As far as I can tell there is NO WEBSITE at all.
They’re organized alphabetically by the state they’re in.
I’m not having much of the slowness issues that have been expressed, however I have had some of the links fail to actually load a page (it would just stay on the current one).
I’m sure FIRST will get up their history and team information soon enough, I don’t see them just tossing it all out the window.
After a lot of guess-and-checking URLs to see if there is any actual content there, I finally found the Sitemap for their website.
http://www.usfirst.org/sitemap.aspx
And if that was not enough, I was playing around with the URL variable parameters in the my.usfirst.org section of their website, when I just tried eliminating them all together to see what I get. If you go to the following link, it’s like a sitemap of all FIRST events.
https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso
Here’s the complete team list for this season:
https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso?page=teamlist
I do enjoy the new look of the website; the layout and color choices are good ones. But, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. 
Here’s my healthy dose of constructive criticism:
-
If you disable Javascript, none of the page navigation links work - or even appear. This is bad, especially if users attempt to disable JS during Kickoff to make the site load faster.
-
There needs to be much better page titles. The one for the homepage is simply “Home” or “USFIRST.org”. A much better one would include “FIRST” or something to that nature in every page title, as well as relevant page title, such as “USFIRST.org - Home” or “USFIRST.org - Documents and Updates”, etc. This will help search engines as well as tabbed browsing. (Having a half dozen tabs all open with the same “USFIRST.org” title is quite confusing.)
-
All of the old content needs to find it’s way back onto the new FIRST website, such as match results and other similar material from previous seasons.
-
Although it would probably mean a ton of work, there should be server-side redirects to redirect everyone from the old pages to the new content. (Such as if I visit http://www.usfirst.org/about/ it should redirect me to where ever the new page resides. There are so many links to FIRST pages over the years that the dead links will just be a nightmare for thousands of visitors.)
-
A better Error 404 page. Simply telling us “page cannot be found” is not enough. How about a page with the standard FIRST header and footer, with a blurb in the content section about how there was an Error 404 and the page you were looking for could not be found. Then have links there to the home, sitemap, and search pages.
-
All page navigation needs tabbed browsing support. Every browser nowadays except Internet Explorer 6 supports tabbed browsing. Not being able to open content from the navigation in new tabs is quite annoying. (This is the same as Greg’s Ctrl-Click criticism.) In fact, I almost believe that all the page navigation elements are not actual <a href="…"> types of links. If I right click on one, I don’t get the usual Open, Open in new Tab, Open in New Window, options. This is telling me that they are using Javascript to do the links in the page nav menus instead of semantic HTML code, which seems just plain weird.
-
All the individual team content pages from the old usfirst.org/frc/map/ needs to make it’s way into the current team system on their website. Although I enjoy clicking on a team and being taken directly to their website, I think a much better option would still have three columns, but with a slight bit of additional content for each team in the center column.
ABC Engineering & XYZ Corporation & Someville High School <-- [Link this to the team information page]
Team Website http://www.buysellcyprus.com/v3/images/new_window_icon.gif <-- [Link this line directly to the team’s website]
-
It would be nice if the https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso pages all had links back to the main FIRST website somewhere near the top. A simple small FIRST logo in the top left corner would suffice.
-
We need photo and video galleries; and not just Flash ones. It would be nice to have ones like this where one can browse and click on/download JPEG pictures. Although the Flash galleries are nice, I’d much rather have at least the option of viewing the gallery in Flash or in an HTML page with JPEG pictures. Taking screenshots of Flash to extract the pictures out of them is not fun. :-/
I guess that turned out a little longer that I thought it would, but hopefully these little things can be resolved before the onslaught of Kickoff traffic to the FIRST website. 
For everyone looking for info on the old pages, click here:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.usfirst.org
Site searches are a great thing.
To see the older stuff though that may be remove from the server as of now, click on Cached under the actual link.
Example for seeking 2003 documentation:
A lot of stuff is still there, just not easily accessed anymore.
I submitted this question via website feedback and got a nice, quick reply that it is a pending fix.
Finally working. Not sure why it would not load yesterday. Seems like a pretty logical layout.
Sent up to website team. Keeping comments short and instructive will be very helpful.
12/06/06-From posts on http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50271&page=5&pp=15
- “If you go to What’s Going On In My Area? (the new team map) and look at FRC teams from X area, clicking on their team name now brings you to their personal website … it doesn’t give you the competitions they’ve attended, awards they’ve won, etc. I really liked being able to see that! I hope it comes back soon.”
- "I’m looking for the Form W9 and where to send it, but I can’t seem to find it (and site search returns 0 results). "
- “I wish the contrast on some of the text was higher and that the site wasn’t so completely reliant on Javascript. I don’t see a site map at the bottom and I am worried how my Wii will handle browsing it.”
- “the Javascript navbars prevent me from ctrl-clicking links to open them in a new tab. It just uses Javascript to change the current page. I really dislike when sites do that. It makes them a lot harder for me to pull down massive amounts of information from at once, and really is completely not necessary.”
- Nit-picky, but the contact pages’ title (like top-of-the-browser-window title) is “Contact First”, not “Contact FIRST”
- cant find PDF of venue locations to aid hotel search
7)where is the History page? Information from past events was invaluable, and so far as I can see, it doesn’t exist. I’m talking about the page that linked you to the results of every event from 2002-2005. - The results of past regionals and championship events. The format used on this page: http://web.archive.org/web/20060219...cs/abr_art1.htm was fantastic.
-
An intuitively organized archive of previous games that can be used for research and reference ( is needed).
-
If you disable Javascript, none of the page navigation links work - or even appear. This is bad, especially if users attempt to disable JS during Kickoff to make the site load faster.
-
There needs to be much better page titles. The one for the homepage is simply “Home” or “USFIRST.org”. A much better one would include “FIRST” or something to that nature in every page title, as well as relevant page title, such as “USFIRST.org - Home” or “USFIRST.org - Documents and Updates”, etc. This will help search engines as well as tabbed browsing. (Having a half dozen tabs all open with the same “USFIRST.org” title is quite confusing.)
-
All of the old content needs to find it’s way back onto the new FIRST website, such as match results and other similar material from previous seasons.
-
Although it would probably mean a ton of work, there should be server-side redirects to redirect everyone from the old pages to the new content. (Such as if I visit http://www.usfirst.org/about/ it should redirect me to where ever the new page resides. There are so many links to FIRST pages over the years that the dead links will just be a nightmare for thousands of visitors.)
-
A better Error 404 page. Simply telling us “page cannot be found” is not enough. How about a page with the standard FIRST header and footer, with a blurb in the content section about how there was an Error 404 and the page you were looking for could not be found. Then have links there to the home, sitemap, and search pages.
-
All page navigation needs tabbed browsing support. Every browser nowadays except Internet Explorer 6 supports tabbed browsing. Not being able to open content from the navigation in new tabs is quite annoying. (This is the same as Greg’s Ctrl-Click criticism.) In fact, I almost believe that all the page navigation elements are not actual <a href="…"> types of links. If I right click on one, I don’t get the usual Open, Open in new Tab, Open in New Window, options. This is telling me that they are using Javascript to do the links in the page nav menus instead of semantic HTML code, which seems just plain weird.
-
All the individual team content pages from the old usfirst.org/frc/map/ needs to make it’s way into the current team system on their website. Although I enjoy clicking on a team and being taken directly to their website, I think a much better option would still have three columns, but with a slight bit of additional content for each team in the center column.
ABC Engineering & XYZ Corporation & Someville High School <-- [Link this to the team information page]
Team Website <-- [Link this line directly to the team’s website] -
It would be nice if the https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso pages all had links back to the main FIRST website somewhere near the top. A simple small FIRST logo in the top left corner would suffice.
-
We need photo and video galleries; and not just Flash ones. It would be nice to have ones like this where one can browse and click on/download JPEG pictures. Although the Flash galleries are nice, I’d much rather have at least the option of viewing the gallery in Flash or in an HTML page with JPEG pictures. Taking screenshots of Flash to extract the pictures out of them is not fun.
Still not working at home. Are there huge blocks of computer users they are writing off with this new site? My equipment is very up to date.
FIRST Community. Tollerance of change. See the following thread.
“For the 2007 season, FIRST will not be offering hotel reservation services for the FIRST Robotics Regional event season. We are working hard on having the service reinstated next year.” http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=3024
or click on the regional website at: http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/regionalevents.aspx?id=430. Many of the local sites give you a list of hotels and tips for places to go.
yes these are both good resources, but FIRST also made a PDF file with all of the venue’s address, which i am unable to find.
Hi Jenny,
Answers are threaded below.
At 02:12 PM 12/6/2006, you wrote:
> 12/06/06-From posts on http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50271&page=5&pp=15
>
>
> 1. “If you go to What’s Going On In My Area? (the new team map) and look at FRC teams from X area, clicking on their team name now brings you to their personal website … it doesn’t give you the competitions they’ve attended, awards they’ve won, etc. I really liked being able to see that! I hope it comes back soon.”
>>This is up for consideration. No decisions have been made at this time, however.
> 2. "I’m looking for the Form W9 and where to send it, but I can’t seem to find it (and site search returns 0 results). "
>>If the search is done on "W-9", the user will find the 2 pages when the form can be accessed.
> 3. “I wish the contrast on some of the text was higher and that the site wasn’t so completely reliant on Javascript. I don’t see a site map at the bottom and I am worried how my Wii will handle browsing it.”
> 4. “the Javascript navbars prevent me from ctrl-clicking links to open them in a new tab. It just uses Javascript to change the current page. I really dislike when sites do that. It makes them a lot harder for me to pull down massive amounts of information from at once, and really is completely not necessary.”
>>I will forward items 3 and 4 and 5 to IT for consideration.
> 5) Nit-picky, but the contact pages’ title (like top-of-the-browser-window title) is “Contact First”, not “Contact FIRST”
>
> 6) cant find PDF of venue locations to aid hotel search
Will not be a pdf. Info should be available soon through http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/regionalevents.aspx?id=430
)Although not all site info has been provided to FIRST from our regional directors. )
> 7)where is the History page? Information from past events was invaluable, and so far as I can see, it doesn’t exist. I’m talking about the page that linked you to the results of every event from 2002-2005.
>Some game history will be available soon (game docs from previous manuals).
> 8) The results of past regionals and championship events. The format used on this page: http://web.archive.org/web/20060219...cs/abr_art1.htm was fantastic.
>>Item 7 & 8 similiar. Will add to list for consideration, although this does not imply implementation.
> 9. An intuitively organized archive of previous games that can be used for research and reference ( is needed).
>See item 7 above.
> 10. If you disable Javascript, none of the page navigation links work - or even appear. This is bad, especially if users attempt to disable JS during Kickoff to make the site load faster.
> 11. There needs to be much better page titles. The one for the homepage is simply “Home” or “USFIRST.org”. A much better one would include “FIRST” or something to that nature in every page title, as well as relevant page title, such as “USFIRST.org - Home” or “USFIRST.org - Documents and Updates”, etc. This will help search engines as well as tabbed browsing. (Having a half dozen tabs all open with the same “USFIRST.org” title is quite confusing.)
>Javascript feedback has been provided to IT.
> 12. All of the old content needs to find it’s way back onto the new FIRST website, such as match results and other similar material from previous seasons.
> 13. Although it would probably mean a ton of work, there should be server-side redirects to redirect everyone from the old pages to the new content. (Such as if I visit http://www.usfirst.org/about/ it should redirect me to where ever the new page resides. There are so many links to FIRST pages over the years that the dead links will just be a nightmare for thousands of visitors.)
>We have created redirects for all high traffic pages that existed on the old site.
> 14. A better Error 404 page. Simply telling us “page cannot be found” is not enough. How about a page with the standard FIRST header and footer, with a blurb in the content section about how there was an Error 404 and the page you were looking for could not be found. Then have links there to the home, sitemap, and search pages.
>>Yes, is on the list for additions
> 15. All page navigation needs tabbed browsing support. Every browser nowadays except Internet Explorer 6 supports tabbed browsing. Not being able to open content from the navigation in new tabs is quite annoying. (This is the same as Greg’s Ctrl-Click criticism.) In fact, I almost believe that all the page navigation elements are not actual <a href="…"> types of links. If I right click on one, I don’t get the usual Open, Open in new Tab, Open in New Window, options. This is telling me that they are using Javascript to do the links in the page nav menus instead of semantic HTML code, which seems just plain weird.
> 16. All the individual team content pages from the old usfirst.org/frc/map/ needs to make it’s way into the current team system on their website. Although I enjoy clicking on a team and being taken directly to their website, I think a much better option would still have three columns, but with a slight bit of additional content for each team in the center column.
> ABC Engineering & XYZ Corporation & Someville High School <-- [Link this to the team information page]
> Team Website ]<-- [Link this line directly to the team’s website]
>
> >>Also on list for consideration.
>
> 17. It would be nice if the https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso pages all had links back to the main FIRST website somewhere near the top. A simple small FIRST logo in the top left corner would suffice.
>
> 18. We need photo and video galleries; and not just Flash ones. It would be nice to have ones like this where one can browse and click on/download JPEG pictures. Although the Flash galleries are nice, I’d much rather have at least the option of viewing the gallery in Flash or in an HTML page with JPEG pictures. Taking screenshots of Flash to extract the pictures out of them is not fun.
The FIRST website is always slow, whether I am at home or school. I can go to any other website within a matter of seconds, but the FIRST website always seems to run a little slow.
Actually, this is no longer true. Google has updated their cache since FIRST updated their website, and many of the pages are no longer there at all. For example, the link you posted returns a “page not found” error.
I’m having a devil of a time finding documentation from as recently as last year.
Does anyone know of a way to view the pending listing? I want to know if there are some rookies pending for BAE. Since we have none. 
And we have six slots. You know you want to come. 
I really hate to sound so negative and be critical of FIRST but after trying the website out for a couple of weeks now I really have to say I don’t like it. It seems like we have taken many more than two steps back rather than a step forward. As far as I can tell, there is much less content and I simply can’t find anything. There seems to be no way to look up information about teams, the results of previous years competitions, or any information about the rules, etc. from previous years. It would seem to me that a good starting point for rookie scouting would be to look at how the teams that they will be competing against did in previous years. What awards they won, how they placed, etc. As far as I can tell all of that valuable historical data is now gone. I can’t even find a page that lists my own team or what our motto is or even our robot name. The links just immediately redirect you to the individual team websites (if they have one). I have given myself time to get used to the new website but I just don’t find it even 1% as useful as the old one. I really think the saying “just because its new, doesn’t mean its better” really applies here. What really bothers me is the total lack of response from FIRST when specific problems and requests were brought to their attention. As far as I can tell they either glossed over the issue or at best said they would “consider it”. With only a few weeks to go until kickoff I really hope the website drastically improves in content. I could care less about the colors and the fonts and the pretty pictures and menus.
Sorry for the rant. I’ll get off my soap box now.
The team info is there. It is an unadvertised link though.
https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso?page=teaminfo&team=456
Go to any variation of the team lists, e.g.,
https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso?page=teamlist
and click on the team # rather than the team name.
P.S. I haven’t searched the new FIRST site for team rules, etc. from past years, but if you have an immediate need and it helps we archive that stuff on our website under history.
2007VenueAddress.pdf (32.5 KB)
2007VenueAddress.pdf (32.5 KB)
Thank you! That is at least a start on getting back to where we used to be!
I think you might have missed the boat on this one. Think about how the site has been redesigned for and who its now geared towards. With the fundamental interest in growing the organization by attracting new sponsors and teams, the site looks like it was designed for them, not existing teams. However, i’m sure content will slowly improve over time.
Probably! I tend to miss a lot of boats. This tends to be a problem because I am usually the boat operator! Anyway, it still just seems to me that FIRST is alienating their existing customers trying to attract new customers. I don’t see why at the very least they couldn’t leave their old site up for the added content and put a link to it on the new site somewhere until they get the new site completed. My worry is that this IS the completed new site and they are not actively updating it with new “old” content which is of great value to both new and veteran teams. I have been waiting but haven’t seen any significant changes since the new site went live. FIRST’s “we will consider it” response just isn’t leaving me with a warm and fuzzy feeling. Hopefully I’m worried for no reason.