[EricH]

Originally Posted by rich2202

"hey, we need a tighter cycle time" - Easier said than done.

Which would you prefer: 7 minute cycle times where the FTA's have time to help robots connect, or more disable robots in order to stick with 6 minute cycle times?

It is easy to have sub-6 minute cycle times when robots are connecting. When running with 7 minute cycle times, that gives you a few minutes to help a team with a problem when they do come up.

And even on a 7-minute cycle time, a larger event still had an extra match/team... The OTHER half of that statement was to run a bit longer in any given block of time.

I think a 6-minute cycle time is the ideal, given that you've got connecting robots, with 7-minute being more realistic. Smaller events could easily run 8-9 minute cycles, and stick to them, with more matches/team.


But, as part of the "Team Experience" directive from HQ, I think that FTAs should at least consider the effects of running longer on a day, or shortening the cycle time. If there aren't a lot of robots taking the full minute for Transport Configuration, and there aren't any connection issues of a major variety (L.A. had to reboot the field twice, and run a pair of replays, and still finished largely on schedule) then you can get away with more short cycles. Say 6.5 minute times.

I think the better alternative is for HQ to say "Hey, we want X matches/team minimum for an event of Y size, do what you need to do to make it work with the schedule." The FTA then has the flexibility to run faster cycles or longer hours, depending on the event.