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FRC rules around seating need to change.
I was prompted to write this post after a few bad experiences and a few interesting reads here.
We should start off this post with a blurb from the Admin Manual specifically 4.12 4.12 Bleacher Rules Sitting together in a group during competition matches makes the game more exciting and fun. It’s whereyou can show support for your team. Since very often there is not enough seating to accommodate everyone, there has to be a policy regarding seating. Teams are not permitted to save seats for team members that are not present. In addition, it is not permitted to hang banners or ribbons to designateseating. Event staff will remove and discard any banners, roping, etc., used to designate seating. Please taketurns sitting in the bleachers if seating is limited. If there is a crowding problem, we ask that you kindly leave after your team’s match and return later if possible. The rule is simple. Saving seats is not allowed. However, this rule is consistently broken by the majority of teams in FRC. In fact many people are ignorant to the fact that this rule exists. Cue my experience this past weekend at champs. After volunteering for 4 days straight doing field reset our field (Newton) was not chosen to reset Einstein. It was disappointing but, we got to watch great finals matches and I proceeded after cleaning up the field a bit to find Einstein seating. Being I only needed 2 seats one for my mom and one for me I figured this should not be too big of a problem. I found 2 of the best seats that were not going to be reserved for teams on Einstein and sat in one knowing the rules well I did not put anything there to reserve the seat and I proceeded to text my mom to come by. However, right then I got stormed by a team whose seats I apparently "Stole." For reference this team was taking up 6 rows of seating in the lower level of the dome with many many empty seats. I explained calmly that the seats were empty allowing me to sit in them which they did not take kindly to. I was screamed at, called names, and felt physically in danger when a student jumped over a seat to sit next to me. Taking what I explained to hopefully be my mom's seat. I ended up leaving the seats in favor of worse ones next to a team that would not irritate me for the entire night. Worse seat better people. However, I have seen situations like this way to often. Coming from a small team we only have 5-10 people in the stands. Often we are high up in the stands and despite their frantic screaming you can not even hear them. Our second year our team decided to go for the spirit award bringing family friends, school administrators ect. They got to the venue earlier then everyone else and rushed to sit. A larger team then came up to them telling them those seats were reserved since they sit there every year. Our team not knowing the rules got up and let them sit there. People generally feel very entitled to save seats. Despite the fact that its clearly not allowed per the admin manual. So, we need to figure out some solutions. Factoring things like scouting, large teams vs small teams, and spirit into the equation. My proposal goes something like this. Everyone gets 7 reserved seats for scouting towards the front. There are then 2 rows of seats for spectators only not affiliated with teams directly and then another good section of seating reserved for volunteers. Teams will then have to find their own seating towards the top again not being allowed to save seats. If a team has an issue where a team will not give up saved seats they should have some way to report the situation and cause some sort of repercussion. But I know my solution is not even close to perfect. So lets figure this out. |
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It's an interesting solution, I haven't done the math so can't really swing either way. Yet, It's really shocking that people aren't aware of that rule in the handbook (had to remind people multiple times), and I think FIRST could really make a point by establishing some sort of penalty or better staff enforcement and awareness of the rule. I'd like to think people are good and are just a bit unaware, but you never really know. |
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As someone who did scouting I would be very sad about a seat so far down, it makes it hard to see everything that goes on. I will also say that having reserved seats up front for some people would disintegrate, as some teams dont have scouters, some dont have that many, etc happen, making students go "I wanna sit by someone and look, a free spot!" and take it. I can also tell you with grand certainty that students love to rip down signs about where they can and cannot be (ie, under stairs, back hallways, etc) and without extra hands to police them can be an awful pain.
Realistically, until FIRST sets a president to say "Saving seats means we save the award you get for a team that follows the rules",the best solution is to simply show the team in question the rules, and if a problem occurs to contact event staff. I know some event coordinators will go through at the end of the night and make a "dont save seats" bin, if it looks like they have left "spirit" shakers, coats, etc to save seats. They earn it back when they have a coach come talk to them so they can be explained that seat saving is directly against the rules. |
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Would T6 enable event staff to issue Red/Yellow cards to teams for seat saving? Has this ever happened at an event?
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It's extremely off-putting and I am someone who is very invested in FIRST. I can only imagine how terrible the experience may be to someone who is just walking in to learn and watch FIRST in action. I don't mean to be preaching to the choir, I just wanted to point out this was not an isolated occurrence. I had to deal with this all week/end long. |
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Not only is saving seats a problem but teams standing up during matches is a problem. In some cases the entire teams stands during their match, in others someone from the team always seems to need to get up for some reason during the match causing the entire row of team to stand and let them out.
Makes it kind hard on scouting. At any rate if you are at an event we are at, we will gladly make room for you to sit if we have it. Keep in mind we normally sit in the nose bleed seats so we don't have to fight for them. We might also put you to work scouting! |
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Some teams want room for 8 people, some only need/can spare 2 or 3. There should be some neutral way to handle negative behavior at all aspects of a competition. Sports events allow attendees to notify event personnel of uncivil behavior. The solution to getting the seats you want together as a team is pretty simple. Show up early and show up together. You don't have to beat 148 to the venue to get great seats together as a team, but you have to decide whether or not it's worth it. |
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Side note regarding people standing up:
It seems people standing in the walkway at champs didn't understand they were blocking several of the middle seats. People come by and decide to watch, making the three rows slightly above the main walkway difficult to see anything in without standing yourself. It seems like it could be an issue caused by arena design, but it was rather irritating to constantly have to go tell people in the walkway to take a seat. |
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True story: 3 or 4 years ago in STL, when we played out in the pits and sat on bleachers, seats were at a huge premium. Saturday afternoon, and some guy in his 40s or 50s with a young child in tow is looking up at the bleachers to find a seat. He looked just so lost...
I went down and asked him if he needed a place to sit. He seemed surprised, but said Yes. I ushered him back up and had some team members squish in more to make room. And I helped him (and his 10-ish daughter) understand what was going on, on the field. Long story short: He was an executive VP of some large company (no names), invited by FIRST to stop by and see what we are doing. He'd just driven in from another state, and it seems I was his first contact with FRC. By the time he'd left, he was going to have his company sponsor "a couple" of teams for several thousand dollars each. He offered for my team, but asked him to consider teams local to his company, and maybe send a couple of engineers there too. Bottom line: That guy you just intimidated out of "your" seats was thinking of sponsoring you for $5k. Smooth move, Einstein. |
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One factor that doesn't help this problem in St. Louis is that the entire 300-level of seats in the dome is off-limits to teams, leaving many good seats empty while teams resort to the 400 and 500 levels. It's not clear why this is the case - I would think that reserving a few sections for VIPs and making the rest available would be fine.
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The title says the seating rules need to change. I don't think that is right. The existing rule needs to be enforced. Changed rules that aren't enforced will be as useless as the current rule.
People need to stop being squeamish about identifying the rule-beakers. The situation needs more "sunshine", not a code of silence. |
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For what it's worth, I've never had an issue sitting inside of another team's "reserved" seating to watch a few matches. Most teams want to be able to have their members sit together during eliminations, and some mark off where they intend to sit. If you ask to sit in their empty seats during qualification matches, they almost never object. The vast majority of people in the stands are pretty reasonable.
I'm fairly confident that you will have better seats by communicating with other teams in the stands than by having FIRST sanction off a section where you are required to sit. |
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The problem with the current process is that to get good seats you have to push your way right when pits/stands open and have a lot of people moving back and forth from pits and stands.
In LA a LONG time ago we assigned seating sections everyday, everyone had an allocated number and it would change everyday to ensure people had good seating at least once. I think this option could work with a separate area reserved for scouts. But really, we just have to enforce the rule that exists now. |
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But we are fun and bring in those around us. We cheer for those teams we are allied with and have never had a complaint. I coach them throughout the season that there are no saved seats and we have not yet had a problem. As for scouting, if your scouts are in the lower rows, they will have a tough time scouting the field. |
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As much as I despise conversations like these, I must comment on the issue. I was disgusted at how abrasive and inconsiderate teams were in the stands at champs. As an individual trying to float around the dome, watching as many matches on different divisions as possible, I rarely sat in one seat for more than a single match, and I didn't have the luxury of showing up early and claiming a single seat. It was strange to me that teams were so reluctant to let a single, polite robot enthusiast temporarily use vacant seats that would be left empty otherwise. On top of that, it startled me to see how hostile teams were towards each other. In subdivision playoffs, I observed a team that had just lost their match stand up and yell awful things at another team that was cheering for the winning alliance. The cheering team was in fact, not from the same division, and they were simply congratulating their friends- completely harmless, and with no ill intent. It is understandable to be passionate about winning, but it is absolutely ridiculous to yell and shout at supporters of the winning alliance. This is neither gracious nor professional. That being said, I am very grateful to the people who did have reserved seats that were gracious enough to share them with me.
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I think there is a point that is acceptable. For example, I see no problem saving a few seats in the 400s at Einstein for the people in the pit packing the crate. However, some teams do go too far.
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Regional and district events won't change, there is too much variability in seating, from individual seats to bleachers. However at CMP they should assign seating. At NOAC, which is a large event in the Boy Scouts Order of the Arrow, we were all given a name badge like at CMP, and on the bottom it had each of the 4 shows, and an assigned seat, they didn't strictly enforce it, but each group was sitting in the same area, once you got there you could move around within your group. There were 4 shows, so two shows you had lower bowl seats, and 2 shows you had upper bowl seats. Then you could have sections book off for visitors and VIPs assorted around the dome, by every field. This way there would be no argument about "saving seats". And then you could assign a block of scouting seats, and you would have to specify your number of seats you need-max 8 for scouting.
Just my 2 cents |
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We moved over and sat in a section to the left. A few team leaders of another team shot us looks everyone once in a while for the less than 10 minutes it took to eat our lunch and see 2 field resets and only 1 match. The next day we decided to go up to the 400's level to eat our lunch. I feel that we shouldn't have had to worry about finding seats for a few minutes to eat lunch. Teams shouldn't be able to save seats for an entire day unless they are physically sitting in them. If no one is sitting in them for a long period of time I feel like other people should be allowed to sit in them. Not to say that you shouldn't be able to leave and come back to your seats, but that leads right back to the saving seats rule. I appreciate the team that didn't throw us out or attempt to throw us out of their section. We returned the favor by leaving promptly after finishing our lunch. |
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I encourage you to call-out the offender. They have people reading CD. It will get back to them and they won't do it next time. I've volunteered 'crowd control' at the Greater KC regional where we normally don't have enough seats and it's routine for the announcer to occasionally remind of the 'no saving seats' policy. |
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Not sure the answer to this because something obviously needs to be done. Last year I think it was that we had 2 mentors get up to use the restroom. They left their stuff (laptops, cameras, jackets, etc) in their seats. We had parents from another team shove their stuff aside and sit in those seats. When we explained they yelled at us about not saving seats and continued when we asked them if we could retrieve the belongings.
It goes both ways is my point. Maybe we have to go to assigned areas for each team. Seems a bit much but the current system isn't working. I do know Einstein could be a TON better if it was held on the wide side of the field instead of the smaller curved side. |
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A fundamental issue with this topic is brought up in the first story that gives us context:
The OP wanted to save a seat. Ignore any perceived contradiction, perceived double standards or perceived hypocrisy. This situation brings up the point that people want to sit together, and should be allowed to sit together. How many saved seats it too many? 1 seat? 12 seats? 48 seats for the 54-person team? |
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If you enforce the letter of the rule to its most literal interpretation, anytime someone gets up (for whatever reason), a pack of people can be waiting, claim a seat and quote the rule. I'm not saying people and teams don't take advantage of this, but at the same time I'm failing to see how many of the proposed solutions aside from straight up assigned seats will address the issue. I also can't quite wrap my head around how assigned seats would work with the variability in team size and how that too wouldn't lead to chunks of empty seats in premium locations that people would subsequently want to sit in... -Brando |
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It is simple really yet people seem to still insist on acting foolish.
We had our entire team trying to find a few seats together and the newer students who did not know any better were respecting the wishes of other teams that wanted to save seats even though they are not allowed to do so. After I watched my team finally end up in the 400 section and people were still trying to save seats up there I had them all sit down wherever there was space because at that point we were in the nosebleeds and it was getting ridiculous for Einstein. There were mentors from other teams and parents yelling about us sitting in 30 empty seats but lets face it....the short side of the stadium is not large enough for this behavior. Even if you need to sit in the middle of a team saving seats, do it and explain to them that they are simply not allowed to save sections, the stadium is too small on the short side for all these teams to fit, and that being aggressive and confrontational can cost their team awards as well as the respect of the FRC community. OP I am sorry you had that experience but one person defying a crowd never ends well. I hope you contact their mentor and have a discussion about the event since everyone is wearing a convenient name tag. You were in the right but unfortunately people are tired, short tempered, and not their best at the end of a long week. Once most of the teams are out of the running they seem to devolve into tired and angry people that throw GP out of the window once they have nothing to lose. This is a culture that should change. |
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The biggest issue here isn't team vs team seat saving (first come first serve, we all know that you probably shouldn't jump into the middle of a large team section just because someone left to use the restroom). It's when a team blocks members of the general public from coming in to see what's going on. Whether an 'un-tagged' exec from a large company looking to "see what it's all about", parents or relatives showing up on Saturday to check out the action or an unsuspecting passer-by that just happened onto one of our tournaments, we need to show these people what FIRST is all about!
Welcome people into our crowd, don't show them how petty we can be about who is going to sit where to watch a match. If you leave your seat(s) unattended, don't expect them to be there when you get back, especially when people unbound by the general rules show up and need a spot to park on Saturday! |
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Maybe there should be saving of a reasonable number of seats. There seem to be legitimate needs for minimum seating (scouting). Maybe each team gets to claim X number of seats using lanyards or labels or some such, but only in contiguous sections. Or something.
I've always interpreted the no-seat-saving rule as going both ways. No, you're not allowed to reserve seats for your team. Yes, that means I'm allowed to pop right in and sit in the middle of your "saved" block, and there's nothing you can do to stop me. But no, I won't do that unless I absolutely have to. I will be respectful of your desire to "save" a block of seats for your team scouts or parents, within reason, and when possible, if you are respectful of my need to take one of "your" seats if nothing else is available. I would hope that every team would abide by this unwritten rule and agree with it, but clearly that's not happening. My own story: I was lucky to be able to attend Worlds last year and I too, along with a few of my freshman students, was pushed away from a set of legitimately empty (as-yet-untaken) seats by an overenthusiastic mentor/parent from another team desiring to claim them for their team. Like, almost literally pushed, this mentor/parent shoved their way through. I made some comment to my team members like "Let's go find somewhere else guys, OUR team is graciously professional". My kids called me out on being passive aggressive but what can you do. |
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Let me start out by saying I don't have the total answer to this, but it is something that FIRST needs to address. Over the years I have seen numerous terrible things happen as a result of trying to save seats including but not limited to : making kids cry, making adults argue, making adults cry, strategies involved in blocking access to exits and entrances, injuries from running, inadvertent tripping, etc. All just to try and get better seats.
Here are some sacrificial (beat them up all you want) ideas on things that could be done to help.
I think generally this issue stems from the fact that teams take FRC events at different levels of seriousness. For some getting prime seats is about having the best spots for scouts which means better data and better event results. For others they just want good seats to see their robot play on the field. Both of these are fine, but they create situations where people act inappropriately, which in my opinion sets the tone of the event and defines the experience of many teams. (nobody wants to start their event by getting yelled at by the local power house team who feels like you are in the way). I don't have a solution for this but how many years are we going to let people's experiences at event be influenced by something small and crappy like saving seats before it changes. |
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We'll start another thread for this, but we're developing a series of PSA's which we hope will be used to humorously educate attendees at FIRST events about this issue, as well as others.
As others have mentioned in this thread, the vast majority of people are reasonable. Communication is key. There are some attendees that are hellbent and it simply isn't worth the effort, but these are the rare exception. I think ignorance of the rule is far more common than people maliciously "offending". I know our team typically has 10-15 guests (family friends, parents, school board officials etc.) that may be at their first FIRST event. In a perfect world, we have time to explain the etiquette, but it doesn't always work that way. |
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Another option, tangential to this issue: give guests special colored lanyards and instruct ALL teams to treat these people as VIPs. (Maybe they do this already, I don't know.)
Even when all teams are at their best behaviour they're going to walk into a stadium full of banners, loud cheering, colored T-shirts everywhere and they're just not going to know where is it "ok" to sit. To have team members welcome them into the fold, invite them to sit down and explain what's going on would be the ideal scenario, as some of you already do. |
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Who is going to carry the sentiments (quality and quantity) expressed here to the correct ears within FIRST?
Does anyone already connected to the correct lines of communication want to volunteer to do it? Blake |
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Although I agree that the saving of seats is a huge problem, we had to arrive at MSC over 1.5 hours early to get alright seats, we need to look at the situation from the seat savers perspective as well. The adult mentors are responsible for the students at these events. This is a difficult job made almost impossible if we have students spread out over an entire stadium. We have a rather small team compared to many. I can't imagine the issues that huge teams have with keeping track of all the students.
With that said their are several 'regulars' who aggressively save seats. These teams are typically large,+30 students.They know who they are because they come prepared with things like team colored blankets to cover rows of seats. This is unacceptable and puts others in a bad situation. Walking into that section and asking them to remove their blanket is very likely to lead to a confrontation. I'm not sure how to deal with this. If someone was being paid to run these events it would clearly be their job to take care of it but it is extremely unfair to ask a volunteer who is already giving so much to go get in an argument with people who should know better. I guess it falls to all of us to protect GP even if it is uncomfortable. |
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This is the classic tragedy of the commons problem - we have a scarce resource over which we compete but there is no means of allocating that scarce resource amongst ourselves. That leads to conflict that is not easily resolved.
The reasons why seats are saved are generally rationale and important: - Adult mentors must be able to monitor the minor students in their charge. - Scouts, who are participants in the action on the field and in the metacompetition in the tournament, need good views of the field and to be in close proximity to each other run scouting systems. - Teammates and supporters prefer fellow companionship. The current rule doesn't recognize any of those imperative needs. In fact, I have not seen a clear rationale for the existing rule. The solution is the one used in so many similar situations before--create a seat allocation process that meets these imperatives. I suggest allocating two blocks to each team, one for scouts (and that will vary by team--we need 12), and another for other team members. The first block should be set up in an area with a good view of the field (not in the bottom rows based on watching how other teams set up). Teams might be willing to trade block locations for certain considerations (e.g., first pick of the first alliance :D ) The second is much more discretionary. BTW, I also like the idea of the VIP lanyards. We really do need to be mindful of who we are interacting with--it's a reality of gaining funding for FRC. |
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[quote=Citrus Dad;1583975]This is the classic tragedy of the commons problem - we have a scarce resource over which we compete but there is no means of allocating that scarce resource amongst ourselves. That leads to conflict that is not easily resolved.
The reasons why seats are saved are generally rationale and important: - Adult mentors must be able to monitor the minor students in their charge. - Scouts, who are participants in the action on the field and in the metacompetition in the tournament, need good views of the field and to be in close proximity to each other run scouting systems. - Teammates and supporters prefer fellow companionship. The current rule doesn't recognize any of those imperative needs. In fact, I have not seen a clear rationale for the existing rule. The solution is the one used in so many similar situations before--create a seat allocation process that meets these imperatives. I suggest allocating two blocks to each team, one for scouts (and that will vary by team--we need 12), and another for other team members. The first block should be set up in an area with a good view of the field (not in the bottom rows based on watching how other teams set up). Teams might be willing to trade block locations for certain considerations (e.g., first pick of the first alliance :D ) The second is much more discretionary. BTW, I also like the idea of the VIP lanyards. Quote:
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Normal guests who just come by because they heard of a robotics competition have badges without anything under it from what I observed. I also found some teams had tons of mentors with invited guest badges. Allowing them to stand field side during matches on the dome floor. Anyone know how that works? |
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- Adult mentors can monitor students in whatever sized groupings the adults care to use. --- Adult mentors will be wise to adapt the size of student groups they monitor to be compatible with the available blocks of open seats. - People (teammates and supporters) wishing to sit together can move as far away from the field as is necessary to find a large enough block(s) of open seats. - Scouts who wish to use a scouting system that is incompatible with the current FIRST rules, will be wise to choose a more appropriate scouting system. If event planners are forced into using a venue that won't have enough usable seats (expected attendance, plus some extras), the event planners should put in place special rules/plans that will produce reasonable compromises; otherwise the current rule seems fine to me. Did I overlook anything? Blake |
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If your takeaway from the VIP stories is "we should make VIPs easier to identify so that no one is accidentally a jerk to them", I think you're missing the point of the story.
Edit: wazateer1 beat me to it. |
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Quite frankly, a blanket "no saving seats" rule is not reasonable in the face of many common scenarios, such as:
-Teams or their guests arriving at different times -Parts of teams temporarily leaving their seats for, say, lunch, the pits, or even the bathroom There needs to be new rules that properly balance these needs against the understandable concern to not have the entire seating area partitioned on Thursday, with no room for guests or later attendees. I'm not sure what it is, but... |
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What the rule says (implies) is that when folks arrive late, they can either form a new group that sits wherever seats are open, or the entire group (both the original- and later-arrivals) can move as much as is necessary to find a large-enough block(s) of seats. This is precisely the point. I am more than confident that whoever wrote the No Saving Seats rule was 100% aware of your first scenario, and wrote the rule to expressly forbid a "saving seats" response to it. If people stop saving seats for folks who are arriving "later" :rolleyes:, I think the second point you make will very nearly disappear. There might be a few things left to iron out (especially around the lunchtime topic), but I predict the big picture will be much improved. Blake |
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Here's what I think most likely happened: You took some convenient seats that belonged to some scouts - probably had some supplies around the seats, but nobody in them directly - and the team saw you. They then said something along the lines of "Hey, we were sitting here" and proceeded to sit around you, not doing anything to kick you out of your seat. You got mad you couldn't get the seats you wanted (and the seat you were saving, even though you're complaining about saving seats?) and decided to post about it on chief. This thread has the right idea, but I don't think things happened the way you claim they did, and I don't think this is as big of a problem as you claim. |
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What do I gain in exaggerating these events? Were you there? I will not justify myself as I do not have to. |
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Even if he embellished a little bit, this isn't exactly an out of the blue occurrence at the Championship, and I would think the dozens of posters replying in agreement would reinforce this. I certainly don't think that the OP was claiming he was kicked out and screamed at when actually nobody engaged him at all. |
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I will believe almost anything. |
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That doesn't sound like a recipe for "making it loud." |
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1) Are you the sole arbiter of "Adult mentors can monitor students in whatever sized groupings the adults care to use"? That's a non-answer. You MUST leave the discretion of that grouping to the mentors in charge, not to YOUR definitions. Many mentors want to keep their charges together in a certain location. You have to leave them the tools to accomplish the task, not proscribe them for you own selfish need to sit where you want. 2) How do you accommodate large teams that can't find a sufficiently large contiguous block of seats that will accommodate all of the students? It's not possible to do this without saving seats. 3) So you believe that scouting systems are entirely superfluous to the FRC experience? In other words the only important people on FRC teams are the pit crew and the drive team and everyone else be $@#$@#$@#$@#? The reality is that all of the successful teams have complex scouting systems that require close proximity. Why you would want to end technological innovation and the associated educational benefits that it creates simply because you want to be able to sit where ever you want sounds incredibly selfish. And you still haven't addressed my first point: tragedy of the commons problems are only solvable through rational resource allocations. They are never solved through "lets be nice." We have to address this straight up. BTW, I see that you are in FTC, not FRC. You don't even have standing on this particular issue because these issues of scouting and team size aren't relevant to FTC. |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
I think the basic "agreement" should be something like this:
--You CAN save seats, in a block or a line, but only enough for your team members who are present AND likely to sit down during the event (that is, pit crew and drive team don't necessarily count). --Other persons (adjacent teams' members and/or non-team folks) can sit in any open seat, particularly if they ask. --If someone leaves the stands to go to restroom or lunch, they should be able to sit within, or next to, their team's saved area. And the big portion of this: Have the bodies in the seats. Most effective way to save a seat is to sit in it. Translation, 2-3 people shouldn't be saving 40 seats, it should be 20-30 people saving 40 seats (ballpark numbers). If you've got the former, see my second item above. I've got no problem with saving seats for team members so the team can sit together. I've got a problem with not allowing people whose team wasn't able to save enough seats to join you and sit near their team. And I'll go on record that one of the MN teams on Galileo is a great example of this (can't remember who offhand, or I'd call 'em out better). They readily allowed small groups of our team members to take their empty seats when our section was full up. I want to say I recall Buzz doing the same thing a couple of times. |
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Adult mentors can prepare for events so long as they know in advance the rules that will be in effect at those events. The current rules say no saving seats. Adult mentors should plan accordingly. That's not my definition. That's the rule. Yell at FIRST, not me. Tell FIRST what they "MUST" do, not me. And please... The world won't stop spinning if a group has to split into two or three smaller groups; particularly if the group planned in advance for that contingency. Quote:
If it's not possible to do it without saving seats, then it's *not* possible. Those teams should plan accordingly; or plan (through their actions) to show FIRST and everyone else at the event that they don't care about following this particular FIRST rule. I would be curious to learn what reason they might have for asserting that the rule doesn't apply to them. Quote:
I wrote that teams need to take into account FIRST's rules (all of them) when selecting a scouting system to use. I have done FRC scouting from places throughout a stadium and I know enough about what scouts need to do. Until FIRST changes FIRST's rules, scouts should follow FIRST's rules. What you wrote here almost sounds like you are telling us that all successful (on the field success) teams use scouting methods that depend on ignoring/violating a FIRST rule in order to create their success. Surely that isn't true. FIRST's rule, not mine is that seats may not be saved. I presume they did that to create a welcoming environment in the stands where all people employ their most gracious and professional demeanor. How we got from there to discussing my alleged selfishness is a bit mysterious. Are we saying that if I walk into an event at 8:00 AM, see 5 people "saving" 30 seats in a nice part of the stands for people who will arrive at at maybe 8:30 or 9:00 or later, that I am being selfish (and the other folks are being gracious and professional???) if I choose to sit in one of those 30 seats for the either the next few minutes or the next few hours???? And that by doing so, I and other like me become responsible for the collapse of FRC scouting???? Again, that's a bit over-the-top. Quote:
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I have also been the tour guide responsible for ensuring that the VPs of a $40B revenue /year company decided FRC was worth sponsoring. Luckily on that day we didn't encounter anyone yelling at, pushing, obstructing, or otherwise harassing someone that they didn't want sitting in one of their saved seats. Sheesh. |
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You personally might not like the rule, but FIRST believes it is reasonable (they published it), and FIRST believes that it is workable. I agree with them. |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
I think there is a different scenario on Einstein than at a regional field. Einstein reminds me of Disney or the Macy's parade where people get into place hours early to watch an event, but stay for the event. Whereas at a regional, there is more coming and going.
The volunteer crowd control job description includes: Prohibit teams from "saving" blocks of seats Now this is hard! But there is someone to complain to if a team isn't letting you sit. Then the crowd control person can support you in your being allowed to sit. (I've done crowd control. People are "creative" in what they say.) At the NYC regional, I volunteer as crowd control or safety glasses and go sit with the team I mentor for our matches. Which means I show up right before or a match before ours and then leave the seat. I'm not in the seat all day. And I frequently sit in a seat near our team's seats that has other team's "stuff" marking it. Sometimes this goes ok. Sometimes the team informs me it is there seat. I usually say I'll be gone before their teammate comes back and it is fine. One time, a lady wouldn't let me sit. She had tons of bags on the seat so I picked up the bags and sat down. Turns out she had her leg up on the seat and I sat on her foot. Eek. |
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Whether FIRST believes its reasonable is probably irrelevant because they clearly haven't given much thought to the consequences. And given the complete lack of enforcement they reveal that they believe that it's unworkable. Notably, FIRST saves seats for Einstein teams during the final. If they lived by their words, they would allow any and all teams to sit where ever they wanted during Einstein. Clearly they even recognize that the no saving seat rule is unworkable. So, again give me a rationale as to why its a good policy other than a tautology that FIRST thinks its a good policy? |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
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First reserving seats for teams on Einstein is awesome. Its that little special treat teams get for making it. I do not think anyone has a problem with that. Being the team that you are on I am sure you have enjoyed those seats year after year. I started this thread because I believe some sort of action needs to be taken. However, I disagree that the rule is unworkable. With clear enforcement and harsher repercussions I am sure most issues would be more easily resolved. |
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Anyway, more on topic: We've saved seats. Thursday morning at Archimedes, we had a bus of 60-something kids get caught in nasty traffic, and it was nearly an hour and a half behind. We marked out an area with people and scouting items, and explained our situation calmly and graciously to other teams. They understood, and were happy to oblige. There was one team who needed a few seats for scouters, and we gladly gave them the 8 seats they needed. It wasn't a problem for us, I ended up talking to them for quite a while and learned a lot about them. Did we "break the rules?" Yeah, I guess. Does it matter? Not at all, because it was handled professionally by us, and the teams around us. They were very understanding of our situation, and we were understanding of their situation. When people are nice to each other, they don't necessarily need rules to guide their behavior. TL;dr: If we were all graciously professional to each other, this whole thing would work a lot better. |
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If you read my proposal, I thought that there should be several groups, one of them getting priority seating. But my point is that scouts are competitors who deserve the same respect as the drive team. You said that teams should build scouting systems that don't require sitting together. And I am telling you that will end innovation in technical development of scouting systems. Do you have experience in managing scouting systems that gives you enough background to refute this point? Please provide evidence that your scouting system has been successfully implemented. I think we've demonstrated that ours works. And yes, all of the successful teams that I've encountered who scout at Champs violate this rule. Every single one of them. I'd be interested to hear any counterexamples you can provide. Obviously I can't provide a list of rule breakers, but I'll start by pointing out every #1 and #2 alliance captain on Einstein saves seats for their scouts. I think the #7 alliance captain does too. (I sat with their #1 pick and know they were saving seats.) And if you want to really solve the problem you identified as a tour guide, then you want to solve the tragedy of the commons problem. When everyone knows what the rights are to their seats so they don't have to fight over them. Everyone will become more civil. Right now is recipe for conflict. You're acting like everyone started driving 55 in 1973 when they changed the speed limit. Instead it turned everyone into a lawbreaker. When rules and laws fail, as they are now, it's time to change the rules. (BTW California's water problems are rooted in the same refusal to acknowledge that scarce resources need to be explicitly allocated.) And if you're with FRC right now, then put your affiliation on your profile. Right now you have no standing in the discussion because you have no real stake. Past affiliation doesn't count. |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
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There are matches all the time where a higher-seeded alliance lost sets because they chose not to adapt their strategy to the playstyle of the opposing alliance, or a weaker alliance was able to exploit a hole in a strong alliance's strategy and clutch out a match. Real example: In 2014 at Ruckus, 610,1241 and 378, the third-seeded alliance were able to defeat the first-seeded alliance of 1126,1114 and 3951 by exploiting a hole in their offensive strategy. The first-seeded alliance's strategy was to do a standard cycle of 1126 inbound+truss -> HP to 3951 -> 1114 finish, but our alliance realized that by parking 3951 in the opponent's loading area, 1126 was unable to make their truss shot effectively, winning us the match and the event in the end. On topic: From my own observations at Canadian events,a few teams all arrive at the venue ~60-90 minutes before the doors open in order to secure great seats for the team and for scouting. Among the first few teams that arrive, there is very little rushing because teams tend to discuss what seats they want, make compromises and everyone ends up reasonably satisfied. This was what happened at GTRE, and a little bit of this happened at Waterloo. In terms of protecting seats, we're as guilty as anyone other team that fields a large group (45 students, we usually put bags on seats etc), but we've tried to change our "seat culture" recently to offer and encourage non-team members to sit in our stands. In fact, I made a few friends that I still keep in touch with today at CMP because they asked to sit in our stands and we obliged. I think that we still have room to improve in terms of seat-saving, but as it stands, I'm pretty satisfied and happy with how stands and seat-saving is managed at Canadian FRC events. |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
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1. It's OK to break the rules because everyone else does it. (a very dangerous precedent to set to a bunch of high school students) And 2. A persons opinion only matters if they put a team affiliation on their profile. Forgive my sarcasm but Did I miss the memo when you got the power to decide who's opinion was valid? |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
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I'll reiterate my main point: just be nice to people, and they'll be nice to you. Be understanding of others' situation, and they will be understanding of yours. This entire discussion has become uncharacteristically heated, not just for CD, but for FRC in general. It's interesting, absolutely, but let's try not to leverage age, reputation, or rhetoric to prove each other wrong. Discussion, not fighting. |
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While the above paragraph is plenty blunt; with it, I'm ending my half of this particular back and forth because evanerryg is right. In the bigger picture: Some of us seem to think it's right to tell everyone in line behind a seat-saver to take worse seats (than they would otherwise be in) so that the seat-saver may claim seats for people who haven't arrived yet at a first-come first-served event. I have been, and always will be, dumbfounded by that line of reasoning. Others among us seem to disagree. I don't think many people would object to FIRST creating a few enclaves for scouts to use, but we really aren't talking about the scouts here, are we? We are really talking about the much larger population(s) of non-scouts. Let's not get lost in the scouting weed patch. It's one tree, and isn't the forest. |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
OP, one thing that might make you feel a little better about this ongoing problem is that word does eventually get around about the teams that save seats/are obnoxious about it. Though it feels like you lost in those situations, the teams that were being rude are the ones losing in the long run.
The way our community works, no one is going to post on CD that a certain team was hogging the stands, but I can guarantee that this is something that people talk about at competitions. There have been countless instances where I've had a bad experience in the stands and mentioned it to the other volunteers I saw that day... "Team __ was quite rude in the stands" or "Team ___ had one kid always running around the pits and wouldn't listen." Other times, I might talk to my own team about how I was treated badly. You never know when things like that make their way to the ears of the judges. In a few select instances, I have walked straight up to a judge and told them about my experience interacting with a team. If common courtesy doesn't convince you to share seats, maybe the possibility of losing some points will. I would also like to touch upon some of the very passionate defense of seat saving that some have made on this thread. I get that teams want to sit together, I totally understand that scouts need to sit closer to the field. I understand where you are coming from and that you really, really care about your seats because they're important for team performance, I used to have the same mindset when I was a student getting scouting data from my team... BUT YOU'RE STILL BEING RUDE. Just because I can understand the motivation, doesn't mean I tolerate the behavior. I am most disappointed in the top tier teams who justify bad behavior with the competitive advantages that it provides them. I am using this quote as an example to highlight the perceived importance of scouting to a team and (from my understanding of this post) this individual's higher value on scouting than allowing a volunteer or spectator to sit wherever they want. Not at all implying that 1678 has shown bad stands behavior, just that this post does a great job highlighting what I think is the wrong mindset to take regarding seating. I do not think the OP was at all selfish in his search for a good seat after volunteering at the event. Quote:
Lastly, a huge thank you to the many teams who have, over the years, offered me a seat in "their reserved section." Many of the instances of kindness are not highlighted--we generally tend to focus on the negatives (not trying to take away from the importance of this problem, just trying to draw some attention to the positive experiences I've had in the stands at FIRST events too). |
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I want to emphasize that team "culture" around the many things, such as how to accept loss, how to be inclusive to all members, what to do with seats in the stands etc. comes from the top down. I have noticed that problems in the stands stem from mentors and senior members telling younger kids to reserve seats, and the younger kids trying to do what their teammates suggested. Usually there is some level of miscommunication, and the rookie team member may end up fighting tooth and nail to save a spot because they think someone wanted them to do that. In reality, the mentor or parent would not have condoned or wanted that behavior to save a seat. Clearly in some cases team leadership is actually suggesting that members should fight tooth and nail, but I think that is the minority. I dont think people are intentionally trying to be rude, my guess is that there is some level of miscommunication. Taking a second to think about mindset like Edxu suggests can go a long way. Thanks for maturely handling the situation at champs! I hope teams can have a quick sit down with their members and go over these expectations. I will have that chat with your team at a competition in the stands in front of everyone else, but I'd much rather teams did that on their own time |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
A suggestion:
7 or 8 additional pins are included in the packet, marked "Scouting Team". These pins allow the person access to "Scouting Row" which would be a designated area in the front of the stands. This area would be set off and patrolled by a few of the security personnel. It would be more of an exclusive area than the rest of the seating, akin to the robot queue. |
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Where I have a problem is the last few sentences. If he's involved with FRC, then he has a stake in the issue, regardless of what team he is on. Although i believe this is what you meant to say, asking him to specify what team he is with goes beyond the fundamental "yes/no" question. The question of whether he is involved with an FRC team is relevant, considering this discussion carries implications for the teams, but what team he is affiliated with has nothing to do with it. Furthermore, I disagree that past affiliation "doesn't count." Let's be honest, it's not like the seat-saving issue is a new thing. If he was affiliated with a team, and has past experiences with seat-saving while involved with that team, then he has the right to share those experiences and build an argument out of them. Perhaps those arguments shouldn't be phrased in the present-tense, but they are valid nonetheless. |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
... If you need your six scouts to have six seats, why don't they just sit together at the beginning of the day? Where do they have to be other than in the stands scouting? Hold your seats like everyone else who follows the rules does.
If one or two of them has to get up and go to the bathroom, other teams aren't vultures who are going to come down and take those two seats, particularly if they are scattered amongst your team already. Most people are gracious enough that if you politely say that the one seat they are sitting in was occupied by some dude who will actually be right back from the bathroom, they'll move out of courtesy and not because you made them. You do not have to break FIRST rules to scout, and it's honestly appalling to see veteran, well respected teams encouraging the practice in this thread. It's first come first served, even if your region of the country ignores this rule... |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
With all this discussion of scouting going on, I feel it's necessary to insert a small but practical point: I've never seen any evidence that FIRST cares one iota about scouting. I can't remember FIRST ever acknowledging it, let alone making rules/concessions around making it easier.
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Also, Woodie Flowers award winners and local organizers. |
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Is the argument really "We need to save seats for our pit crew and other members so when they can sit with the team when they come to the stands. These need to be good seats because our team values scouting"? |
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Q: Our scouts need seats together. A: Make sure they all arrive at the venue at the same time before the doors open. Q: Yeah, but we need good ones. A: Then arrive earlier. Q: What about all the other students on the team that are coming? A: They can arrive earlier too. Q: And the team parents? A: Yup, same. Q: What about all the students who are in the pit? A: Look, what's so hard about this? |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
I wonder if you could just implement a backpack rule, where if you want to save a seat the seat needs to be occupied by a backpack, purse, or satchel. Not a coat, not a blanket, something that would be considered a carry on for a plane.
One bag one seat. If you want to game the system and bring 40 extra backpacks to a competition to secure an area go ahead and bring 40 extra backpacks to secure an area. I'd actually pay to see a team force all students to carry 2 or 3 bags into the stands just to secure seats. Actually I'm only even suggesting it because I DO want to see that scenario roll out. Either way the best seats in the house should be saved for guests, and those with special needs. I also find it silly to think that we need to give scouts so much room when we could just share more of the scouting information we collect. Instead of having 3-4 people from every team at an event gathering the exact same data (how many high goals were made, how many low goals, did they climb) if people just shared the information we would free up a lot of seats. A cross team electronic scouting database would dissolve a lot of threads about "how do we share information at a venue without wireless" it would promote better relationships between teams, it would save paper that is turned into airplanes. People need to realize that people that aren't on their team aren't the enemy. If you have a stranger with no team affiliation sit down with your team and you help explain the game to them and show them how things go guess who they will most likely cheer for? YOU! Another rule that annoys me has to do with noise makers. I know you want to cheer for your team and make some noise, but my parents didn't come to an event to have their ears blown out by your stupid horns. Its hilarious that teams will invest money into cameras and tri-pods to have a better view at the driver station, yet somehow the only way we scouts can get the information they need is if they "have a good seat". TL:DR For a group that takes pride in being GP There is nothing gracious about these passive aggressive behaviors at competition There is nothing professional about only living by some of the rules in the manual |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
There is nothing wrong with the current rule. It is very straight forward and clear. You cannot save seats. That being said the responsibly of enforcement should fall on the team leaders (students and adults) to make sure their team is not saving seats.
If you really want to sit in a certain section or as a group, then get their early and make sure you have enough people sitting in the stands to establish your seating area. This does not mean putting down objects to hold seats or not allowing others to sit in those seats. It means getting there early enough to get the seats you want (without running and pushing over people to get them) and allowing others that need seats to sit. The best and only way to save a seat is to be sitting in it. This is really not hard to do. Here are some real world examples of what your team can do to fix the problem, keeping in mind we have about 60 people in our group at competition. Train your team: This goes for students and adults but make sure they are aware of the rule and stress to them the importance of following it. Make sure they understand that family members of other teams, VIPs, or general public could be checking out this event and have the right to sit in our area. In fact encourage it and talk to them about the game. There is never any good reason to get into an argument or fight over a seat. How to have your team sit together: Make sure to enter the venue as a group and stick together. Then migrate to an area big enough to hold your team. In the arena there are plenty of areas for this. Now if this means you are not getting seats closer to the field then get their earlier. There is no reason to run or push to get the seats you want. It is disrespectful and totally against what FIRST is about. What about having an area for scouting: Determine where you would like scouters to sit within your group. Generally we try to put them in the back of our group since we can control better people standing and blocking them within our own group. We also do shifts so that their seats are never really vacant. If one needs to run off to do something quick someone is there to take over. How do you keep your seats when people need to eat or walk around the event? If you want to retain the general area you are sitting in then don’t send everyone off to eat or do something at once. If you do so you should be ok with surrendering your seats to others. Otherwise do shifts so that not everyone is gone at once. To manage this we come up with a team schedule. Which is also useful for keeping track of where everyone is during the day. If someone does want to sit within your group let them. Odds are that it is usually no more than 5 people and they may only be there for short duration of time. So really not a big deal. Worst case scenario if the stands are full in your area, have your team members find somewhere else to sit temporarily until people filter out of your area. Again, not a big deal. Really out of all of this the most important thing is training your team on the rules and setting the expectation that they should be respectful of others at competition. I don’t think putting more workload on FIRST or volunteers to police the stands is the answer. Teams should take on the responsibility for their actions during competition. Our lead teacher sums it up nicely by saying, “Be nice to everyone!” |
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I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. Blake |
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Citrusdad your posts have been increasingly concerning. Off from that subtopic. After some thinking about the whole thing I realized that is was kind of messed up that FIRST did not provide better seats for volunteers during large events at championships. IE Opening Ceremonies, and Einstein/Closing Ceremonies. The volunteer section was up in the nosebleeds. Shouldn't volunteers seating be put at a higher priority then teams? I do not think many teams would object to there being a volunteer section on the lower level near the sections they reserve for teams on Einstein. |
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This next bit isn't directed at you personally: Across several related threads there are multiple reports of people getting "pushed or shoved" over "saved seats." This burns me up. Shoving people while in a theatre/stadium seating setting is not just un-GP, its not just rude, its flat out DANGEROUS!:mad: People losing their balance and falling down several steps can very easily lead to a serious head injury and a trip to the hospital! NO! NO! NO! I don't think we need a rule change. I just think we need more awareness. Perhaps next year's game can be named "There's no saving seats!" The endgame can be musical chairs! |
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Leave it to CD to let discussion of seat saving blow completely out of proportion. Everyone is just throwing out what they think the rules should be so I'll try and change the discussion for a bit. Is there any particular reason why having reserved seating for scouts is such a bad idea? Please don't answer with anecdotes of how the rules are now such as "come early and your scouts will have good seats". I'm saying if the rules were changed for this, would it be for the better or for worse and why?
Edit: Also only referring to championships with regards to this hypothetical rule change. |
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Teams will get 7 team stickers (The removable kind) which they can stick to any seat they want and designate it as reserved. They would still probably have to arrive early to get the best seats but it would only be a single day of that. If a team has more then 7 scouts they either can forfeit the stickers. Ask for stickers from teams who are not using them or sit without the luxury of being able to save the seats. Some people may argue for more then 7 but here is the reason for the number. 1 person per robot plus a lead scout. If a team has a ton more scouters they can be in a different section and the lead scouter can bounce between the 2 sections to congregate data. Also any more then 7 per team can get out of hand quickly. At an event like worlds 7 per team is 4,200 saved seats and at a typical regional that's 420 seats. The last bit is during elims, and ceremonies the stickers are inactive and people can sit in the seat. |
Re: FRC rules around seating need to change.
This is kind of tangential but I was kind of surprised at how many people would walk the aisles, get out of their seats, etc during matches. The etiquette at baseball games is to wait until between at bats. Seems like there is enough time between matches to move around that the sight lines should stay clear during matches.
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