[baronep]

Our team has attended the Bayou Regional in Kenner, LA and the Alamo Regional in San Antonio, TX and one of the most frustrating aspects of the competition was the 1/4 practice field. It created massive lines for camera calibration, regressions and bridge balancing that were often over an hour long. It severely impaired our ability to continually improve our robot because we couldn't wait the hour required to do 15 minutes of camera calibration. At the Bayou regional, instead of continuing with a signup system like previous regionals, they required a team to stand in line, with the robot for however long it took, in order to use their robot on the practice field. In my opinion, this seems rather ridiculous.

I am just curious: A)Was it was pure luck that this was the case at our regionals and B)If not, why did FIRST decide to provide such limited practice space at each of the regionals? Especially considering that this years competition requires significant vision calibration and testing.