendance. It is very unlikely that we will hold workshops at any other time than when the pits are open. So having them in the evening or the day before probably wouldn’t happen.
-One of our aims is to provide these workshops during the pre-season in different locations across the nation. Nothing is confirmed yet, but it’s an idea.
-Now that it’s a year before the 2005 Championships, it would be cool to see what other conventions (technology related) occur at this time of year. It would be nice to convince them to hold their event at the same time and place as Championship (The World Congress Center can definatley handle it) so people and ideas could flow between the two events.
-Because our suspision was confirmed that the Conferences would be popular, we will probably do-away with pre-registration next year (we wanted to get an idea of how many people would be attending). I’d rather have a table in the pits selling universal tickets, and then you head upstairs to the rooms for whatever conferences you like. You just hand-in your ticket at the door… first come, first serve. I know the lines Thursday weren’t all that great, but by Saturday this was the system we came up with. This way, teams may pay all at once for the amount of tickets they need, and people will move through to get into the conference a lot faster.
More ideas will surface I’m sure, but feel free to include your input… we love to hear it!
ByE
erin
So, who wants a limited edition still intact first annual (?) FIRST conference ticket??? lol j/k
No one even collected mine, maybe because I knew about half the people in the only one I went to.
The History of FIRST was a great conference, but… It was very poorly attended probably due to the fact that NASA was giving a free conference at the same time which I guess a lot of people went to.
Wow! That ticket is vintage… especially since I threw the rest of them away. Have it laminated and preserved soon!
Actually, almost nobody went to the NASA Conference… and it was pretty good too (I stepped in a few times because their room was between both of mine). The low attendance for FIRST History was probably in accordance with the fact that most people have this year’s game and robots to attend to. That might be a conference that we’d move to Thursday.
off-topic…
i never heard about this conference. any video, or other info? what was it about?
I learned a lot from these conferences, got new ideas. My main problem was finding the time to go to them, I missed like three of them because I lost track of time. Perhaps get the pit announcers to make an announcement just before to remind everyone who wants to go.
We loved the idea of the conferences and had people signed up to attend almost every one. Our Human Player was really interested in the History of FIRST one, but couldn’t get away to attend it. Several others were held during our matches so we didn’t go. We arrived late Tuesday night and would have enjoyed attending some on Wednesday, prior to the chaos of the competition.
i agree the conferences were a great idea–the only problem is i wanted to go to some but i couldn’t cause of match times–but they were really great and i have heard that some of the power point presentations will be online so we can look at them
I also just want to say to congrads to making the 1st time running pretty smoothly and the speakers were really good-- congrads to the engineers and other mentors that got the honor of speaking. Team 180 is proud that our engineer James Jones was able to speak and share his knowlegde to the FIRST community.
i didnt get anytime to attend any conferences… but it was a great idea, especially for newbies who were interested in getting involved in new areas with their teams… we had a few people that went there to learn more and take their knowledge into their next year with our team…they were really helpful… i heard about a few “sleepers” in the conferences… but overall… it was a good thing ot come up with… if i had time, i wouldve attended… i was in the pits and in the field taking pictures ;D
I attended three of the workshops and was overall pretty satisfied with them. I was dissapointed that the Mechanical Appendage Design had to be cut short and skipped over most of the stuff I was interested in, but overall I think they are a fantastic idea.
**Does anyone know where the powerpoints are supposed to be posted and/or whether any teams have posted the videos they took of the workshops? I’d be really interested in getting my hands on these to show to newbies on my team. Thanks a lot.
Many, many people are asking about this. Please stay tuned for more details. It is being worked on, and the information (or most of it) will be available.
Andy B.
I will say, great job. I was able to attend 4 of them, and I learned a great deal from them. I’m very glad these came into existence. There were some bumps, but overall I was amazed how smoothly things ran considering it was the first year doing this. Great job to Erin and the other members who organized this.
Actually, almost nobody went to the NASA Conference… and it was pretty good too (I stepped in a few times because their room was between both of mine).
I actually liked that. It was pretty interesting since it had all these pictures of the earth from satellites. Though I was amazed since the technology needed to create those pictures have only been around for 10 years.
Because our suspision was confirmed that the Conferences would be popular, we will probably do-away with pre-registration next year (we wanted to get an idea of how many people would be attending). I’d rather have a table in the pits selling universal tickets, and then you head upstairs to the rooms for whatever conferences you like. You just hand-in your ticket at the door… first come, first serve. I know the lines Thursday weren’t all that great, but by Saturday this was the system we came up with. This way, teams may pay all at once for the amount of tickets they need, and people will move through to get into the conference a lot faster.
I actually got into the confrence without pre-regestering. Im not sure if I was supposed to but I was.