[Kevin Sevcik]

Test firing in the pits is never safe and is never going to be allowed. Stop asking and stop claiming otherwise unless you want to tell me your foolproof plan for guaranteeing that a team won't miss the bedsheet, have the bedsheet come loose on shot 2 of a 4 shot volley, or some other mishap that will result in 6 oz. of hard plastic flying at headchopper height through the crowded pits.

The practice field can be safe because you can arrange things so that frisbees are flying at a solid wall with lots of open space around it and few people. Any other arrangement is asking for trouble.

Similarly, it's extremely unlikely that any event is going to arrange a second practice field for teams to practice firing frisbees on. There's already a practice field. If it's too busy, then it's your tough luck and you should have finished and tuned your robot at home. The events are for competing and the small bits of practice and maintenance necessary for competing. They aren't and will never be an optimal place for building and developing an unfinished robot because there's a competition going on. You may as well complain that the event doesn't have a designated area for setting up a waterjet table so you can make upgraded plates to fix a problem on your shooter.

As an example of how non-optimal regionals are for development, full-field shooters aren't going to be able to do any effective development or tuning on the Lone Star practice field. For safety and practicality reasons, it's being set up as two half-fields with the goals backed by a nice large concrete wall. Consequently, full-field shooters should plan on doing their tuning on Thursday during practice matches.