[GeeTwo]

On our team, pit crew selection is almost as rigorous as drive crew selection. At any given time, someone in the pit needs to know every system on the robot, and all have to have demonstrated an ability to work quickly and handle troubleshooting and repairs. We usually have one mentor on safety/supervisory watch, and solid representatives of the control, drive chassis, and various manipulator crews (there is overlap among these), with a programmer on call. When things get tight, the mentor moves out of the pit into the nearby walkway.

Whenever work is taking place on the robot, we have a limit of 4-6 people in the pit at a time, depending on the amount of gear and the size of the robot. Last year it was four (big robot, lots of shelves and benches). This year we allowed five due to the smaller robot and storing stock and other occasional-use COTS parts in the trailer, using less pit space for storage. (Occasionally we had a sixth supervising from our "secret passage" which was cut off in the corner behind two toolboxes.) In my pit tours over the years I have overheard many other teams' pit limits, and the vast majority were in the four to six range.

The drive crew spends very little time in the pit apart from a quick turnover with the pit crew as they drop off and pick up the robot (mostly problems encountered, problems solved, problems mitigated) - when not in the queue, on the field, or tending to needs of the flesh, they're discussing strategy with the scouting crew or our upcoming alliance partners.