Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Stratis
Thursday morning is when us LRI's train the inspectors. I usually have 2-3 inspectors who I'm confident know what they're doing taking care of Bag and Tag stuff, while all the other inspectors are huddled up with me being trained on what to look for - I can't afford to have all my inspectors checking tags on robots that were already loaded in, and helping other teams load in... we wouldn't be able to get to the training until later, and that would push back when we could start inspecting robots.
From my experience, setting up the pit is not the reason we have trouble getting everyone inspected. With a few exceptions, almost every pit I've seen can be set up in 15 mins or less. The issue with inspections are teams that show up late, teams that haven't finished building their robot, veteran teams that are too self-assured and just put it off because they can and teams that are focused on functionality (usually programming).
I know I've seen my own team work on autonomous programming until 4PM before they've finally gotten sick of me asking when they're going to get inspected and they actually start their inspection. It's not a question of teams not having enough time, and honestly... if we let teams set up earlier it won't help with inspections - work expands to fill available time. It's a question of priorities, and teams mistakenly see other items as being more important than passing inspection.
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Thanks for you insight as an LRI. I agree teams all too often will not prioritize getting inspected (we make that our highest priority). Deciding to delay opening the practice field until 12pm-1pm can drastically help this. Matches start at 10am and once they do its all teams will focus on saying "The field is open till 4 and we can get inspected then" because most venues stay open til 8pm. Run the practice field from 12pm/1pm to 7pm during the hours that teams need it. Yes it means the field volunteers need to stay late but I see not reason why the field crew would need to report first thing in the morning. Let them sleep in a few hours if they feel the field is ready to go from the night before.
Someone I realized that was interesting is that technically we did experience what people are suggesting in this thread at our District Championship. Wednesday night was originally supposed to be load in to your pits and leave but it was changed to match other districts as load in started at 5:30pm and teams were allowed to load in, setup their pits, and get inspected with 5 team members. Inspectors encouraged all teams to setup their pits first before starting inspections and by the end of the night a good amount of teams were inspected. Most teams came in just to setup their pits and get their robots ready for the next morning and everyone came in at varying times through the evening but most teams were present during the first hour.
What I did remember was it was a very calm, quiet evening and the next morning inspections resumed and practice matches started.
I know inspections on Wednesday night is too much to start at the regional level but still a lot of teams opted to come in, setup their pits, and return in the morning to work on their robots.