Quote:
Originally Posted by DampRobot
In response to "why are there so many kids in the pits" question, I can say from personal experience that the pits are the best place to be at competition. They are the place to be if you want to help fix the robot, learn more about the team, and generally benefit from the competition experience.
But I don't need to tell commenters about that. If you are a part of FRC, you understand that. What I would like to remind posters about is how demeaning being thrown out of the pits is.
You have worked for six weeks, putting your team above friends, social engagements and sometimes even school to build the robot that now lies broken before you. Now, an older and supposedly wiser member of the team yells at you to leave. Your commitment doesn't matter, or the fact that you could actually help. Only the fact that you are a Freshman and look like you getting in the way.
I know that there are safety issues, and that order in the pits must be maintained. I hope you realize that just because you are an indispensable member of the pit crew does not mean that everyone else should just go away.
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This is very true which is why I don't demand that any team member never be in the pit it's just that they shouldn't stay there for very long. Competition is far more than just working on the robot and in fact I hope my students know that they can work on the robot all they want when we are home in the shop but they get limited chances to meet other like minded people and to watch the robots actually compete. They also have many other ways that they can contribute to the team, and learn about engineering besides for working on our robot.