[Craig Roys]

I do understand that a lot of this came down from FIRST and I apologize to any volunteers if we were less than pleasant with our reactions about some of the processes - I usually try (not always successfully) to not take out frustrations on the volunteers who are just doing what they've been instructed to do. Thank you to all the volunteers who put up with that - without your help, there would be no practice field available at all.

I kind of like the idea of splitting the field between a sign-up process and filler line where the filler line gets just enough time for running a quick test or two, and the sign-up line gets a little longer if they are trying to work out some changes to their programming.

I think one of our frustrations about the sign-up list was that initially it was unclear that there was supposed to be a sign-up at all, and by the time we found out about it, it was mostly filled. Then, after signing up for a spot or two, at some point during the day the remainder of the list was crossed out and a new list was started (or at least that's what I was told - I did not witness this firsthand). It just seemed like if you happened to be lucky enough to be in the area when the sign-up started, you got a spot on the list - if you weren't, you were banished to wait in the filler line for the remainder of the day. Perhaps none of this is reality, and we just weren't paying enough attention to hear when the sign-ups were. In the end, we survived, it was just a little frustrating at times - maybe that's to be expected with so many teams. It seems that last year was not as difficult to make it onto the practice field. I wonder if the pit fields were moved back to the dome, if there would be room for a practice field for each division.