Re: Dear FIRST HQ, Let's talk about the playoff pits.
 

On Carson we were part of the 6th alliance, we were told that the only people allowed on the field were the drivers and media, one of our students managed to acquire a media pass from a knocked out team, so he was able to see the matches, although the others walked to the robot exit/que line. The pit crew issue was not the only problem we encountered as part of the 6th alliance. Our opponents had a distinct advantage as they could see the robots we were bringing well before the match would begin where as we must wait to see them loaded on the field. This allowed them to select the bots they played with be it a defensive or offensive, depending on the ones we had brought. When we asked the refs if they could do anything they said no, as we had expected.

Re: Dear FIRST HQ, Let's talk about the playoff pits.
 

It's worth noting as well that there will be 200 less teams per event so the issue might have resolved itself for next year. That being said, their should be better designated areas in place to ensure pit crews can watch their team's matches and maybe even have pits placed equally.

Re: Dear FIRST HQ, Let's talk about the playoff pits.
 

On Curie we had no problem. Our pit emptied. We were all out there.

Re: Dear FIRST HQ, Let's talk about the playoff pits.
 

We had a bad experience on Carver as well even being told that unless our robot was on the field we had to be back in the pit. A few volunteers were reasonable and let us watch our alliance's match from the media section while others were extremely strict and just smiled as they pointed towards the curtains.


There would be plenty of space in front of the fields if the #1 - #3 alliance pits weren't there but the giant event stage took up almost a third of the space behind the fields.

Re: Dear FIRST HQ, Let's talk about the playoff pits.
 

Why, after so many years, is this stuff still a problem? Competition robotics is ALL about learning from things that happen in events. Are these things past the pale of issues, or are event producers just not learning?

One would think after two decades of doing events that these issues would have been closed out as solved. #TSIMFD This ...... Is ... Dumb