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.
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I understand the allure of working in your team's pit. But I try to impress on all my students that we're here for and as a team, and we each have our own jobs. No matter how much you enjoy it or how much you've put in, hanging around the pit talking slows work on our robot down, impedes neighboring teams, and restricts traffic for everyone. It's also a drastically inappropriate use of your time if you're not the best person(s) for that job.
We're happy to rotate people, call students from the stands, and have observers if they're not impeding teams and/or volunteers. In the mean time, there's other work to be done. Before I spent so much time in our pit, I earned my place by visiting other teams, introducing ourselves, helping them and looking for solutions to our problems. Even now as the adult manager, I spend a lot of time with my alliance partners, scouters, and other teams. There's plenty of competition experience to be had everywhere.
With no offense towards anyone in particular, I have little patience for any attitude of "I deserve to be here" because I earned it or even because I know best. Part of inspiring students to STEM and other professional careers is teaching them to work on a team and appreciate the value of every position on it. Understand that if we're asking you to leave it's because you're impeding the performance or ourselves or others and because your time, for the current moment, could be better spend elsewhere.