2007 Harvard Beginner's Competition

[AKuczmarska]

2007 Harvard Beginner's Competition
Saturday, October 28, 2007
Harvard Athletic Complex - Gordon Indoor Track and Tennis Center
75 North Harvard Street, Boston, MA 02163
(a short walk from the Harvard Square T stop)

The website will be undated with more information as the summer progresses.

Some responses to the concerns raised in the MIT thread:

"Harvard Beginner's Comp no longer serves its purpose because it is too stressful and no longer just for beginners."

The purpose of Beginner's comp is to provide an "easy" first competition for new dancers. I put "easy" in quotes because it has different meanings. Our (my) interpretation isn't that there should be weak competition, but that the "other stuff" surrounding the comp should be more laid back then regular competitions. Specifically:

A) Beginner's comp doors open at 10a.m., dancing starts at 11a.m. and ends at 7:30 pm. (which ideally should be earlier). For every other comp, beginner's will have to be there when doors open at 7:00 am, start dancing at 8:00 am, and not leave until 9:00 pm.
For Beginner's Comp, local couples can get up at a reasonable hour, attend the comp, and still go out in the evening. Non-local couples can leave the morning of and be home before midnight. That is simply not true for full scale comps, even the smaller ones.

B) There are only a few levels offered. This means that beginner's spend more time dancing and less time waiting around. At any other comp, a newcomer couple eliminated in the first round will spend 12-14 hours at the venue to dance a total of 12 minutes on the floor.

C) Cuts are generous. Most comps cut couples by 50% from round to round. For Beginner's comp we try to call back 60-70%.

D) No costumes.

[syncopationator]

dancing at 7am is like a rite of passage

This seems like a cool comp though. I wish I had had the opportunity to do something like this when I was starting out.

[and123]

D) No costumes.

According to the website, that only applies to Newcomers, and that is typical of every comp I have ever been to. So is this comp allowing costumes for dancers above Newcomer now?

This year the "first" NE comp will be UConn on October 13. Waiting for them to update their comp page with more info.

[Joe]

dancing at 7am is like a rite of passage

Haha--ain't it, though? :D

[IlyZislin]

According to the website, that only applies to Newcomers, and that is typical of every comp I have ever been to. So is this comp allowing costumes for dancers above Newcomer now?

This year the "first" NE comp will be UConn on October 13. Waiting for them to update their comp page with more info.

Actually Cornell is even earlier than that... September 22. http://comp.cornelldancesport.org

[and123]

Sorry.... I always considered NE to be Mass/CT/RI/ME/VT, not NY.
(by "NE" I meant New England, not Northeast)

[Kitty]

Sorry.... I always considered NE to be Mass/CT/RI/ME/VT, not NY.
(by "NE" I meant New England, not Northeast)

I read NE as "North East" too.

[and123]

sorry.... I'm a New Englander. Honest mistake. Nevermind :cool:

[cantskiforlife]

According to the website, that only applies to Newcomers, and that is typical of every comp I have ever been to. So is this comp allowing costumes for dancers above Newcomer now?

I believe Harvard Beginner was/is no costumes for any level. I recall quite a few youths in latin pants having to change. But perhaps that was a different comp.


This year the "first" NE comp will be UConn on October 13. Waiting for them to update their comp page with more info.
Not ust UConn, but Brown and most of the others as well. It seems that all the comps are rather behind this year. Makes me wonder...

[and123]

HAHvahd website says that costumes are permitted at all levels except Newcomer. In past years NOBODY was allowed to wear a costume at this comp:confused:. Perhaps someone did a cut-and-paste on the website, but so far no one has confirmed Yes or No whether Bronze and Silver dancers may wear costumes this year.

[AKuczmarska]

Sorry for the confusion. Only newcomers may not wear costumes. Bronze and silver may. I hope you can come!

[and123]

I hope to be there. Curious - why the change to costumes allowed now?

[AKuczmarska]

We changed the policy this year because competitors in bronze and silver complained that it was more inconvenient to find non-costume outfits.

[reb]

by the way . . .

Welcome to Dance Forums AK! We hope to see more of you.

Let us know how things progress.

[BM]

BU will be there, per usual. Looking forward to it!

[and123]

We changed the policy this year because competitors in bronze and silver complained that it was more inconvenient to find non-costume outfits.

Personally I'd rather see it remain as a costume-restricted comp. If newbies can find non-costume outfits, why can't Bronze and Silver dancers? Keeps it more low-key and less stressful, IMO, which I thought was the original purpose of this comp. Also I would think it might be easier for the non-professional judges to observe dancers without excessive floaty and shiny bits to distract them :cool:

[BM]

Also I would think it might be easier for the non-professional judges to observe dancers without excessive floaty and shiny bits to distract them :cool:

"Hmm, couple #144 has good technique but is off - OOOOH, SOMETHING SHINY!"

Doubt that such a thing might occur, but it's still entertaining to think about.

[TRF]

According to the website, that only applies to Newcomers, and that is typical of every comp I have ever been to. So is this comp allowing costumes for dancers above Newcomer now?

This year the "first" NE comp will be UConn on October 13. Waiting for them to update their comp page with more info.

The competition website is up for UConn's competition, please visit:

http://uconnballroom.com/comp/

There are tabs for schedule of events, rules, registration, showcase (Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova!) and directions. Regular registration is open until Oct. 8th, and late registration is open until Oct. 12.

Hope to see everyone there, and then again at Harvard! :)

[mgshah]

Personally I'd rather see it remain as a costume-restricted comp. If newbies can find non-costume outfits, why can't Bronze and Silver dancers? Keeps it more low-key and less stressful, IMO, which I thought was the original purpose of this comp. Also I would think it might be easier for the non-professional judges to observe dancers without excessive floaty and shiny bits to distract them :cool:

We considered that and had some really strong debate on what to do. We definitely want to keep beginners' comp relaxed and less stressful than other comps. Restricting costumes was one way of achieving that goal.

However, were getting complaints from bronze and silver leaders who had gone and bought latin pants and were *$&% that they had to go back to wearing slacks that didn't fit quite right.

We didn't give this particular argument much weight, but did consider the incongruity of requiring bronze and silver dancers who had worn costumes last semester to go back to no costumes, only to go back to wearing costumes a few weeks later. We went on the assumption that syllabus couples generally have a "competition outfit" that they just reuse. So, the argument was, it is less stressful to just wear what you'd been wearing the previous year than to find something else that looks nice and fits well, but is not a costume.

There was also an argument that having bronze and silver dancers in costumes might make them more "inspiring" for the newcomers.

In any event, the balance we struck was to let bronze and silver dancers do what they would at any other comp while keeping the newcomers "clean". :) We really hope it doesn't change the competition dynamics too much for the competitors.

[Chris Stratton]

However, were getting complaints from bronze and silver leaders who had gone and bought latin pants and were *$&% that they had to go back to wearing slacks that didn't fit quite right.

Easily handled by not defining basic undecorated dancewear as a costume...

Are practice skirts now costumes under your rules?

[mgshah]

Easily handled by not defining basic undecorated dancewear as a costume...

Easily...but arbitrarily?
Is a standard gown with no stones a costume?
What is "basic" when it comes to dancewear?
Only Latin pants, or Latin shirts too? At what point does it become a "costume"?

There are many ways to write the rules. I'm not convinced any one is less arbitrary than the other.

Are practice skirts now costumes under your rules?

Our rule is that if you can find it outside a dance specialty store, it's fair game. I'll make sure that is reflected on the website.

[Joe]

If you can buy it off the rack in a non-dancewear store, it's not a costume.

[Chris Stratton]

Our rule is that if you can find it outside a dance specialty store, it's fair game. I'll make sure that is reflected on the website.

That would be a quite substantial change of rules from the past.

The year we won the silver category, my partner was wearing a dress that she'd had designed specifically for syllabus events, I believe it had been her prize from winning MIT the previous spring.

More importantly, some 3-4 of our teams newcomer ladies were wearing practice skirts I'd made that fall... very simple, took about an hour each, but not something readily available anywhere but a dance supplier or a fabric store.

[and123]

Yikes, I didn't mean to open a can of worms here....:shock:
thought n00bs might be intimidated by other dancers in full costume; thought this comp was supposed to be low-key. However Harvard chooses to focus its intentions for this comp is fine by me. Perhaps eliminating the elements of costumes that do not contribute to their essential function (rhinestones, feathers, floats, fringe, or what have you) would work. Unfortunately there will always be a level of subjectivity in defining What Is A Costume? Maybe assign a uniform of sorts (i.e. everyone must wear black skirts/pants and white tops)? Have to wonder if it's worth the hassle and inevitable uproar, but at the same time it would make for an interesting comp....

[mgshah]

Yikes, I didn't mean to open a can of worms here....:shock:


Not at all. This is a good discussion. We're really trying to improve the quality of our comps and the comments on this forum have been invaluable.

What to do with costumes is an important matter. The purpose of Beginners' Comp is to provide a relaxed atmosphere for a newcomer's first competition, and to provide a relaxed start to the competition season for bronze and silver dancers. (With the showcase, we're also hoping to provide a venue for advanced dancers to warm up their routines.)

So the question is, what costume rules create the most relaxed competition environment? I think there is general consensus that costumes, of the types worn at the higher levels (i.e., not practice skirts), would not create a relaxed atmosphere at the newcomer level. There would be too much emphasis on what was being worn and how much to spend on an outfit.

To achieve this goal, do we need to define precisely what is and is not a costume? If so, how do we do that? Or can we rely on team captains to use their judgment in good faith? I prefer the latter, but if that seems too optimistic or ill-defined, perhaps we should think of a more workable definition. The elemental approach (no rhinestones, feathers, floats, fringe, etc.) could work, but to the extent we try to formulate a rule (as opposed to a standard) there is always going to some over- and under- inclusivity.

Further, does a no-costume rule help make the competition less relaxed for bronze and silver dancers? The change this year was based on complaints from last year. Perhaps these folks represented a silent minority, but they presented an argument that I think merits consideration. Assuming bronze and silver dancers already have "costumes", however defined, is it really less stressful to make them not wear them? If they will be competing with costumes in a few weeks, and competed in costumes the previous spring, does it make sense to make them dance without costumes?

We've obviously made some decisions on these questions and the rules reflect that. However, nothing is set in stone. If the change this year is a bad decision, we're definitely open to switching back or trying something new next year.

We'd love to hear your thoughts.

[Larinda McRaven]

Not sure where we were or what the rules were but I believe Russel Monk took a guy aside last year to check for a departnment store label inside his vest.

[NielsenE]

Its definitely an interesting debate...

I've always liked the no costume rule at HBC. However enough things have changed about both HBC and the collegiate circuit in general to easily see why the organizers (and enough vocal competitors) would want to explore other options.

From my view, "historically" back when HBC only had two levels (Newcomer (1 semester) and Beginner (3 semesters)) there were fewer people who already had costumes. Additionally back in those days only one competition allowed 2nd term dances to wear costumes (MIT). So very few people coming into as non-newcomer would have already invested in a costume.

Both of those factors have changed -- almost all the spring competitions allow beginners to wear costumes. And with three levels instead of two, and one that's not time limited, there's plenty of people who might have costumes.

Personally, I'd like to see Bronze stay a costume-less level at HBC, while Silver should probably allow them. Actually, even better, I'd like to see Silver replaced by a Master of Bronze -- no time or point limit, costumes encouraged.

The one thing to watch out for is if changing the costume rules starts to give greater preference to the large/established teams with costume collections.... I've liked that HBC was something of a leveller in that capacity.

I don't think costumes for non-newcomers is going to change the "stress" level. Its the sheer size of the competition that needs to be adressed, though I'm not sure what would be effective....

I wouldn't suggest this for this year, but maybe think about trying something like
instead of running the newcomer events as 192 (or larger) couples. Run it as 4 48 couple events with then a combined final of the top 2 from each pool. I think that would help the organizaers avoid the complete herding cats problem. Competitors wouldn't be constantly in huge slow moving lines, etc. While its not the "correct" callback procedure, I think it would a good compromise for a lower stress introduction to competition. The competitors from the other "pools" would also be able to watch a little more of the competition, etc

[NielsenE]

So how'd the event go?

[JohnLL]

I would love to hear other people's opinions as to how the comp went as well. I did not go down for the day but did recieve feedback from my team about the day and was told that the comp ran way behind schedule and that our newbies did not have a very good time. I only have this second-hand so would like to reserve my opinion until I hear from someone else who was actually there.

[and123]

The organizers apologized profusely for the problems and lateness, but yes, it did run horribly behind schedule and people were getting more and more irritated (myself included). Hopefully someone who worked behind the scenes can supply more information, and chalk this up to a learning experience. I'm sure they had good intentions.

[tunape]

I heard a lot of complaints from the judges about the pda scrutineering system. Although it is a nice idea, and I have seen it work well in the past, this particular implementation seems to not have been tested rigorously in real situations, and experienced numerous problems and delays. If anything, the indoor track was a great venue for wireless communications b/c there were no other wifi networks in the area(I tried multiple times on my laptop and cellphone to pass the time without anyluck, and instead had to watch the comp instead. ;] ), the space was large and empty, and there was good clearance between the wifi hub and the judges' pdas usually. This is not the first time Harvard tried the PDA system, but there were similar problems in the past as well.

imho, if Harvard wants to use a PDA system, they need to seriously invest in the man-hours to get it to work. Commercial systems took considerable amount of effort to get it to work under the comp's strenuously, but absolutely fail-safe conditions.

[Chris_Broderick]

The following opinions are from a team captain's perspective, and may not reflect how everyone felt about the event:

Harvard Beginners is usually a well organized, quick, fun competition for newcomer-bronze (recently silver) dancers and I have enjoyed going the past few years, it was also my very first competition as a newcomer. My high opinions of this competition changed drastically yesterday.

I'll start my accepting the apologies of the organizers, I know they put in a lot of effort into getting the system running and they absolutely had good intentions with trying to use the new PDA systems. That said, however, the competition (from my view) was a nightmare for a number of reasons which I'll go into (maybe some now and some later, as I have class in a few minutes).

The first problem was right from the start. I'm not at all sure what happened, but I know that newcomers were being moved from one on-deck area to the other, but nobody really seemed to know why. I was being asked by my newcomers what was going on, why they were being moved from line to line, and standing around for 30+ minutes while nothing was happening. I certainly had no idea, there were no announcements as to what was going on. There was just general confusion from everything I could tell. Once things got going, the newcomers danced one dance and then the whole shuffling process began again for their second dance. I still have no idea why. After about an hour and 15 minutes, the newcomers had danced two dances and nobody else got to see the floor.

Newcomers were not the only ones lined up for a long time, either. During the silver events, which I danced, we were lined up for a good 30 minutes without knowing what was going on, aside from several general dances going on while we were waiting. Once one heat danced our first dances (Rhythm), the second heat was only 4 people while the first was ~15(?). They had us dance both dances a second time.

As for overall experience, our newcomers did not enjoy themselves and many actually left the comp midway through in frustration. (some without letting me know, that's another story and reason my day didn't go so well as there weren't enough cars to get the ones who did stay back home..). I'm curious to see how many newcomers, this being their first competition, are turned off to competing entirely.

I do understand that this was a test for Harvard's using the PDA system, but I think that pen and paper is a far better use of time.

I have a few questions about this competition:

In the morning, when the PDA's weren't working, was pen-and-paper judging considered?

Why were there so few announcement informing competitors what was going on, especially in the morning?

Since so many teams were frustrated and wanted to go home, why weren't Afternoon session awards handed out until after the team match? (We had 4 people left at the end of the day because so many left [even some who really wanted to do the team match, but couldn't stay until 8:30pm when it finally ended]).

Anyway, those are my thoughts and questions.

~Chris

p.s. The venue was nice, but the floor could have been a little bigger/not run silver semis as 1 heat - my partner was tripped and fell on the floor during our quickstep. :(

[and123]

Yup, that Silver Quickstep heat was absolutely brutal. I lost track of how many times I collided or had to stop. I wonder if anyone escaped it unscathed.... either everyone had a brain fart at the same time, or we were all loopy from waiting around so long. Disaster. And somehow the #s of those who made it to the next round were posted right as we were exiting the floor. Wonder if they just picked out the ones who didn't get bashed :rolleyes: A lot of people in that heat were like Waltz Tango Foxtrot was that?!? but by then I was beyond the point of giving a flying fart. I agree that the Newbies and even Bronze seemed to have it worse. They were standing in line forever, and no one appeared to know what was going on and why nothing was happening. Knowing would have been immensely helpful.

I say next year it goes back to pen and paper, and all dancers in every level wear sweats :cool:

[NielsenE]

and all dancers in every level wear sweats :cool:
lets get rid of the whole costume debate and just say birthday suits!

[and123]

NOT touching that one....:tongue:

[JohnLL]

Only if the judges and comp officials dress to match. ;-)

[and123]

:shock::shock::shock::shock:

[NielsenE]

so about that comp. . . :) (sorry for going off-topic)

[Chris_Broderick]

by then I was beyond the point of giving a flying fart.

That's exactly how I felt, I didn't even really want to be there and from what I heard after, not many people did.

~Chris

[Laura]

Is Harvard rolling their own PDA system? Is this an outgrowth of Comp-in-a-Box or something else?

Sorry to hear it didn't go well. There seems to have been a curse on newbies that day. On my side of the country, bus troubles made Berkeley's newbies so late for a competition that they missed their Newcomer Standard event (we held the comp for as long as we could, but finally we couldn't wait any more or else our day session would run into our evening session...they all got to dance in the Bronze, though, plus in all their Latin events).

[tunape]

Is Harvard rolling their own PDA system? Is this an outgrowth of Comp-in-a-Box or something else?


AFAIK, the PDA system used at HBC is not part of Comp-in-a-Box. It's not related in any way.

[NielsenE]

Correct, Harvard system is not part of my Comp-Ina-Box suite of tools. Harvard and I had been working together to get a PDA system ready for last year's HBC and tried again for the invitational. As the invitational rolled around, I didn't have enough confidence in the system to put my name behind it (as Head Scrutineer for their event) and after some discussions we decided not to use the system at the Invitational.

It is my understanding (second or third hand) that the system they used this year is not "related" to the work attempted for Harvard Invitational (actually their were two efforts for HI. My effort and one by their in-house people after my attempt got delayed.)

The main stumbling block, for my confidence levels, is that the system must degrade nicely to non-PDA scrutineering... which given the platform (Mac) I'm on means I need to implement a new baseline scrutineering package with extension points for receiving data feeds from alternate sources (PDAs)

I still hope to tackle the problem some day, but I have other priorities first. (Like finishing the current registration/results rewrite... then the baseline scrutineering platform, then the PDA stuff)

I'm also still very ambivalent on the true utility of the PDA based systems.. The only place, in my mind, that they tend to save time is in getting finals done for awards. In most sanely organized competitions, there are enough interleaved events for recalls to never be delayed (though admittedily when using projectors for advanced announcements of projectors non-PDA approachs can lose a lot of the useful window). So ANY delay due to the PDA malfunctioning, confusing judges, being slow etc, in recall rounds is going to throw the schedule off compared to non-PDAs. In finals on the other hand, the PDA offer a chance for true time savings.

Now I know time insn't everything -- the utility of quicker annoncements is worth something, and the higher accuracy of less chicken scratch to decipher are counter-balancing issues. Still with the super-tight schedules most of the new england competitions are under, a competition can't afford much "experiment" time with PDAs during recalls... If a piecemeal solution is going to be rolled out, I'd suggest tacking the finals first since there's greater bang for the buck there. Plus people are probably more likely to be forgiving of a failed experiement if everything had been running well to that point.... Starting off with something that goes wrong, and then continually trying to fix it is likely to frustrate everyone.

[RIdancer82]

My first experience at a Harvard Beginners' Competition was back in 2003. Back then, I was very thankful that it wasn't my first competition experience, or I might not have continued dancing/competing after that. (Luckily MIT was my first comp experience and a wonderful one at that!)

I went this year to HB to watch and support my friends who were competing. It was halfway through the day when I finally got there (though I was expecting it to be almost over) From what I saw that afternoon/evening and heard from competitors, spectators, judges, team captains, etc..... it was the most unpleasant competition experience any had ever had. Harvard is going to have a tough time convincing the teams that experienced this year's comp that next year won't be another complete disaster. (Although unfortunately so far it seems like every year this comp is poorly run and unorganized.) I know that the Harvard team and the comp organizers are great people and are very capable of organizing a wonderful event, so I hope that they can figure out what continues to go wrong each year w/ this comp so that they can run it successfully next year.

[star_gazer]

Sorry you guys all had such a rough weekened but we here in "hoe-dunk (?)" USA, we had a great weekend. We had a bazillion syllabus, novice and pre-champ competitors, a good floor, good judges and a fun time. I doubt that the scores were calcuated electronically but we won a PUMPKIN. Pretty lucky I say.

[Laura]

Correct, Harvard system is not part of my Comp-Ina-Box suite of tools.
So they're rolling their own, then? Because I'm sure they didn't use O2CM (only two setups in the US, and one was in use on the same day as Harvard in Oakland and the owner of the other was working on the software that day in Seattle) and I doubt they used CompMngr (I've only heard of its PDA interface, never seen it used and don't actually know anyone who has used it).

The main stumbling block, for my confidence levels, is that the system must degrade nicely to non-PDA scrutineering...
Agreed. The first time USA Dance used O2CM at Nationals it broke down completely in the face of a multi-round 10-dance event. Fortunately the Scrutineer had input everything into CompMngr, too, so she was able to whip that out and score that event that way. It was just a matter of having the dais runner hand clipboards, pens, and score sheets to the judges. Obviously having to duplicate the comp in another software package isn't the answer -- but the Scrutineer did it that year to be prepared, so the key for me relating this anecdote is "be prepared" when using a new system!

which given the platform (Mac)
You're working on a system to run comps off of a Mac? I'm excited! The only reason why I even own a god-forsaken Windows XP PC is to run CompMngr and O2CM as needed. I hate PCs and would love to see an excellent solution that runs on Macs.

I'm also still very ambivalent on the true utility of the PDA based systems.. The only place, in my mind, that they tend to save time is in getting finals done for awards. In most sanely organized competitions, there are enough interleaved events for recalls to never be delayed (though admittedily when using projectors for advanced announcements of projectors non-PDA approachs can lose a lot of the useful window). So ANY delay due to the PDA malfunctioning, confusing judges, being slow etc, in recall rounds is going to throw the schedule off compared to non-PDAs. In finals on the other hand, the PDA offer a chance for true time savings.
From the standpoint of judging and getting out results, I agree with your analysis. However, I would point out a few things: PDA-based on-deck check-in is a godsend when wrangling huge heats. We had 50+ couples in Newcomer Latin this weekend, and the PDA system we used allowed our Deck Captain (with the aid of a wireless headset mike) to wander the warmup area and get all the newbies into position. The PDA system also has a "page the MC" feature linked to each couple that, when clicked on, would pop a message up on the MC's display in the main ballroom, where she could then page the missing couple.

Also, due to the aforementioned bus troubles, when the UC Berkeley team arrived I needed to check them in and give them their back numbers as quickly as possible. Having a computerized solution made this amazingly simple. As the competitors streamed past, I asked for their last names, and by typing the first few letters into the "Registration" screen I was able to bring up their record, see what number they were supposed to get, and flag them as "present in the building" in the system. My assistant sat next to me and as I'd call out the numbers he'd pull them and hand them out. We must have checked in 142 dancers in about 10-15 minutes. It went really really fast, much faster than it would have ever gone one paper, even with just doing a simple clipboard-and-checklist kind of check-in. I was also able to add last-second write-ins during this huge chaotic push to get everyone in so we could get the competition back on track after delaying nearly an hour so as to give time for the errant buses to arrive.

But really, for me, the vast benefit of such systems lies in the integration of online registration with competitor check-in with on-deck check-in with callback postings. Being able to do this all instantaneously over the network, and without killing trees' worth of paper, makes it all worthwhile to me. Really, everything I love about using a system like O2CM would still be true even if the judges made their marks on paper and the Scrutineer input them as is done in systems like CompMngr.

Anyway, good luck with your system. This problem space is in flux right now -- many people are working on various solutions, and time will shake out which ones will "stick" and become the de facto standards for use in dancesport competitions. I must say I'd be super thrilled to try something that was a Mac-based solution! PCs make me frustrated and even violent at times.

[reb]

this particular implementation seems to not have been tested rigorously in real situations, and experienced numerous problems and delays

they need to seriously invest in the man-hours to get it to work. Commercial systems took considerable amount of effort to get it to work under the comp's strenuously, but absolutely fail-safe conditions.
Sounds like a reasoned assessment tunape.

This was not a 'pda system' - it needed to first become a 'system' . . . and a 'public service system' based on systems engineering, integration, and test.

The public service this experiment was to serve . . . the student dancers.

Systems engineering.

[Laura]

This was not a 'pda system' - it needed to first become a 'system' . . . and a 'public service system' based on systems engineering, integration, and test.
Ha! The dancers think we're there running a comp for them...when really we're just holding the comp so we can have a system test bed :)

[White Chacha]

Ha! The dancers think we're there running a comp for them...when really we're just holding the comp so we can have a system test bed :)

Sadly I fear the dancers at HBC were thinking the latter on Sunday.

[JohnLL]

My first experience at a Harvard Beginners' Competition was back in 2003. Back then, I was very thankful that it wasn't my first competition experience, or I might not have continued dancing/competing after that. (Luckily MIT was my first comp experience and a wonderful one at that!)

I went this year to HB to watch and support my friends who were competing. It was halfway through the day when I finally got there (though I was expecting it to be almost over) From what I saw that afternoon/evening and heard from competitors, spectators, judges, team captains, etc..... it was the most unpleasant competition experience any had ever had. Harvard is going to have a tough time convincing the teams that experienced this year's comp that next year won't be another complete disaster. (Although unfortunately so far it seems like every year this comp is poorly run and unorganized.) I know that the Harvard team and the comp organizers are great people and are very capable of organizing a wonderful event, so I hope that they can figure out what continues to go wrong each year w/ this comp so that they can run it successfully next year.

Ditto RIDancer! Was there in 2003 too by the way.
I'm not here to do any Harvard-bashing by any means but after talking with my team's newbie couples last night I can say with a fair amount of confidence that we probably won't come back next year. We will probably go back to what we had done the last couple years, which is use the UConn competition as our beginner comp (well organized, runs on time, great showcases, and a VERY positive atmosphere).
My question is why do couples keep coming back every year when stuff like this seems to happen consistently year after year (granted it seems to be a different or new problem every year).

[NielsenE]

So they're rolling their own, then? Because I'm sure they didn't use O2CM (only two setups in the US, and one was in use on the same day as Harvard in Oakland and the owner of the other was working on the software that day in Seattle) and I doubt they used CompMngr (I've only heard of its PDA interface, never seen it used and don't actually know anyone who has used it).

Yes, sorry if I wasn't completely clear in the original, the PDA implementation Harvard used was completely home-grown, nothing to do with my CIB, Mark's O2CM, no links to CompMngr, S3, or any existing scrutineering package.


You're working on a system to run comps off of a Mac? I'm excited! The only reason why I even own a god-forsaken Windows XP PC is to run CompMngr and O2CM as needed. I hate PCs and would love to see an excellent solution that runs on Macs.

Well I'm actually working on a Java-based solution that should end up being cross platform (or at least Win, Mac, Linux). I develop exclusively on Macs these days. My current system I use at most of the collegiate competitions is Warren Dew's "Chester" for scrutineering, however its a Classic app and as far as I have figured out, there's no way to run Classic apps under the new Intel Macs, so I have to keep my old laptop around until I finish the new scurtineering tool.


Anyway, good luck with your system. This problem space is in flux right now -- many people are working on various solutions, and time will shake out which ones will "stick" and become the de facto standards for use in dancesport competitions. I must say I'd be super thrilled to try something that was a Mac-based solution! PCs make me frustrated and even violent at times.

Thanks. To be honest I hope there doesn't evolve a de facto standard or even worse a "legislated standard" let we have now with only CompMngr being officially blessed in the rule book and waivers for O2CM/S3 (at least that's how it was described to me...) I'd rather the governing bodies establish certification procedures for computer aids to competition management to go through for fair treatment across the problem space.... Multiple solutions will push all to improve.... singular standards cause progress to stop....

[Chris Stratton]

So they're rolling their own, then?

Probably. Pretty much all dance software is a result of someone deciding to roll their own. Most projects fail, a few go on to become the standards.

Also, due to the aforementioned bus troubles, when the UC Berkeley team arrived I needed to check them in and give them their back numbers as quickly as possible.

In the northeast, collegiate comps have traditionally solved this by giving the entire team's worth of numbers in a manilla envelope to the team captain, who then distributes them according to the enclosed list. Doesn't give you a who has actually turned up check, but then there's enough present but not dancing cases that number collection doesn't indicate much anyway.

[Laura]

In the northeast, collegiate comps have traditionally solved this by giving the entire team's worth of numbers in a manilla envelope to the team captain, who then distributes them according to the enclosed list. Doesn't give you a who has actually turned up check, but then there's enough present but not dancing cases that number collection doesn't indicate much anyway.
I've done this before, too, but on the day in question the kids were literally walking off the late bus, in the door, and into the on-deck line up! I thought it would be better to have them stream by me and pick up their numbers rather than have them all crowd around their captain and deal with it that way. It seems to have worked very well, and plus I was able to process anyone's last-second adds/drops (and we had some for the very event that was lining up) at the same time. Also, when it was determined that the bus was going to be messed up, the team's rookie coordinator had everyone go and dress for what their first event would be while they were waiting for the bus to arrive. So, they only thing they had to do when they got to the venue was pick up their dance number and change their shoes.

[tunape]

back to HBC, any word when results/marks will be available? before HI?

[Joe]

Isn't HI in the spring?

[White Chacha]

Um, that was sarcasm...

[and123]

So do we dare not ask when the results will be available? :p
Though if TPTB decide any YCN points earned at this comp do not count (there seem to be mixed messages on this), it doesn't really matter much.

[NielsenE]

Definitely mixed messages... I've tended to add the results to the result tracker, when available. Harvard Invitational is I think the only event that explicitly mentions not to count the HBC points. (Like in the old days when Harvard Invitational used USABDA points for eligibility, but couldn't awards USABDA points since they weren't sanctioned...)

In my opinion if a newcomer has earned points from HBC, ie placing out of 100+ couples that should count.... I don't care if the judges are professional or amateur... That's enough of an accomplishment to merit starting people towards placing out. I'm more mixed on the Bronze/Silver non-beginners... but still it takes a minimum of placing at three competitions to place out under YCN (unless you place at a higher level than you normally dance)...

[Chris Stratton]

Though if TPTB decide any YCN points earned at this comp do not count (there seem to be mixed messages on this), it doesn't really matter much.

There are no "TPTB" to make such a decision globally.

Each competition decides for itself which competitions results should count towards eligibility in their events. If they don't say anything, we'd have to assume all other collegiate and sanctioned competitions.

And yes, there have been odd cases in the past of competitions whose eligibility rules implicitly excluded results from previous years of that same competition!

There's the further question - to be locally defined - of how sanctioned competitions should be counted for purposes of eligibility at a collegiate competition. There's one official-looking version of rules floating around that imports sanctioned points 1 for 1 into the 7 point scale, with the likely unintended effect of drastically devaluing the results of sanctioned competitions compared to collegiate ones. A perhaps more sensible approach is to count points from sanctioned competitions as if they had been collegiate competitions - 3 points for first instead of 1, 2 points for second instead of zero, etc...

In terms of tracking, what this really all suggests is that data collection can be universal, but data evaluation is specific to a particular competition or at least organizer philosophy.

[mgshah]

Sunday was a disaster. Murphy's law in full form. We had several problems in the morning, some we had anticipated but the fixes proved inadequate, some we should have anticipated but didn't, and some we couldn't have known about. So we ended up with frequent restarts and got very far behind.

After we finished the rhythm/latin session, we took a 30 minute break to reset, and then standard/smooth actually went off without a hitch. We had to restart two heats, but otherwise everything went smoothly, albeit 2.5 hours displaced.

Istvan, Tim, Efrosyni, and Asami were awesome. They stepped in and finished the finals for us, keeping us from falling even further behind.

As we announced at the comp, we're sorry people had to suffer through our missteps, especially the newcomers. We've offered everyone who competed a 50% discount on regular registration at the invitational. Both to make up for the inconvenience and to encourage them to give us another chance.

Some specific responses:

>I'm sure they had good intentions.

As always. Thanks for understanding.

>I heard a lot of complaints from the judges about the pda scrutineering system.

Judges reactions were mixed. Most thought it was great when it worked (like for standard and smooth). Some were confused and rightly so. We had one big bug in the morning that stopped us in our tracks and we were so busy trying to get things up and running again, we neglected to explain what was going on.

I haven't actually heard any direct complaints, but I'm still waiting on feedback from most of the judges. I imagine my data thus far is a bit biased since I'm sure the Harvard judges were more forgiving then the others.

>I do understand that this was a test for Harvard's using the PDA system, but I think that pen and paper is a far better use of time.

Could be.

>this particular implementation seems to not have been tested rigorously in real situations

Yes and no. There is a bit of a chicken and egg problem here.

>the system must degrade nicely to non-PDA scrutineering...

Problem for us was that we hadn't found a scrutineer willing to support us as backup. So our pen and paper option was also homegrown, and wouldn't have been fast enough. We're still working on that though - both finding someone to support us as backup and making our own pen and paper system solid.

>In the morning, when the PDA's weren't working, was pen-and-paper judging considered?

Yes, but as explained above, we decided it was better to press on rather than shift to paper and pen because that would have slowed us down just as much.

>Why were there so few announcement informing competitors what was going on, especially in the morning?

That was a mistake. We should have explained more. Unfortunately, the two people who were in a position to explain (myself and the MC) were too busy trying to get the system up again.

>I'm not at all sure what happened, but I know that newcomers were being moved from one on-deck area to the other, but nobody really seemed to know why.

Again, apologies for not explaining. The moving was the checking in part. We thought it would go smoothly. Newcomers line up in on-deck 1 -> Move over to on-deck 2 as we check them in for Swing -> those dancing rumba stay as we check them in -> everyone circles around -> new heat divisions are posted, and dancing starts. But that didn't work so well, probably because of poor communication from the head table.

>During the silver events, which I danced, we were lined up for a good 30 minutes without knowing what was going on, aside from several general

Since the newcomer check in hadn't gone so well, we decided to do Silver manually. (You were counted, if you recall). But that process triggered a bug and we were dead in the water for a good thirty minutes.

>the second heat was only 4 people while the first was ~15(?)

This happened because the check-in didn't go as planned. You danced twice because the first round essentially became a bye so that we could make sure who was there.

>The venue was nice, but the floor could have been a little bigger/not run silver semis as 1 heat - my partner was tripped and fell on the floor during our quickstep.

Hmmm. In the last four competitions, I've been told pretty explicitly that semis should always be one heat because competitors don't want finals to be recalled from separate heats. Is that not true? The floor was also 70'x40', which is pretty large, imho, and there were at most 16 couples in the semi. Were the judges crowding you?

>And somehow the #s of those who made it to the next round were posted right as we were exiting the floor.

That was the system working. The judges submitted their marks, and the results were ready and posted in about 4 seconds. This is where we think the PDAs will be most beneficial for smoother comps. Competitors know whether they've been recalled as they leave the floor. There is no waiting. No congestion around the projectors. No missed recalls because the couple didn't know they had been recalled.

>why weren't Afternoon session awards handed out until after the team match?

Because the results weren't ready. As has been noted, the final results often create the most delays. Our goal was to have them ready immediately and have the awards ceremony as soon as the last final was over. Unfortunately, the finals part of the program didn't work so we decided to do it manually. The paper scrutineering took some time. The times savings clearly weren't there on Sunday, but it's what we were trying for.

>So do we dare not ask when the results will be available?

Final placements will hopefully be up this weekend. Recall rounds hopefully soon after. It all depends on how long it takes me to catch up with work work, since the data all reside on my computer, and I'm in California.

>My first experience at a Harvard Beginners' Competition was back in 2003.

That was before my time, but I've heard the stories...exceeded building capacity...fire marshall started kicking people out...yuck.

>Although unfortunately so far it seems like every year this comp is poorly run and unorganized.

Ouch. The last two years the comp ran perfectly on time with more competitors than many of the full fledged comps and in half the time. Trying not to be defensive, but this is more than a slight exaggeration. This year was bad, but definitely contrary to the trend for Harvard comps the past two years (in my obviously biased opinion)

>My question is why do couples keep coming back every year when stuff like this seems to happen consistently year after year

Again, trying not to be defensive, but I would posit that it is because the general ballroom community isn't as anti-Harvard as Dance-Forums.

Yes, Sunday was bad. But a three hour delay isn't exactly unheard of in the ballroom world.
Again, not trying to gloss over anything, Sunday clearly sucked, but a fair assessment of the event would have to also report that:
1) the audience loved Olga and Andrey,
2) the team match was full of energy
3) the 50% discount was pretty well received

Sadly, none of this has even been mentioned. I guess it's all irrelevant for DF'ers

Anyways, to those of you who danced Sunday, you have my personal apologies. I hope you'll come join us at the Invitational. It's going to be great! And on time ;)

[BM]

>Although unfortunately so far it seems like every year this comp is poorly run and unorganized.

Ouch. The last two years the comp ran perfectly on time with more competitors than many of the full fledged comps and in half the time. Trying not to be defensive, but this is more than a slight exaggeration. This year was bad, but definitely contrary to the trend for Harvard comps the past two years (in my obviously biased opinion)

>My question is why do couples keep coming back every year when stuff like this seems to happen consistently year after year

Again, trying not to be defensive, but I would posit that it is because the general ballroom community isn't as anti-Harvard as Dance-Forums.

Mgshah, I'm sure that DF is not anti-Harvard (particularly since we do keep coming back for the comps ;)). However, I've learned that no matter how smoothly a comp may run, attendees will still jump to pick out the negatives before the positives. Yes, HBC this year was exhausting. I think that commentators, once they got started on this year's comp, naturally ripped into previous years, as well (which is a real pain for comp organisers, but what can we do?).

Yes, Sunday was bad. But a three hour delay isn't exactly unheard of in the ballroom world.
Again, not trying to gloss over anything, Sunday clearly sucked, but a fair assessment of the event would have to also report that:
1) the audience loved Olga and Andrey,
2) the team match was full of energy
3) the 50% discount was pretty well received

Sadly, none of this has even been mentioned. I guess it's all irrelevant for DF'ers

I had not heard about the discount. How did you notify the teams (I'll check with my captain to see if she just forgot to mention it)? Regardless, good plan. I just hope that BU's kids can benefit (HI is the first weekend of BU's spring break, so we rarely have a large group competing, especially newcomers).

[NielsenE]

>Although unfortunately so far it seems like every year this comp is poorly run and unorganized.

Ouch. The last two years the comp ran perfectly on time with more competitors than many of the full fledged comps and in half the time. Trying not to be defensive, but this is more than a slight exaggeration. This year was bad, but definitely contrary to the trend for Harvard comps the past two years (in my obviously biased opinion)

>My question is why do couples keep coming back every year when stuff like this seems to happen consistently year after year

Again, trying not to be defensive, but I would posit that it is because the general ballroom community isn't as anti-Harvard as Dance-Forums.


Yeah, I would agree with mgshah here. Last year's HBC ran well. I won't say exceptional, but definitely in the "strongly good" category. I wasn't at two years ago, but I tended to hear positive things. It was three years ago that major problems happened. Thats a 50% success rate over the past four years, which in reality is probably about normal for the circuit, especially for events that are aggressive about trying new things in order to find a more successful procedure.


Yes, Sunday was bad. But a three hour delay isn't exactly unheard of in the ballroom world.
Again, not trying to gloss over anything, Sunday clearly sucked, but a fair assessment of the event would have to also report that:
1) the audience loved Olga and Andrey,
2) the team match was full of energy
3) the 50% discount was pretty well received

Sadly, none of this has even been mentioned. I guess it's all irrelevant for DF'ers

To be fair to the posters, notice that none of those factors deal with the "core" of the event.



HBC is a uniquely challenging event. I feel that Harvard could benefit from refocusing on what exactly they want HBC to be:
1) Is it primarily designed for an introduction to dancing for newcomers
2) Is it primarily a testing/training ground for Harvard Invitational
3) Is it being pushed into another full Open/Invitational event

I have felt that even in the good years points 2 & 3 were more prevalent than 1. The "introduce newcomers to dancing" aspects have seemed to be on auto-pilot and have slowly be degrading as the size of the event gets larger and larger. Often the innovations attempts (PDAs, good use of multiple on-deck areas/lanes) could potentially address the schedule and organization in a way to reduce confusion and schedule -- however the execution is often less thought through and in the rush of the moment staff forget they are dealing with first time competitors.

Its a catch 22... I would rather test new approaches out at a small event, so Harvard choosing to test at HBC rather than the Invitational makes a lot of sense. However at the same time, testing anything increases the potential for confusion at an event where reducing confusion should be one of the utmost priorities.

[NielsenE]

>The venue was nice, but the floor could have been a little bigger/not run silver semis as 1 heat - my partner was tripped and fell on the floor during our quickstep.

Hmmm. In the last four competitions, I've been told pretty explicitly that semis should always be one heat because competitors don't want finals to be recalled from separate heats. Is that not true? The floor was also 70'x40', which is pretty large, imho, and there were at most 16 couples in the semi. Were the judges crowding you?


Well given that the minimum floor size (USA Dance's def'n) is 60x36, 70x40 isn't really large. Its more what I would consider functionally minimal (a USA Dance minimum floor is too small for most purposes or more than ~12 couples in a heat). For standard/smooth/samba/paso, I find that the width is more important initially -- getting to ~48' wide is extremely beneficial (so long as the floor doesn't become a square).

I wasn't at HBC, so if some of these factors don't apply, just ignore them. But at most competitions a 40' width ends up being significantly narrower -- seating is often right to the edge of the floor and couples tend to leave about a 2-3 foot buffer. If the judges are on the floor than tends to claim an additional 2-3 foot buffer. so often you lose about 4' per half. You also tend to use about 2 feet of dead zone in the middle as people want to be near but not in the center. So a 40' floor is effectively more like 15' per half, this tends to be support two "lanes" of dancers and doesn't tend to offer a lot of latitude for floor craft when changing lanes. In a fast dance like QS, especially as people leave the more predictable bronze steps for silver and above I can see how collisions would be frequent.... especially with newly silver dancers. With a 48' wide floor you end up with ~19' use useable space. This normally still means people only try for 2 lanes, but there's enough allowance for a third in a jam or for more flexibility in floorcraft. Going wider at this point tends to be counterproductive as a third full time lane develops squeezing everyone.

[Chris Stratton]

In the last four competitions, I've been told pretty explicitly that semis should always be one heat because competitors don't want finals to be recalled from separate heats. Is that not true? The floor was also 70'x40', which is pretty large, imho, and there were at most 16 couples in the semi.

16 couples should be run as quarterfinal, not a semi - even if it was planned to be a semi.
16 gives you a mandatory minimum of 8 in the final, likely more - and you should only be getting to 8 as a result of unluckily divided marks, not by plan.

The only time you should have 16 is in a first round, and even then, on all but a huge floor you really should add another heat and shrink them all by a few couples.

When a semi must be run split (small floor, or division that moves a lot), what you do is run both heats, then put them all on for an additional 30 seconds to give the judges a chance to finalize decisions.

Silver quickstep can be... interesting. What often happens is that the guys gradually discover that they can avoid the bronze crowd along the outside by learning to use the center, and so are used to cruising through the inside area, with things like a V6 / slant six for example. All is great, until you two or three guys who know this trick and have been used to using it alone, all on the floor together... I can recall huddling with a friend in the lineup and deciding who was going to take which corner, because our reactions to certain situations were so similar that we'd always end up on top of each if we were presented with the same obstructions...

[White Chacha]

I recall Tufts one year, and a collective chant from the silver quicksteppers of "two heats, two heats". They were going to put some 20 of us on the floor at once. I'm pretty sure you were there :-)

[Chris Stratton]

Probably not actually... I think I've only competed in bronze and open at Tufts, with a few years in between ;-)

I do recall some issues the first year though - they'd used their newbie team the night before to decide how many couples could fit on the floor, and used the same numbers for all events!

[NielsenE]

Harvard has posted half of the results on-line
http://harvardballroom.org/competitions/beginners/results.php

However from visual inspection I see several mistakes in the scrutineering..
In the Bronze W/Q the tie was incorrectly broken
In the Silver W/Q the individual dances are extremely wrong... possibly a transcription error

The other ones looks visibly correct, but I haven't re-scored any of the non-obvious ones to confirm

[mgshah]

Silver W/Q was a transcription error. It's been corrected.

You're right about bronze W/Q, the 6th and 7th place tie was incorrectly broken.

[mgshah]

16 couples should be run as quarterfinal, not a semi - even if it was planned to be a semi.


There were 12 couples on the floor.

[NielsenE]

Silver W/Q was a transcription error. It's been corrected.

You're right about bronze W/Q, the 6th and 7th place tie was incorrectly broken.

It looks like both have been corrected on the website. (Just in case anyone is checking from what was reported earlier)