Quote:
Originally Posted by Wetzel
Now comes the tricky part: how do you do choose when to freeze time when you have 6 teams out there?
I saw some seriously questionable choices made by teams on the practice field this year - shooting long distance shots over other teams, one robot climbing whilst another team took their robot down from 30 point land, robots driving into people on other teams. I know the UL guys noted a lot of these things and I bet there was a report with recommendations made. I miss the days when we could put one person on the field with the robot during Thursday at regionals, but I understand the concern with other robots out there.
Adjusting the match time in FMS is not difficult.
Wetzel
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I too agree the practice field wasn't the best managed at several events. At Pine Tree when we were testing our climber there were two other robots testing their shooters on the either side of the pryamid. Not the safest setup but all teams on the field were asked prior if we we could share a slot and we agreed.
Champs would be best setup with the following:
1. Two full practice fields for tethered operation (two for each division just like we always have had).
2. Several carpeted practice spaces that could include the following setup (One set of goals with pyramid spaced to field specs and next to it a stand alone pyramid for climb testing).
Now I am all for radio practice matches those are good and if FIRST/the community saw a need for these I would recommend one full practice field for tethered testing and one full practice field for full practice matches (run one match at a time for quick turn over of teams) AND increase the number of option
2 above so more teams can do tethered testing.
The reasons Brandon has mentioned are the reasons we need tethered field testing. The purpose is to diagnose while operating. If not how will you know what to fix or where your problems lie. Most of the time we have issues in a regular match we say, "Straight to the practice field/pit to test this" not, "Lets get right back in line for another match".