Why isn't the FIRST website the place to get up to the minute regional information?

FIRST General Forum
#1

Why is it that the FIRST website always seems to be the last to be updated with the latest regional information?

One would think that FIRST/Autodesk would schedule the webmasters work schedule during the regionals to include the times that the regional are happening. And whatever extra time to get ALL the results posted at the end of the event.

Not all mentors and students get to travel, and being able to track their teams progress via the web is exciting for those who can’t be there.

But, instead of FIRST being the outlet, FIRST’ers have to hope someone posts to Chief Delphi, or Soap108 to find out results.

Maybe FIRST should supply the regionals with a scoring, standings, and awards template that could be directly uploaded and updated to the FIRST website from the event as it happens. I’m sure most regionals would be more than happy to supply a volunteer to input the information.

It’s sort of like if the NFL played all its games on Sunday morning and you went to the NFL website Monday Night and you still couldn’t find any scores…

FIRST - WE KNOW YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT

#2

ok, here is the deal. We do have a system to upload scores during the day. That’s not the problem.

What the problem IS, is that at the event, we have very bad internet connections. We hook up to a 28k modem, and the connection was lost from time to time. The St. Louis regional had to stay till 3am in the morning to finish downloading the necessary software to make the matches work.

And believe me, we tried the best to upload the score. You can see some regionals have scores updated, and that shows we do have a system. We tried the best, and it just couldn’t work out.

As for the awards, we send FIRST the list of award winners after a regional is done, and it take a little time for them to get it on their site.

#3

FIRST works their butts off for us. When you step back and look at how few people are actualy incharge of FIRST it is amazing that they pull it off. One of the main reasons is that CD already provides the service, and there is no reason for FIRST to do it.

FIRST gives so much to us, plz don’t be so quick to critize them.

#4

*Originally posted by Gope *
**FIRST works their butts off for us. When you step back and look at how few people are actualy incharge of FIRST it is amazing that they pull it off. One of the main reasons is that CD already provides the service, and there is no reason for FIRST to do it.
FIRST gives so much to us, plz don’t be so quick to critize them. **

Gentlemen, this was not a personal attack on any person and any particular regional. Its an observation of a 'process" that has some obvious flaws and a suggestion on how to make the ‘process’ better.

This was not a criticism just to complain, but to point out an area in which FIRST can improve and a suggestion on how to do it.

CONTINOUS IMPROVEMENT!

#5

*Originally posted by Don Knight *
**Gentlemen, this was not a personal attack on any person and any particular regional. Its an observation of a 'process" that has some obvious flaws and a suggestion on how to make the ‘process’ better.

This was not a criticism just to complain, but to point out an area in which FIRST can improve and a suggestion on how to do it.

CONTINOUS IMPROVEMENT! **

Yup. I understand that you are trying to make constructive critism, and I thank you for that. There is team forum every year for teams to tell FIRST what they think, so please remember about this, and either come to the team forum, or tell the person from your team (Ken maybe?) who will be going to make sure they address this issue at the team forum.

And trust me, I got a lot of things I want to tell FIRST to improve. But the more I work as a volunteer for them, the more I appeciate their effort in the existing system.

#6

*Originally posted by Don Knight *
**Why is it that the FIRST website always seems to be the last to be updated with the latest regional information?

One would think that FIRST/Autodesk would schedule the webmasters work schedule during the regionals to include the times that the regional are happening. And whatever extra time to get ALL the results posted at the end of the event.

Not all mentors and students get to travel, and being able to track their teams progress via the web is exciting for those who can’t be there.

But, instead of FIRST being the outlet, FIRST’ers have to hope someone posts to Chief Delphi, or Soap108 to find out results.

Maybe FIRST should supply the regionals with a scoring, standings, and awards template that could be directly uploaded and updated to the FIRST website from the event as it happens. I’m sure most regionals would be more than happy to supply a volunteer to input the information.

It’s sort of like if the NFL played all its games on Sunday morning and you went to the NFL website Monday Night and you still couldn’t find any scores…

FIRST - WE KNOW YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT **

Amen. Totally agree with you.

Ken L posted correctly- The Inet connection at the events is often very poor. Also note the #1 priority is to make sure the event runs. Being the first weekend there were several drop-everything-and-fix-this-now issues. Updating the web is often a very low priority.

Something else you should know is this year Motorola did not do the scoring system. It was 99% by FIRST. They re-wrote virtually everything. I give them mad props for pulling off this feat!! I was personally very skeptical they would make it happen. I do wonder if they now have second thoughts… FMPro has got to be the most cumbersome “database” to program in. But, they have many year’s experience in this so they went with it. (Many other reasons too).

One other note about Awards updates. Especially on Saturday, right after elims the scoring system is typically shutdown and there is a …mad-dash… to pack everything up and leave. Pushing the final list of award winners rarely happens. The laptops are packed and put on a truck to make it to the next event.

…

Fortunatly, Florida and Moto-Midwest will not have an Inet speed issue. :slight_smile: Neither should Nationals.

Look for LiVE! updates on soap108.com at these events…and hopefully USFIRST.org too!

Maybe, if we get a breathing chance, we’ll update and turn on our LiVE Paging of Match Results to your celphone, pager, or email…likely for Midwest…and probably Nationals!

KA-Moto108 :cool:

#7

If you got T-Mobile or Cingular to sponsor you guys, you could have stats uploaded over a GRPS connection at aroulb 56k. If you got sprint or verizon, the speeds would be significantly faster.

Plus, they get to say that “We provide FIRST with blah dee blah,” and they’d prolly make a cell phone ad involving it, giving FIRST more publicity, and hopefully the ad will be better than “can you hear me now?”

just imagine: cathrine zeta jones at a FIRST competition filming an ad:

::Stack Attack ensues::

::CZJ steps out onto the scene next to the tech/tv/scoring table::

“Stop!”

::everyone, inc. robots, freeze in their place, some robots manipulators are still going up and down::

“Ken here need to send up-to-the minute scores to the FIRST website. What does he do?”

::hands him a GPRS PC Card Modem::

“Carry on.”

::he plugs it into his laptop::

::flash to half a robotics team halfway across the nation next to a computer::

::The scores flash onto the screen::

::everyone cheers::

:smiley:

isn’t that just the coolest ads you can think of?

#8

Nah, I’d much rather see a Nextel commercial… :slight_smile:

iDEN / Nextel in PCMCIA Card Format.
http://www.nextel.com/phones_plans/datadevices/im1100.shtml

Any of the phones do the same thing, too.

KA-108

#9