Wow! what a year

FIRST General Forum
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Posted by Mike Kulibaba.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]

Student on team #88, TJ², from Bridgewater-Raynham Regional and Johnson and Johnson.

Posted on 4/10/2000 3:18 PM MST

Well another year has gonbe by and I want to say a few things:

  1. Delphi had the coolest drive system and a great robot, probably my favorite one.

  2. With all the good teams there, my team(88) I don’t think really deserved to be picked for the finals. We had a good robot but when teams like 308, 293, 1, 122, don’t get picked you know something is wrong. I’ll be the first to admit we got picked cause we almost begged team 37(Cordzilla) to pick us. We have know them for about 4 years and have seen them at the Mid Atlantic Regional every year so we are good freinds. And I would like to thank them alot for their confidence and we almost did pull off that quarter-Final match.

  3. The Bar teams(or Monkey’s as we call them)put on a great defensive show for everyone. I saw team 25 in Jersey and I saw a few others along the way and I always considered team 25 to have the best chance of all the Monkeys. I would also like to congratulate team 25 for not even thinking they were going to go down to Florida and coming back a national Champion

  4. I liked how they set up the competition field in Florida. I just think they needs a few more rows of seats on each playing field. But other then that I liked how it was set up

  5. Did Anyone know they were giving out a Highest round score. My team ended up winning the award along with 3 other teams. My problem with this award is that the point of this competition wasn’t to score a very high round unless you needed it. We won the match 39-14. we only got 42 qualifying points. in the first match of the day I think it was, the score was 32-28 getting the winnning team 84 qualifying points. They got the better score but we got the award because we scored 39 points. Not that I’m complaining cause I’ll take the award.

  6. The fireworks and lights and video Disney puts on is amazing, how did they get those pictures on the video soo quickly. I was very impressed Disney does such a great job every year.

  7. I want to thank every team that partcipated in the First competition for the year 2000. You all did a great job and made this the most memorable year for me and my team. And Team 88 is already planning to be back next year hopefully better then ever. See you all next year

Mike Kulibaba Team 88 TJ²

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Posted by Elaine Anselm.

Engineer on team #191, X-Cats, from Jos Wilson High School and Xerox.

Posted on 4/11/2000 11:06 AM MST

In Reply to: Wow! what a year posted by Mike Kulibaba on 4/10/2000 3:18 PM MST:

I must second what Mike said - this was one of the greatest years for competition that I can remember and I have seen them all since 1992. Thank you to FIRST for taking and using many of the suggestions made by teams last year.

I am also pleased to see the changes that Disney made to accommodate basic comfort, matches moving faster, staying on schedule and getting from field to field easily. The covered arena, great lighting and raised seats were awesome on the inside arenas. More places to sit would have really helped but things have taken a giant leap forward here.

Many people were not around in 1995, the first year at Disney, but the competition was inside EPCOT Center at the America’s Pavilion. The Pits were in a little covered area with no walls next to the America’s building. There was a thunder storm all Friday afternoon. There was a robot crossing sign to get robots to and from the playing field through the EPCOT visitors. Some of our team members walked by the area on Friday night and commented how tiny it looks. It looked huge back than. Things have come a very long way in 6 years. Personal commentary - I know that the visibility provided by Disney is something FIRST wants and needs, but from a team perspective, I still find Disney a very expensive distraction, even with the improvements.

I agree that it is unfortunate that a lot of really good teams did not get to play in the final rounds at the Nationals. Many of our team members were very disappointed at not getting picked. We finished 31st, won 6 out of 7 matches and did very well in the NJ Regional. It was disappointing to see so many other good robots overlooked as well. There were many awesome robots this year however and those who made it to the finals put on a terrific show.

Some people I talked to were disappointed that the schedule for picking alliance partners was pushed up almost an hour from the published schedule and that people were not ready. I don’t know if it would have made a difference but I am not a fan of changing schedules once they are set.

One suggestion I would like to make is to have more relevant and timely data available to teams starting when the Pits open on Thursday and going through till Saturday. I think this would help teams doing the picking and level the playing field for new teams and less visible teams that do exceptionally well in the competitions. Initial information could include some basics on robot strategy (as provided by the team), information on Regionals attended such as matches won/lost, avg. score, rank going into finals and final rank if in top 8. During the competition information should be updated often, preferably real time. Waiting for the screen to scroll in the pit was not very timely and did not give sufficient information. This idea might sound a little out there but at the Olympics there are kiosks with up to date information on demand, so why not at the FIRST Nationals? A few people suggested to me that it would have been helpful to have copy services available on site. This could be used to provide status information to teams 2-3 times per day. Working for Xerox, I am willing to investigate the possibility with FIRST if people think it would be worthwhile - no promises, but I will do my best.

Thanks again to everyone for making this one of the best FIRST years ever. I was not able to attend the Regional we participated in this year and I was tied up with things at the Nationals until Saturday morning so I missed seeing many of you (and unfortunately most of my teams matches). Sorry I missed you. I look forward to talking with you throughout the year and seeing you next year.

Elaine Anselm
X-Cats - team 191

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Posted by Nate Smith.

Other on team #66, GM Powertrain/Willow Run HS, from Eastern Michigan University and GM Powertrain.

Posted on 4/11/2000 11:36 AM MST

In Reply to: Re: Wow! what a year posted by Elaine Anselm on 4/11/2000 11:06 AM MST:

: One suggestion I would like to make is to have more relevant and timely data available to teams starting when the Pits open on Thursday and going through till Saturday. I think this would help teams doing the picking and level the playing field for new teams and less visible teams that do exceptionally well in the competitions. Initial information could include some basics on robot strategy (as provided by the team), information on Regionals attended such as matches won/lost, avg. score, rank going into finals and final rank if in top 8. During the competition information should be updated often, preferably real time. Waiting for the screen to scroll in the pit was not very timely and did not give sufficient information. This idea might sound a little out there but at the Olympics there are kiosks with up to date information on demand, so why not at the FIRST Nationals? A few people suggested to me that it would have been helpful to have copy services available on site. This could be used to provide status information to teams 2-3 times per day. Working for Xerox, I am willing to investigate the possibility with FIRST if people think it would be worthwhile - no promises, but I will do my best.

Elaine (and everybody else),
Tucked away in a corner of the GM tent at this year’s national competition was what could become the basis for your info kiosk next year. The GMCIA network, which I am hoping to have in the pit area next year, includes scouting reports from roughly 20 teams participating in the data gathering, and will include information from the regional competitions next year. The exact setup is still TBD(it’s still about a year off, after all,) but it should be a very nice setup…stay tuned in the coming months for more information…

Nate

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Posted by Tom S…

Student on team #177, The Bobcats, from South Windsor High School and International Fuel Cells & ONSI.

Posted on 4/11/2000 3:06 PM MST

In Reply to: Info Kiosk For 2001 - May be part of GMCIA posted by Nate Smith on 4/11/2000 11:36 AM MST:

For next year…

We should come up with a set of standardized scouting questions that we could suggest teams use, that way everyone could participate in a scouting network, sharing data (possibly over some sort of pitwide network) That way we could all design our from end interface, and link to a central data file… using Access as a front end. Just throwing out ideas.

Tom S.
Team 177

:
: : One suggestion I would like to make is to have more relevant and timely data available to teams starting when the Pits open on Thursday and going through till Saturday. I think this would help teams doing the picking and level the playing field for new teams and less visible teams that do exceptionally well in the competitions. Initial information could include some basics on robot strategy (as provided by the team), information on Regionals attended such as matches won/lost, avg. score, rank going into finals and final rank if in top 8. During the competition information should be updated often, preferably real time. Waiting for the screen to scroll in the pit was not very timely and did not give sufficient information. This idea might sound a little out there but at the Olympics there are kiosks with up to date information on demand, so why not at the FIRST Nationals? A few people suggested to me that it would have been helpful to have copy services available on site. This could be used to provide status information to teams 2-3 times per day. Working for Xerox, I am willing to investigate the possibility with FIRST if people think it would be worthwhile - no promises, but I will do my best.

:
: Elaine (and everybody else),
: Tucked away in a corner of the GM tent at this year’s national competition was what could become the basis for your info kiosk next year. The GMCIA network, which I am hoping to have in the pit area next year, includes scouting reports from roughly 20 teams participating in the data gathering, and will include information from the regional competitions next year. The exact setup is still TBD(it’s still about a year off, after all,) but it should be a very nice setup…stay tuned in the coming months for more information…

: Nate

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Posted by Ken Patton.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]

Engineer on team #65, The Huskie Brigade, from Pontiac Northern High School and GM Powertrain.

Posted on 4/11/2000 4:33 PM MST

In Reply to: Info Kiosk For 2001 - May be part of GMCIA posted by Nate Smith on 4/11/2000 11:36 AM MST:

I know we (Team 65) are interested in improving and expanding GMCIA for 2001. I think there’s a lot of ground that needs to be covered before any decisions or promises can be made. We had some serious issues with the performance of the system as a whole (lets face it Nate, there were two separate systems running as opposed to the one we envisioned), and I hope that all who participated will give some good feedback on the system.

What do you think worked well?
What do you think didn’t work well?

My opinion was that the Palm Pilots and Visors were awesome, and they allowed teams 65 and 21 to contribute a ton of data. The access database was reliable and the web-based database was less reliable. Trying to make the two databases talk together was a disaster. Exchanging disks didnt work that well either.

We needed ONE scouting form. And it needed to be battle tested at regionals. Next year there needs to be much more open duscussion about this, much earlier also.

I’m sure I’ll have more opinions. Anyone else - thoughts on GMCIA and what to do better?

Ken

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Posted by Mike Gray.

Engineer on team HOT from Huron Valley Schools sponsored by GM Milford Proving Ground.

Posted on 4/12/2000 12:22 PM MST

In Reply to: GMCIA for 2001 posted by Ken Patton on 4/11/2000 4:33 PM MST:

I need to know more about the GMCIA. What kind of hardware do we need to beg
to purchase? Sounds like the Palm OS is one option that has good potential at low cost.

Is a wireless network possible? How about a system involving cheap FRS radios and packet terminals?

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Posted by Nate Smith.

Other on team #66, GM Powertrain/Willow Run HS, from Eastern Michigan University and GM Powertrain.

Posted on 4/13/2000 8:00 AM MST

In Reply to: Re: GMCIA for 2001 posted by Mike Gray on 4/12/2000 12:22 PM MST:

: I need to know more about the GMCIA. What kind of hardware do we need to beg
: to purchase? Sounds like the Palm OS is one option that has good potential at low cost.

Well, we’re currently working on what it will be for 2001, but I can give you the info on what we had this year:
On the Palm side(not really what i worked with, but I can tell you what I know):

  • Multiple Palms & Visors running ThinkDB software, all beaming to a ‘collection’ Visor that was HotSynced into an access DB.
  • The DB had advanced, multi-field query capabilities that would give you a ranking of all teams based on certain criteria.
  • You could also print out a ‘score sheet’ which displayed the scouting information for every entry on a specific team.

On the Other Side:

  • An XML-based web server running under Win98 with a separate DHCP server.
  • Allowed for manual entry of reports, as well as getting a summary analysis of any team’s data(percentages, averages, etc.)
  • Included capabilities for adding a robot’s picture to any reports generated on that team.
  • Connected other machines via 10BaseT Ethernet hubs.

As Ken said in his post, we ran across a few glitches with the system, mostly related to getting the two systems to talk to each other. We will be working to correct these problems, as well as add new features, for the 2001 season. More information will be available in this message board as plans are continued.

Nate

: Is a wireless network possible? How about a system involving cheap FRS radios and packet terminals?

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Posted by Karthik Kanagasabapathy.

Other from Sigh… No Team For Me.

Posted on 4/11/2000 4:54 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: Wow! what a year posted by Elaine Anselm on 4/11/2000 11:06 AM MST:

: One suggestion I would like to make is to have more relevant and timely data available to teams starting when the Pits open on Thursday and going through till Saturday. I think this would help teams doing the picking and level the playing field for new teams and less visible teams that do exceptionally well in the competitions. Initial information could include some basics on robot strategy (as provided by the team), information on Regionals attended such as matches won/lost, avg. score, rank going into finals and final rank if in top 8. During the competition information should be updated often, preferably real time. Waiting for the screen to scroll in the pit was not very timely and did not give sufficient information. This idea might sound a little out there but at the Olympics there are kiosks with up to date information on demand, so why not at the FIRST Nationals? A few people suggested to me that it would have been helpful to have copy services available on site. This could be used to provide status information to teams 2-3 times per day. Working for Xerox, I am willing to investigate the possibility with FIRST if people think it would be worthwhile - no promises, but I will do my best.

Elaine,

Team 108 had a full information database in the pit. They had a station with (at least) three power macs, from where you could access scouting reports on all teams, rankings, scoring breakdowns of all matches and video (they had all the matches in quicktime format) footage from every match. It was truly fabulous. I was at the competition as a fan this year, and it was very useful for keeping up with things. It must have been even more useful as a scouting tool. I would hope that FIRST would work with team 108 to turn their database into an official information kiosk.

-Karthik

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Posted by Frank Toussaint.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]

Engineer on team #111, Wildstang, from Wheeling and Rolling Meadows and Motorola .

Posted on 4/11/2000 5:29 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: Wow! what a year posted by Elaine Anselm on 4/11/2000 11:06 AM MST:

: One suggestion I would like to make is to have more relevant and timely data available… Waiting for the screen to scroll in the pit was not very timely and did not give sufficient information.

Innovation First might be able to help us. Every team has an Operator Interface which includes a transceiver and a serial port. FIRST could broadcast rankings etc. on a frequency set aside for this purpose. Then each team could hook a laptop to the serial port and store the data as a text file. All data could be broadcast in a matter of seconds. Teams could use any word processor to access it at will.

: Thanks again to everyone for making this one of the best FIRST years ever.

AMEN!

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