Re: Seats at Championship
 

That "empty space" is used for team queing. Keep the spectators where they belong in the stands.

Re: Seats at Championship
 

Yeah, there's really no empty space down there at all, and certainly no spectator room. I don't know what it looks like from the stands, but from the floor it's really pretty crowded. Spectators would make it downright dangerous.

Re: Seats at Championship
 

We get plenty of spectators down there. They're called VIPs and they almost always in the way and we can't do anything about them.

Re: Seats at Championship
 

Is there any way we can get FIRST to move the fields out about 10-15 feet? It looks like mostly empty space behind the black curtains, and it would certainly make it easier to see the near side of the field.

Re: Seats at Championship
 

I couldn't agree more. Atleast on Galileo, it was nearly impossible to see the red bridge from just a couple of rows back in the stands.

Re: Seats at Championship
 

I probably spoke out of place because I wasn't down there. Any time I was in a position where I could see behind the curtains, though, it seemed pretty empty.


I wasn't there last year, so I would like to know how much the extra teams contributed to the lack of seating.

Re: Seats at Championship
 

The NASA Webcast truck is back there. It's not empty down on the field anywhere. That large empty space gets filled up with extra teams queing up early.

Re: Seats at Championship
 

I mentioned this last year.. but to me.. an easy fix is to reserve two sets of prime seats large enough to hold 3 teams each... One for the red alliance and one for the blue. When your team was up, your whole team could sit there with others in your alliance. Then teams could save smaller sections for those that actually sit in the stands full time. Our team saves seats so that those working in the pits have a place to sit with the team to cheer for our bot. If we were all moving to the "prime seats" then people wouldn't need to save so many extra seats for their pit crews. There is enough time between matches that teams could swap out.

I do like the scouting badge idea as well, but it would have to be 6-8 per team. But, it separates them from the team, which I don't like. The thing is... teams just want their full team to have a place to stand together to cheer while their team is up. :)

Re: Seats at Championship
 

fixed that for you. (I love team media, but I'd really like each field to have a team media meeting for teaching queuing procedures. Those robots get heavy fast when people don't move out of the way for the cart.)


You could probably move each fully arena toward the center of the Dome a little bit--not much, and certainly not enough to fit more people down there, but maybe enough to make the field a little less obscured from the stands. There are also other issues (wire runs, lighting, etc) that I can't comment on.

I'm never in the stands for matches, but is this really realistic? It's difficult enough getting 12 well-trained drive teams and robots with the help of volunteers on/off a field designed for that purpose every 2.25 minutes. Moving 12 entire teams that way? I guess some teams just seem really big for this. Would we need stand queuers? (And I thought Ed's job was the roughest in FIRST.) Moving just the scouts (+/- pit crew) seems doable, though I understand some schools' requirement of chaperones for risk management. (They don't know the event is safe, and one endangered kid is too many.)


Another question, why so many seats for Pit Crew? Most pit crews I see are 3-5 people (occasionally more for major work). Do we just need a couple seat reserved signs that say "reserved for team pit crew" in the check-in packet? At least then people wouldn't have to worry about their seats getting taken.

Re: Seats at Championship
 

The Numbers don't lie...and lie isn't the word i'm looking for everyone has pride and hope for their machine so sometimes things like % can get skewed.

Pit Scouting =
Q:What dose your team like to do in a match?
Team A:We score 100% 3 pointers from the key and can balance with anyone in 10 sec
Team B:We gather well and dunk 80% from the fender and like to double balance.
from this i would want A to co-op, my team would play Def and have A & B on offense

Tracking a teams #'s =
Team A scores avg 3.8 TP's a match and has double balanced/co-op'ed 1 time in 12 matches it took 24 sec to balance
Team B scores 18 TP's a match and has double balanced/co-op'ed 10 of 12 matches avg 12 sec to balance
From this i would want B to co-op and A go to defense and then prep the bridge at 40 sec.

would love an explanation as to what is more important than the #'s assuming the team is able to take the field?

If FIRST stops using some sort of point scoring to determine the winner/loser. then we will stop scouting and planning strategy by the numbers.

Re: Seats at Championship
 

The seating problems were significant this year. One easy area that needs to be addressed is - Team Mascots that block the view should not be allowed in the general seating area.

Interestingly, I saw several venue signs that read Text "respect" to a number with the section and seat numbers if a problem exists. Maybe FIRST could incorporate something like this with texting "Poor GP" & comment or "Great GP" & comment. Combining this with some field announcements of a divisional seating GP award or acknowledgement could inspire some teams to remain seated during the matches, share seating and not display large signs once a match begins.

Re: Seats at Championship
 

I really like the idea of a scouting section at events, giving each team 6 or 7 scouting "seats" so that they can watch matches without fear of "Cotton-Eyed Joe" related obstructions would really be in everyone's best interest.

We thought about trying to do this at some of our district events, but it would probably be very difficult to establish and maintain without any official support.

Re: Seats at Championship
 

Old thread, I know, but with another season upon us...

Our team once was searching the entire Naval Academy grounds at the regional in Annapolis for a missing student. We were about to report it to the
security there when he was found sleeping, high in the stands, exactly as someone in this thread suggested. He was in a section at the end accessible only by a set of stairs, completely invisible from the floor. Had he not been found and considering the proximity of the harbor there, it could have resulted in a massive search effort. Needless to say, that kid never traveled with the team again.

High School age encompasses a wide degree of maturity and responsibility. Look at some of the Freshmen on your team. Some may never have been on an overnight field trip before.

This is not fear-mongering or made-up or paranoia. It's the very real world that school representatives have to deal with. What may seem excessive to you could result in the 6-o'clock news asking them "Why didn't you do more?" when things go bad.