Quote:
Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter
This thread is to ask about and discuss use of the Robot Access Periods unique to teams attending 2-day events (District Events)... The 2014 Administrative Manual was just released, confirming that they will continue into 2014, maintaining the 6-hour limit.
As a team that'll be competing under the District System for the first time, I have some questions of my own...
How do the rules for a "withholding allowance" relate to the rules for the "Robot Access Periods?" (i.e. Can you choose to use part of your witholding allowance in one of your robot access periods rather than at the event?)
What does your team usually do during the "Robot Access Periods?"
Do you build a practice robot anyway?
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Practice Bot
We still build a practice robot. Our first year doing so was the year before MAR districts, and we've continued now for two more. Unless you currently get less than 12 hours of use out of your practice bot, the access window doesn't change much. It really is just replacing that Thursday (usually) of regionals. Also consider that you play a lot more in the district system, and every event counts.* Your robot is in for a workout basically unheard of outside of districts, with 12 quals per event and 3 events before Worlds. (Perspective: we broke 100 matches with like 4 off-seasons to go.) This also means that teams end up with much less time between matches than they're used to at regionals. We like our practice bot just because it takes some of the wear & tear and serves as a test bed for practicing quick pit fixes.
Access Periods
We've done everything we do on Regional Thursdays. Testing, installing upgrades, fixing issues from the last district, etc. You can do a lot if you get stay organized.
Withholding Allowance
To clarify further, at least last year, the withholding allowance for a given event applied throughout of the access period for that event as well as the on-site competition. So you can put on, say, [29] new pounds during unbag and [1] on during Day 0 (or 1, or 2)--or any other split, so long as it totals the max. So, for instance, there's nothing so sketchy as opening the bag with one robot and closing it around another. This was clarified somewhere official at the time, but unfortunately all the links I've found point to blank 2014 pages.
*Meaning that one great elim run won't get you to Worlds; you at least need to get to District Champs first, even if you win there rather than qualify for Worlds on points.