FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

2017 Apr 24

Houston, St Louis Bags and More Behind the Curtain

Apr 24, 2017 Written by Frank Merrick.

Congratulations to FIRST Championship Houston Winners fireworks

Houston

Wow, what an event! Over 28,000 badged participants at FIRST Championship Houston. That’s what I call a party!

And huge congratulations to Thunder Down Under, FIRST Robotics Competition Team 3132, from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, our first Chairman’s Award winner from outside North America! A recognition well deserved. Welcome to the Hall of Fame!

Also, congratulations to our winning alliance, who put on a masterful display:

Team 973, Greybots, Atascadero, California, USA

Team 1011, CRUSH, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Team 2928, Viking Robotics, Seattle, Washington, USA

Team 5499, Bay Orangutans, Berkeley, California, USA

All participating teams will be receiving a survey about the Championship. Please fill it out. We recognize there were significant challenges to some aspects of the event, several of which were focused on the experience during closing ceremonies at the ballpark. We take responsibility for the experience we deliver our customers, and we are determined to make improvements for next year. But we need to hear from you so we can make sure we’re tackling the right concerns.

St. Louis Bag Checks

Just like in Houston, we will not be doing bag and Robot Lock-Up Form checks at FIRST Championship St Louis this week. This is to save time on inspection. Teams at the event do not need to wait for an inspector before opening their bags – they can start working on their robots as soon as they get to their pits and uncrate.

Peek Behind the Curtain II

In this blog,I told you about the function and membership of the Rules Review Committee.

Tune in tonight, once again, to First Updates Now (FUN) at 8PM Eastern, 5PM Pacific, to see Tyler Olds and crew interview Dante DiLella. Dante is a long-time Head Referee and was a member of the 2017 Rules Review Committee. Get some behind-the-scenes info from the perspective of a Head Referee!

We’re setting things up in St Louis as I write this, getting ready for the next big party. Can’t wait to get this one going!

Frank

Comments

Disappointed

Submitted by Noel Kehrlein (not verified) on Mon, 04/24/2017 - 10:24pm

FIRST seems to be downplaying the Houston Championship win, treating it almost as an after thought. Is this how you have treated the championship winners in the past? Surely they deserved a separate blog at least. Very disappointed in your attitude.

reply

Houston

Submitted by Frank Merrick (not verified) on Thu, 05/04/2017 - 12:40pm

Hi Noel, I'm sorry if this came off as downplaying Houston. The wording congratulating the winners was very similar to what we said about St Louis later (https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/blog/2017-wow). In the case of Houston, though, I did want to acknowledge the concerns folks had about their experience at the ballpark. Also, we did have some other time-sensitive information we wanted to share in the Houston blog.