District Championships are just around the corner! All eyes will be trained on Boston, Portland, Ypsilanti and Bethlehem, PA to see who will make their way to the big show in St. Louis. With almost 100 spots for the World Championship at stake, these events will showcase some of the best robot action yet!
This week, GameSense will be live on Monday April 7th at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT. That’s right, it’s a new night so everyone going to a District Championship can catch the show!
We are happy to welcome not one, not two, but FOUR GUESTS to the show, each representing one of the four districts:
Steve Kaneb, three-time referee this year and a mentor from Team 190 for New England Navid Shafa, RoboWeather meteorologist and mentor from Team 1983 for the PNW Jim Zondag, drive coach and mentor from Team 33 for FIRST in Michigan, and Shaun McNulty, drive coach and mentor from Team 25 for MAR
This week’s show will be a full 90 minutes to fit in all the discussion and analysis you have come to enjoy from GameSense. Join us as we preview each of the events, talk about how districts have changed the face of FIRST, and look at what the future may hold for the district model.
If you haven’t had a chance to catch our previous episodes, you can check out all therecordings here.
Just a reminder that our 1.5 hour District Championship Special will be airing tonight at 8pm ET. We’ll be sporting some fancy new show upgrades and a special guest from EACH district!
Check out Navid’s video tour of the district points website here.
Also, don’t forget there will be no show next week, but we will have a 2-hour special Monday April 21st to talk about Championships! We will be discussing Curie and Archimedes starting at 8pm ET/5pm PT and Galileo and Newton starting at 9pm ET/6pm PT.
Being on the show was a great experience, talking to so many knowledgeable mentors before, during, and after about these different regions is eye-opening.
I have a couple things that really weren’t relevant to the topics at hand, so I’m dumping them in this thread because I’m selfish. As you prepare for district championships and Champinationalships, I want you to put a little more thought into a some aspects of the competition that I’ve seen neglected.
First, there is a time to go out and measure the field before practice matches. Go and measure it. The field is the field, and it will save you time and effort to readjust your autonomous programs if you know the actual numbers. Be prepared to have it move a little bit as the competition goes on. You can see the bunching in the carpet behind the driver stations and a couple of gaps forming in the field borders. Those are staying! Work tolerance into your programs and react to the field.
Second, please talk to the head referee if you do not understand a call. Qualification matches especially are the time to bring up concerns or confusion. I have heard too often the question within a team “should I ask the head referee about this?” The answer is yes. Once the head referee has heard your question, they’ll let you know whether that’s how the situation is or if there is a different resolution. You really won’t be able to wear down a head referee into eventually capitulating to an incorrect ruling just because you asked the same question multiple times. I encourage you to use the question box to get a more thorough understanding of how the rules are being called and interpreted at the event.
Thank you for your time watching GameSense, I hope you enjoyed watching it as much as I enjoyed pontificating.
