I have one problem with the regionals. No one outside of the team can ever show up. This year was harder because we got moves down town. Our team really has no support from our school administration or student body. I am thinking the main problem is they don’t have time or the means to get to the regional to wach. I also think they have never seen one and don’t realize how fun it is to watch so they don’t care. My thought then is to bring the regional to them. (this thread is mainly for Saint Louis teams, but I thought teams in other areas might have the same problem and get some ideas from this thread). I know we are not the only team with this problem in the area. Here is what I want to do.
My school (Kennedy) has two gyms. I am pretty surre I could get use of one of them for a night or two now that basketball is over. If several teams came and we all brought our test floor and trailers, we could have a mock regional one night. That way, maybe people would show up. It would be closer to them and actually in the evening so they could make it(also don’t like the fact that most of the action is during a school day). It woud also give teams a chance to test some code or other parts they couldn’t test in the regional. What do you guys think. Does anyone else want to do it?
In other words, you want to run an offseason competition, in a sense. Or a cross between an offseason competition and a demo.
Here’s my suggestion: Look into what it’s going to cost, first–you may want to charge a small entry fee or run a snack stand to cover costs. Second, more teams will come if it’s a competition–why not run some matches Friday night and finish up Saturday morning? Setup right after the school day Thursday or Friday or both, then tear down Saturday afternoon.
Oh, and a tip: if you have enough teams indicate interest, get both gyms, one for the pits and one for the competition.
Better, if all the local teams have this problem, build your own field border (I believe there are plans somewhere) and find some carpet and find a place to store them. Now, you don’t have to deal with the hassle of finding a field, you just have to get it to the location. As an added bonus, you can use the field for demos in other areas.
We have a scrimmage before ship date in Muncie Indiana. It was the second year and it was once again a success. All the teams were told what to bring and a full field was set up to test out our robots and the competition. It looked like it was helpful for teams to see the strongpoints and flaws in their bots and then repair it for a day or two before ship. We actually had teams like 234, 45, 1024 all there. Thats means that 3 of the 8 teams became champs! also, the main host 1720 was ranked first at BMR. In addition to being a good day for seeing your robot against the competition, its also a good day to test out drivers.
A demo is a good way to put it. I would love to get a whole practice field and have pits and everything, but we do not have the funds. Our team is almost out of money as it is. We can’t afford to build a whole practice filed. I lnow the one at our regional was made from what teams brought with them. I don’t think I can get both gyms either considering the other one has a batting cage and softball season just started. Having a field program might be a possibility, though. The point of this would be to get some support from our school. Right now it is a four school team. My school didn’t really contribute except for people. I want to get them more involved and I think a demo would be a good way to do it. One bot by itself on a gym floor is just not much fun.
This thread speaks to a problem that FiM is trying to work on. By doing more local District events, it seems to be easier to get friends and parents to come. We are about half way through the season, and it is working fairly well.
Back to your problem. Definitely look into renting a field from Andymark. They are much cheaper than you would expect. Do the event in the fall and it will help get new people excited about your team. It is also an excellent chairman’s opportunity.
We feel the same way sometimes with the lack of support, but this year is different. Our teacher mentioned the regional to other teachers, and there is a plan in place to bring 200 middle and high-school students currently in a pre-engineering cirriculum to the regional. We are lucky enough to have the regional 15min away. The cost you may encounter with an idea like this is school busses for the students, and how far away the regional is from your school.
What would a team that wants to host an event do for the controll system overall? Would a team just have everyone use their routers, or can you rent the offical one?
Also what about the ranking software that FIRST uses to rank the teams? 201 is thinking of hosting an event, and we need to find out what we need to host an event.
Many teams that host an offseason event use them as fundraisers. If you charge the teams a nominal fee to participate (enough to cover field costs & overhead), you can use concessions as a way to make the team money.
Chris Fultz from 234 wrote a fantastic white paper about hosting an offseason event - it was our bible for CAGE Match last year. After running our (much) smaller event last fall, we came up with some tips for event hosting.
Let me know if you have any questions.
I wish they released the source code for that program. The only machine I have that is fast enough to handle that program runs Debian. I don’t think WINE supports 3.5 library yet (someone please correct me if I am wrong. I tried a few weeks ago to run somethig that required 3.5 and couldn’t). I can probably find something, though. I sent out a mass email and got a positive response for a fall game. My problem is that I am a senior and the driving force behind this idea. I am not sure I can get one of nexts year’s captians to carry out this demonstration. They seemed to like the idea but did not want to organize it. I guess I will just have to convince them. thnaks for the help