Hey,
I have been working on my team’s site recently. We were a rookie team last year, and we launched the site right before nationals started. I would really like to know what everyone thought of the site.
Link: http://firstbedford.org
Thanks.
nice start, i would suggest adding more to the front page, and maybe animating the gears at the top of the page.
Also by the sound of it you are only allowing to same people on the team, i would suggest opening it up to freshman.
The text on front page isn’t really right, I am actually a senior. And we are excepting all students at the school. I am currently having some of the members write me up new paragraphs ;).
it is a good start, tho i would add a sponsors section and have a full bio about the sponsor and what they have done for your team and community, its always a positive for the web site award. also the bottom links should be organized the same as your top nav, meaning keep them the same order for uniformity.
It also might be better for the contact page to have a contact form like this one: http://www.xlx2.com/?p=contact
Heres a tutorial that is helpful, if you need it [also if you need/want help feel free to ask]
I would suggest adding a link to your page on The Blue Alliance
http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/team.php?team=2621&sbutt=Go
so that your fans can see your robot in action.
Also, it would be nice to have links from the pictures on your About page to larger versions of the pictures.
Keep working, you’ll get there.
You could also submit your website for evaluation by Michelle Celio here on CD:
I like your template, the gradient with gears image is very high quality.
I would consider shortening the length of your homepage to fit a computer screen without scrolling down.
Maybe you can clip some of the vertical of your banner or the padding on the top dropdowns.
Overall, very professional template !
i was just looking at your html and i would also suggest getting away from tables, while it looks good as it is now, div tags with css can look even better and more professional. Just a thought…
Here’s the message I give to web competitors every year:
Everyone keeps neglecting a MAJOR part of FIRST websites.
THEY TELL YOU WHAT JUDGES WANT TO SEE.
As a 4-year website judge, I encourage EVERY FIRST kid to do this, it makes a big difference if you just READ.
If you look at the Website Award section of the manual, they give you the grading process for the judges from last year. The outline of the award basically explains what FIRST is looking for.
9.7.2.1 General
The ideal website is a genuine reflection of the team, its participants, spirit, and goals. It should not be just a bulletin board with information accessible via a menu. It should tell an individual story and also detail how it is part of the larger FIRST community.
9.7.2.2 Content and Design
The content (text, pictures, music, etc,) and design of a website should work together to provide a pleasing user experience. Good content with a confusing interface, or vice versa, will not be scored as highly as a site
with better balance.
They want to see content, that’s the key of any team website. They want the inside, human perspective of a team, and to see how this team interacts within both the FIRST community and their own local community. They want multimedia, pictures, video, flash animation is a nice bonus. They want up-to-date information, maybe even what the team is currently working on and how it’s going.
Here’s what I explained to my kids when they were looking for examples of websites:
To be honest, the web criteria is more about the content of the site than the presentation of it. Looking professional and good is a plus, but it is not what counts.
Here is 555’s website.
They won the Website Award at the NYC Regional in 2005. http://www.montclairrobotics.org/
Here is 103’s website.
They have won the website award multiple times, I believe.
http://www.cybersonics.org
Chiefdelphi has won the Website Excellence award two years in a row
2004: http://team2004.chiefdelphi.com/
2005: http://team2005.chiefdelphi.com/
This is the kind of stuff judges look for:
team success stories
appreciation and recognition of sponsors
resources for other teams
photos of members/mentors/coaches
One thing FIRST is big on is letting people know about the impact its had on teams. 358 has a list of where their graduates have gone and what they’re considering for majors. That’s awesome! They also have a schedule up as far as their upcoming events are concerned. They have a nice archive of the newspaper and other media spots they’ve had too. Seriously, the content of this site is awesome.
http://www.team358.org
One of my favorite things to see is an alumni page. Unless you’re a rookie team, you’ve had kids graduate from your group. So, what have they gone on to do/study? Are they working in science, engineering, or technology fields? It makes SUCH an impact to people in FIRST if they realize just how much progress your team is making in inspiration.
Team 1089 (my team) won the website award at the NJ Regional this year (again). If you would like, please feel free to stop by our website and compare/contrast with ours (http://www.mercury1089.com ). I worked with the students this year to supply a massive amount of content and work with the fluidity and interactivity of it as well. If you would like to talk to me more about what I personally think is important in a FIRST award-winning website, feel free to PM me.
I know this post is long, I’m sorry.
But I hope it was informative.
2005-2008 NYC Website Judge | 2006-2008 Philadelphia Website Judge | 2008 NJ Website Judge Advisor
And here’s some more good information from KathieK:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=634203&postcount=12
I just have a couple things …
If you’re going to make a website, make sure you code it properly. Tables should never (never NEVER!) be used for the layout of the website. I know judges don’t look at this (and they should), but if this is going to be a learning experience, CSS and DIV tags are the to go.
The text should be slightly easier to read. I recommend changing the font to 12pt or adding line spacing in your CSS (or both).
Maybe make your layout more exciting and original to better reflect your team. Right now, your banner seems to be the best part of the layout, outside of that, there’s not much else that draws my attention except pictures.
Make your navigation more noticeable. The gray links are just not working for me, sure I saw them but they weren’t prominent. The hover effect is a nice idea.
In your media section, the pictures that you currently have are resized with HTML, which is not good. Resizing with HTML causes the thumbnails to load slower, therefore causing the page to take forever to load. Have to sets of pictures, thumbnails and the real pictures.
As far as content goes, take a closer look at the rubric on FIRST’s website and make sure you add as much as you can. On our site we have just about everything there is to know about our team. After reading your about us section, I didn’t feel like I knew your team. I understand that you’re a rookie team so make sure that you build this section as more things happen.
Overall, it’s a great start, a lot better than a lot of sites I’ve seen. Make sure that you keep your site up. Nothing ticks me off more than a team putting up a website for the FIRST season, then just taking it down (that’s just downright pointless - a team website shouldn’t just be for winning awards).
I hope that helped, if you would like any help with anything, feel free to send me a PM or post back in here! Also, if something doesn’t make sense, make sure and tell me/correct me because I wrote this pretty quick.
Ryan
Team 245
AdamBots.com
I completly agree…
and ditto on this, one of the great things about Chief Delphi is the helpful community and resources 
Also according to the previous two years that we have been involved in FIRST and of me working on our website (http://www.whitebearlakerobotics.com) any external links should open in a new window not open it in the same window(like your link to FIRST on the top of the page also along with what i’m guessing is your schools website on the contact us page). That is just my 2 cents.
I especially like the particular video you chose to display on your site - team 1676 (your alliance partner) is shown well in that match.
As for some quibbles:
1.Why start the titles with a dot (as in .The Team)? Cute, maybe, but distracting.
2. On all pages, try to avoid slang or (not sure what it’s called) like “the team can not wait for the kickoff”. Sure you can. perhaps something like ‘the team is very excited about the 2009 season and is anxiously awaiting the kickiff…’
3. Can you make the text in the top image “robotics team” and “2621” a little brighter? On my monitor it almost gets lost.
4.
The robot is primarily driven, during operator control by, David Altschuler, with Charles Connell as the assistant driver. During the autonomous mode, the robo-coach Nathan Spector, does not need to use a control, as it takes no human input during this time.
too many commas, many unnecessary.
- As mentioned by BandChick, more content is better. More of your community activities, more photos of the team, the school. A better description of the robot - 4 wheel/6 wheel, type of frame, type of manipulator, etc. No student names though, or maybe first name and last initial.
- I like the blog, maybe others can contribute.
- 1676 uses their calendar to communicate everything to the team - meetings, practice, whatever. Surely the team is doing something between now and January?
This is an excellent start to your website, and I think that with just a little bit more effort - get others involved! - it will be a real contender this year. Good work!
Don
First of all, let me start off by saying I’ve only made one (not very good) website in my life, so… I’m sure other’s opinions carry a lot more weight than mine.
>I like the picture on the front page with the idler gears. Really cool.
>In general, the top of the home page is very clean.
>Below the top of the home page, I feel like there’s a ton of oddly placed whitespace. Not sure what to do about it, so, just an observation.
>The blog is very nicely laid out. Clean.
Good site!
-q
Very nicely developed website design, your team definitely has a great graphical strength which gives you a competitive edge for this award!
I did some website judging for the finger lakes regional I do agree that placing a lot of emphasis on content is very important to your success.
Why?, because they are trying to get you to develop a website that advertises FIRST in your local area and at the same time get you to develop an informative resource that tells the community about the specifics of your program/accomplishments.
I do have to warn you not all website judges are fair, unfortunately some judges might take points off for little things such as not wearing safety glasses in one of the photos on your website. Be very careful of what you put on the website.
Good job so far, I hope this advice helps your team. The hardest part of developing a website especially for the FIRST website contests is getting the content together, because a lot of teams face the challenge of finding someone to write the content that is up to date.