Teacher feedback SR2014

[Jeremy Morse]

Hi,

Two weeks after the competition this year, rolled into another email to
teachers, I asked:

> We'd love to hear what you thought of the competition, if you'd like
> to give feedback please email me about what went well and what
> didn't, at the competition and throughout the year. I'll anonymise it
> and forward it to our contributors, unless you'd prefer to be named.
> (Network and server load are already on our list of things to
> address)!

I received some responses, which I'll now put in replies to this email.
They're all anonymous, but numbered. I don't think there's any point in
picking them apart, but it'd be good if they provoked thoughts in people.

--
Thanks,
Jeremy

[Jeremy Morse]

Hi,

Teacher 1 (lightly edited for anonymity):

~

Thank you again for organising and running a very successful event. To
pull all of this off with the increased number of teams and the change
to a new venue was remarkable and I wouldn't have dared to attempt this
myself!

We loved the new venue. Parking was much more convenient; the two arenas
worked very well indeed; there was noticeably more space for our team
areas and yet more space available to go off and do some testing. The
rather quieter 'food floor' was very useful when my aged ears needed a
break from all of the noise! The food prices were sensible, bearing in
mind the venue's need to staff concessions and make some money. The
Newbury Hilton was great and we would happily stay there again next year
if they can keep their prices that low.

Every Blueshirt that I met was superb, just as last year.

The extra motor controllers in the new kit were very useful and avoided
the various servo meltdowns that plagued us last year. Overall the kit
was easier to use (but that may be familiarity in our second year of the
competition).

The forum was always helpful and very quick with responses, saving us a
lot of dithering about. The IDE works very well and was especially
useful for my novice programmers. The GUI download that allows you to
manually adjust motors and servos is invaluable when designing/testing
the various grab mechanisms, and please pass on my thanks to whoever
worked on that for this year's kit. The python tutorial ( which I think
is new this year) was very useful for my programming novices and was a
great crash course.

The competition itself was challenging but not impossible. My team
learnt a lot from both success and failure and the demand seems spot-on.
They really didn't want to give the kit back, and wanted to come back
again in a few weeks having worked further on their design.
It is still easily the best competition of any sort that I harogrammers
and engineers and has inspired members of my team.

I definitely want to take part next year.

Definitely 5 stars, 10/10 and every other way of awarding top marks. A
really fun, well-planned and -executed event which thoroughly impressed
me and my students. Thank you for giving us the chance to take part.

--
Thanks,
Jeremy
ve come across for prospective computing programmers and engineers and
has inspired members of my team.

I definitely want to take part next year.

Definitely 5 stars, 10/10 and every other way of awarding top marks. A
really fun, well-planned and -executed event which thoroughly impressed
me and my students. Thank you for giving us the chance to take part.

--
Thanks,
Jeremy

[Jeremy Morse]

Hi,

Forgive my mangling of the end of the previous email. Rather than
retransmitting it, when reading it ignore everything between 'of any
sort that I ha' until the first instance of my signature. It was
entirely caused by fat fingers, sorry.

Teacher 2:

~

Really enjoyed the competition but would still like to see a little more
robot on robot action. Not robot wars style but opportunities where
robots may come together, going for the same token etc.

You are quite right you do need to sort out the internet access etc.

Organisation was excellent, liked the venue.

--
Thanks,
Jeremy

[Jeremy Morse]

Hi,

Teacher 3:

~

I want so say a big thank you to you and all the blue shirts for putting
on a great competition. We had a fantastic time and the students
thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Feedback from students and especially
parents was very positive. The day was very well organised and I was
impressed that we kept to time.

For me it's not just about the competition day. This opportunity for the
students to work on a fun engineering problem is unique. The benefits
are great and it really adds to the students college experience as well
as raising the profile of engineering. The students have an opportunity
to work collaboratively on a complex problem over a long timeline which
very good experience for them. I try to gather students from across all
subjects as any student will benefit from going through this process.

We found Tech days very good for focusing the team and getting back on
track and made big leaps in progress each time we attended.

--
Thanks,
Jeremy

[Jeremy Morse]

Hi,

Teacher 4:

~

Thank you for your email. Once again a big thank you to all of you at
Student Robotics for your dedication in another excellent competition.
Our students enjoyed taking part immensely.

We definitely plan to enter a team again next year so look forward to
your joining instructions shortly.

--
Thanks,
Jeremy

[Jeremy Morse]

Hi,

Teacher 5:

~

Very happy with the competition this year. We thought the venue was
good, and coped well with the increased number of teams. There were a
few hic-ups here and there, but that's to be expected with what is a
very big event. I'd like to say a big 'Thank you' and 'Well done' to all
involved.

--
Thanks,
Jeremy

[Jeremy Morse]

Hi,

Teacher 6 (lightly edited for anonymity):

~

We liked the timing of events ie kickstart was late enough so we had
time to get a team together but not too late that we were wasting time,
and the competition being after Easter gave time for final arrangements,
which is difficult in holiday time. The students did get a lot form the
kickstart programming workshop.

We only got to one techday. We find the first techday a bit early ie we
are still building and time is better spent in college than in a
computer room. We could not make the last techday because I had other
commitments, which was just unfortunate, otherwise we would have been there.

The improvement to the kit was good and mostly went smoothly. Looking
forward to the kit changes for next year.

Overall the competition weekend was excellent and our students had a
good time despite several set backs with the robot. The venue was good
and helped add to the excitement of the day. Two arenas gave a good
buzz to the competition area, especially with the lighting. The
organisation of getting teams to the arenas was good ie shepherds did
their job well.

Now a few grumbles, bearing in mind that overall our experience was very
positive:-

We were a bit nonplussed that our team was placed very far from the
arenas whilst the hot favourites were virtually ringside. Now that the
competition is getting significantly tougher, with considerable
investment going into the robot, I foresee more teams questioning the
fairness of arrangements and questioning scores etc. perhaps you may
need to consider providing a complaints procedure to diffuse any
potential arguments and make sure any decision made is clearly
explained. Perhaps also start stressing a code of conduct for
competitors eg sportsmanship, helpfulness, cooperation with other teams,
friendliness, pit area discipline?.

The 'towel throwing in' was a good idea, was pretty cute and I think
added to the game but I guess it was a bit last minute so next year
needs to be in the rules and consideration given to the potential
tactical use of the towel as opposed to the 'proper' use of avoiding
robot damage. Using the towels to signify readiness to start a round
was also a good idea.

On the technical side you mentioned that the network issues were already
noted. Does this include the lack of wireless connection experienced?
We believe that at times we did not have a connection when other areas
did have. Our lead programmer took to wondering the building in search
of hotspots. Also the screens going down was frustrating, they are
really useful, but I guess that is also part of the network problem.

On a different tack, with lots more rookie teams expected next year,
would it be useful if experienced teams adopted nearby rookies to help
with the mentoring situation, to encourage cross team friendliness and
to give rookie teams a better chance of success leading to their
continuing participation?

Please pass our thanks to all at Student Robotics for continuing to
provide a very valuable and enjoyable experience for college students.

--
Thanks,
Jeremy

[Jeremy Morse]

Hi,

Teacher 7:

~

I know I've left it rather late to offer a couple of suggestions for the
next Robotics competition, but could you consider -
1. Providing a second memory stick, or details of how to format a team's
memory stick, so that at the competition we can have a competition
memory stick and a separate development memory stick. This would make
working on code during the competition much more manageable.
2. One small alteration to the competition rules. We were very
unfortunate to be eliminated from the knock out stage, when our code
failed to function at the beginning of a round. It was unchanged from
the previous round and operated fine when we returned to our base.
Should this happen (not in the heats, when it isn't crucial, but only in
the knock out stage), can a team throw in the towel straight away, and
then ask the ring helper to re-start the code. If there is a problem
with the code, the team gain nothing, but if their code is OK then at
least their robot gets to compete and only loses a bit if time.

--
Thanks,
Jeremy