pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

Our pit is still lit: https://i.imgur.com/JGtgviZ.jpg

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

What happened?

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

The power went out.

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

I was wondering what was going on...

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

Are matches cancelled or delayed until the power comes back on?

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

Better watch your voltage or you might brown out again.

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A car hit a pole knocking out power to the entire area. We were without power for 4 hours.

Applause to arkansas FIRST for how they handled the situation. Weaving In alliance selection, awards, and lunch, the time went by fast and we finished at the right time.

Playing matches in the dark would have been cool though :rolleyes:

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

Towards the end of the period, a local volunteer had gotten his shop generator setup to run the field. We still kept matches on hold until we had the field lights on the generator as well and used those to do alliance selections. Just as the first match was getting ready to play, the house lights were returned. But I had a chance to take some photos of the field in the intermittent period. (thought others might be able to enjoy as well) I didn't have a tripod and didn't think to brace my camera in other ways, so they are only marginal pictures. Pretty cool still.https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0BwEBn...G1MazIxZk1BLXc
https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0BwEBn...19PeFdINUdORHc

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

I wasn't able to attend, but my brother and dad were there, got this text from my dad during the outage:

"[Another Mentor] and I drove by the downed power pole over one hour after the car hit it and killed the electricity to the arena. There were two cops blocking traffic on either side and ZERO guys working on the problem. Welcome to Arkansas."

So props to the venue, Arkansas FIRST, and everyone that helped get everything running again, no props to the local officials

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

The field looks amazing in the dark... a 'lights out' offseason event with the official field would be incredibly fun.

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

If pursuing a "lights-out" match or event, might need to consider requiring robots to have LED's that show where they are (floor runners?) and team number and outline of frame/extensions (alliance color in some way too??) - it would be cool, but could be really hard to referee (which robot just bumped that one that inside the plane of the defenses?). Also consider how to have enough light to safely load the robots onto and off the field.

The logistics of doing it really start stacking up. Still - cool idea.

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

A lights out match where the defenses are kept a surprise would be really cool. let the robots have lights on them, and then the defense and tower lights would be badass

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

Sooooo... do you have any more information about this situation other than: somebody drove by and it didn't look like they were working on it? Any reason to think Entergy wasn't working diligently to get power back on ASAP?
The initial estimate to restore power announced at the event was "at least 3 hours", and it was back on in less than 4.

Comments that throw shade at an entire state, if said at all, belong in private text messages, not public forums.

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

This weekend at Rock City was definitely a unique experience for me in my five years of FIRST. It was disappointing to miss out on all of our qualifying matches on Saturday, but the event organizers made the best of a very difficult situation that could have been much much worse.

No injuries were reported that I know of which is nearly a miracle. Moving around safely in the dark was not trivial.

We were kept well informed of the situation and the possible solutions. The coordination between the event staff and headquarters was well executed and, given the circumstances, the best possible solution was arrived at. Kate, the FTA was professional and extremely helpful throughout the entire ordeal.

The partially lit field looked really cool.

The stands resembled a concert when viewed from the arena floor with all of the cell phone flashlights being used.

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I echo Tim's remarks. Sandy, Meredith, John, Kate, Greg, Blair, and all others involved handled it extremely professional and kept the information flowing constantly. I cannot commend the team enough for how they handled themselves in these tough matters. I think the outcome of the matches on Saturday morning was exactly what needed to happen. Way to go Arkansas FIRST and FIRST HQ!

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

From my recollection, within twenty minutes of the outage the event staff relayed that the power company was having to collect the parts to build a new pole and the estimated recovery time was between 1:30 and 2:30 pm.

The light came back on at 1:30 by my watch.

The complications were that the failure was too close to the event to re-route power and the pole was totally destroyed so no patch was possible.

My experiences have been that the more rural the power company the more competent they are at dealing with failures.

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

I have to say that even with the 4 hour delay this was one of the smoothest events I have been to in a very long time.

Having Blair at the event was a bonus even though he didn't mc many matches (he was training someone).

It has been a long time since I have been at an event that Kate was the FTA. I forgot that she is definitely one of the best FTAs in the business. Even though her real job is being the FRC Kit of parts manager she is an example for all FTAs. She is courteous to all of the teams and even takes the time to have short conversations with the students during times where everything is running smoothly.

The entire Ark planning committee really had an event for other events to emulate.

The ref crew was great and so was the field reset crew. The nightmares that I have heard about at other events just did not happen in Arkansas. 3310 would definitely come back again.

The lights out experience was quite cool other than the 4 hour delay part of the ordeal.

Paul

Re: pic: Rock City Power Outage
 

Here's a view from the red alliance side
http://imgur.com/cGGi99b