[Ryan Albright]

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

One suggestion I have is in regards to unloading vehicles/trailers on Thursday. Everyone had a lot of stuff that needed to be brought into the pits, and having to wait in line for an hour for an elevator is a bit much. Especially when you consider that this is a convention center, and that there has to be loading docks that are on the same level as the pits (I know there are, since they let us load up there at the end of the competition).

I had an $11 lunch from one of the vendors (BBQ pork sandwich) which was pretty awful. I know there's a lot of politics with regards to stadiums and their contracted vendors, but $11 for a lunch that's on par with a $4 meal from a fast food joint is really pretty bad. It's not that big of a deal, but it's the kind of thing that really irritates guests who just stop by to watch. Paying that much for 1 meal at a football game is one thing, but when the event goes on for 3 days and many people are there from early morning till mid evening it really adds up. I would think that it's a major turnoff to outsiders who may just happen to stop by with their kids after seeing it on the news or whatever.

{edit} I should have added this before, but... Overall, I thought the event was really great. The venue was very nice, the team party was fantastic, and our team had a great time. A lot of the problems identified from Houston seem to have been addressed (I'm not knocking Houston - it was a good event too, especially for the short notice. Being the first time away from Disney in many years had to have been a difficult job.) Hopefully the trend of year-over improvements will continue as everyone learns how best to run an event in a sports complex instead of a parking lot.

I agree getting everything unloaded and packed up was a pain thats why i made the suggestion in another thread. Why couldnt FIRST let like 3 people in on WEd just to set up there pits. Dont put the robot there leave the pits empty and give the three people liek a hour or two to set up there pits and bring in all there tools and then after everyone is gone then put the robots in each pit to be uncrated on thursday. Most teams were there on wed so they could do taht and not really run into any problem