FrankAnswersFridays: October 25, 2013: Safety at Championships

FIRST General Forum
#36

I like Pat and Karthik’s thoughts on this matter; a simple and easy to implement solution to the problem. Not everything would be perfect (teams would still run once past the doors unless the “line” continued inside) but it would be far better than what’s going on now.

I do wish to add that as much as teams should be GP, as much as we want to instill those values, teams are going to run in the mornings if they have a good reason to. We can’t go “teams need to be more GP” and then do nothing about the problem. It doesn’t remove the incentive to sprint, push, and shove.

Similarly, more volunteers telling students not to run isn’t going to make them stop running. The benefits of running ahead (good seats for the day) are far higher than the costs (someone might ask you to stop running). I’d never endorse the behavior of these students, but I understand why it happens. Tired, stressed students whom have been awake for 3 hours are being rushed / cut by people that showed up 20 minutes prior to doors. These students felt they worked hard for the right to sit first and hate to see it taken from them by other people running ahead, so they have in their mind no choice but to do the same.

Hence why an ideal solution to get people to stop running is to ensure an orderly line that can proceed in that order all the way to the entrance to the stands. Anything short of that creates an opportunity for students to run / push / shove / cut.

#37

Adding on to all of this, you would have to, in advance of the competition, mark on a map a specific set of doors that open early and have these 4 separate lines that we talked about. Second, you need to have a few people there early in the morning (floaters, maybe even queuers?) to control the entry. I think you open these special doors for field access only 10 minutes before each other door, and have each division go at one time and escorted to the entrance of that division. The free for all is bound to happen eventually, but trying to mitigate the initial rush would go a long way in establishing a precedent of fair and sensible seating.

Also since a lot of people who are serial seat savers (ie non-mentoring parents) are not likely to ever read the admin manual, could FIRST put a couple more coins into signage that quotes the rule around each seating area? I know FIRST likes to dump a lot of cash on signage for the whole event, what’s a few more banners around each division to maybe cut down on the issue just bit more?

#38

Lotteries, etc… are silly and resource intensive.

We just need a better system to handle the first come first serve. Also, reducing the “sprint distance” would help.

In 2011, the line for pit was allowed to go inside, and right up to the pit doors. Thus, when the doors were opened there was no incentive to sprint… you were already there. 2012 and 2013 had a dangerous 500’ sprint.

I’d be nice (but I’m less familiar with the dome layout) to do the same thing for the 4 divisions. Form a line right at the entrance to the seats themselves, so that minimal sprinting could even happen. This also makes what is currently one massive line, 5 smaller lines.

#39

Jim,
I wonder if you had a run-in with the same woman who did that to me and 2 of my students when we found some empty seats right before opening ceremonies in 2011. Another mentor from her team did come stop her because she was making a scene yelling at the several groups who sat in the seats, and her entire team ended up using about 2/5 of the “saved” seats.

More doors, please. Separate pit entrance, please. More humorous rhymes from the safety glasses attendant, please.

#40

I agree with most of this. However it doesn’t address the problem of a team sending a 1 or 2 people to save 30 seats or more.

While a lottery may be “resource intensive” it solves both issues. There’s no running, and everyone has a set amount of seats.

Also, to prevent teams from saying they have 50 people just to “be safe” it may be a good idea to have a system in place that the bigger the team is, the less likely they get seats up front.

I’m all for simple solutions but at the same time I don’t want to half solve the problem.

#41

Am I the only one who just explains that you can’t save those seats and continues to sit in them? Not trying to be a jerk but if your 30+ member team is represented by 2 team members and some jackets, then I’m going to still take the seat.

#42

There are more than a few of us who will happily claim an unoccupied seat. If challenged, I’ll just as happily offer to vacate it upon the return of the team member it’s being “saved” for.

I even followed through on that offer the one time a team member did need the seat before I left. :slight_smile:

#43

I think one of the major issues with seating was how little seating in the facility was made available for people–the Championship is held in a huge stadium, and yet what the staff seemed most concerned about was the fact that everyone stayed on the first level of seating. It seemed like 60 percent of the seats in the facility were unused! Maybe the crowd would thin out a bit if teams were allowed to make use of all the available seating, rather than just a small portion!

#44

I think FIRST should take a look at how well the scouting section at the GTR Regional (I can’t remember which one) that is being held at 610’s school. If the whole “Scouting Section” business runs efficiently there, I see no reason why they shouldn’t attempt something like it at championships. Especially if they could find a space to set up a full-field view.
This would alleviate the problem in the stands immensely by moving scouts who need priority seating out of the stands and into a scouting section.
I think they find four relatively large areas in the convention center to run these sections. Preferably a relatively quiet area. This might also encourage collaboration between teams that are scouting.

Another thought: What if they used the high-up seating that is unused above a section to facilitate the scouting section? Would it be difficult to set up a projector there? It also has the benefit of being close to the actual seating and field.

The reason I’m so concerned about this is that our scouting operation is intense. We run six scouts, a head scout, a paper filer, and a data entry person. We also collaborate with other teams for our scouting. And anyone who knows FRC knows that scouting wins matches, and good scouting wins regionals.
So whatever solution is presented, I want to make sure that scouting is considered as a high priority item.
I have no doubt that most of you understand this, but it’s something that could easily get thrown under the bridge in the name of organization.

#45

Given the option I don’t think there’s a single team that would rather watch the match on a screen rather than live when it comes to scouting.

#46

Agreed. As someone who takes scouting very seriously I have never seen a video stream or angle that would come close to being a supplement for scouting. I remember scouting at Champs in 2009-2010 in some of the very back rows and still be able to do so successfully with identifying bumper numbers and where people were on the field.

There is a small level of scouting you can do via a video feed but if you want to do it properly you need to physically be watching everything on and off the field. I am curious to see the 610 setup for their regional but I am still very, very skeptical.

#47

I did data entry for my team’s scouting group at MARC over the summer. I set up at a table in a hallway. It was quieter, cooler, and I could lay out everything I was looking at instead of balancing a laptop and several accordion folders on my lap in the bleachers. Given the choice of entering data in a hall like I did, in the stands, or in a room with tables and a stream of the match, I would pick the streaming.

I don’t think that the whole scouting team would have liked the secluded room, given that a lot of the fun is getting to sit as a team.

#48

I understand that. And that’s why I’m curious to see how well 610’s setup will work.
However, given the choice of not having seats to scout or scouting via full-field-fisheye (henceforth known as F^3), which would you choose?

#49

Neither. I would show up at 5 AM and get seats.

#50

Fair enough.

#51

And we will still show up at 4:59 am:D

#52

I don’t understand the basic foundations of this discussion. It’s the Championship-- stop sitting and start walking around.

#53

There are tables to setup servers and printers, power outlets run to every few block of seats, stadium seating in comfortable chairs, and guest Wi-Fi internet access.

The premise is to provide scouts with all the things we wish our own scouts had at the events we’ve completed at. Of course the video/audio feed has to be good enough at the end of the day, but it needs to be good enough to identify the robots, and what they’re doing. Having watched the streams from MI champs, and the HD WatchFIRSTnow streams, they were good enough for this, when they stuck to a fixed, full field view. With those streams and fixed views, I’m pretty sure our scouts could’ve tracked all the info we had asked them to record on our match scoring sheets.

We’re even going to share our own team’s live scouting data on secondary a screen off to the side for teams to cross reference their own, and live rankings on a third screen, all right beside the large HD video feed, so you don’t need to run to the pits just to see the rankings.

I don’t think any other event has tried this before, but I know our scouts will be lining up to set up in the ScoutCentre at the GTRW.

#54

But who will save my seat when I get up to look at things?

I’ll be competing at GTRW with the remote scouting room. I’ll relay observations to CD.

#55

From the perspective of someone who only needs to line up early when I’m visiting with a team that has that objective, and even then, only when I’m not otherwise engaged as a volunteer, I’m not really in favour of making the line at the door into part of the competition.

Sure, it’s one more way that a motivated team can gain a useful advantage through their disciplined efforts off the field—but it’s also an arms race in which the fanatics and the scouts will be keeping each other company for the lonely hours before sunrise. And while I suppose it’s their prerogative, it’s a little undignified and kind of overlooks the bigger question: is the first-come-first-served allocation of seats so essential to the competition (as a whole, rather than on a per-team level) that it couldn’t be replaced with a system that is fair through randomness? If the few teams currently lining up very early lose their advantage, but everyone gets more sleep and less stampeding happens, are the event and the experience improved or degraded overall? I don’t have data to estimate the relative benefits, but the costs to the event of enforcing an orderly line seem greater than the costs of assigning scouts’ seats in advance.1

Also, lotteries are easy when you have a known set of entrants and don’t need to do it in real time. The week before the event, with great pomp and circumstance, the regional director selects a hat and draws team numbers from it. A set number of that team’s representatives are assigned to predetermined seating blocks in the order drawn. A slight improvement/complication involves the teams ranking their preferences for blocks of seating beforehand; when drawn, they get the most preferable block not already taken.

1 Despite that, I have to admit, I’m sympathetic to the teams that are annoyed when their scouts are beaten to the front row seats, and then have to endure sitting behind people that stand up and cheer for their team instead of quietly observing the match. I’d wager that the loss of productivity of the scouts in the 2nd row is greater in magnitude than the benefit the 1st-row team gains by cheering—and in effect harms the competition compared to the situation in which the seats were switched.