Quote:
Originally Posted by Libby K
I like this shift, but it made me think of something else.
At the two MAR districts my team went to, we didn't have a 'practice day', but rather a load-in/unbag/inspect/maybe-practice night. We're allowed to get to the venue ~3, and can unbag and inspect, then could practice from 5-10pm. (Or maybe it was 9 and pits closed at 10.)
At that point, why not just go back to having a traditional practice day like we used to at regionals? We're already there for 7+ hours. It was shifted WAY too late, and my students were exhausted by the end of the night. Falling asleep in the pit exhausted. At another district event where I was volunteer coordinator, the volunteers weren't able to leave until almost 11, and then they were expected to be back at 7. It was great to have practice time, but at the cost of sleep for volunteers and teams? Maybe time to seek alternative solutions.
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To be honest after hearing this its a little disappointing. I know the first year of districts isn't easy and will take a few years before everything settles in but doesn't this hit a level of unfairness? I noticed it at a few of our events up here and while it didn't bother me I was curious to hear about if FIRST would grant extra unbag hours for certain situations.
Like Dave said NE events were strict on not opening the doors until 5pm many of which had no practice matches on Day 0 due to the field still being setup. At UNH week 2 the event organizers did express that there were scheduling issues with the venue which lead to these issues in a "perfect storm" situation. For starters they weren't allowed into the facilities where the pits were until 4-5 pm meaning as load in would normally start they were just getting to setup. Load in was pushed back to 6pm which didn't bother me too much but we've overhauled our robot in 3 hours so every hour is precious especially when its your first competition. There was an issue with load in due to the small parking lot and area to unload which meant only 3 teams could unload at a time so all teams were to line up in a parking lot around the corner and wait to unload. I arrived at the lot 45 minutes before doors open and didn't get into the building until 7:30 and there were still teams in line after me. Pits closed promptly at 10pm with about half of the inspections pushed off into the next day. *UNH was a well run event so I am not putting the event or its organizers down it really was a perfect storm*
If you still got 6 hours of unbag time you realistically got an extra 2 hours compared to teams in NE, 3 more compared to teams first in line at UNH, and 5 more than the last teams in the door. That's also for one event double that for two events because all NE events were 5pm-10pm at most.
I hope this doesn't sound like a whine its just a concern/observation I had after going through the districts this year and somewhat of a flaw I see in the unbag times. It wasn't a huge deal for our team but I know of many teams who had a lot to work on and the extra two hours would have meant a world of difference. This all probably comes down to the same arguments about expanding the witholding allowance which is never fair. Its brought out certain years and some years teams hurt by weather don't get an expansion. The years it is expanded the teams who had no days missed get the advantage because they were never hindered in the first place.