[Dan 1038]

Originally Posted by M. Mellott

My only disappointment of the regional, was the schedule of matches. In my years of FIRST, I've never encountered such a brutal, overly-tight, schedule. I'm glad that FIRST is trying to get us more matches to play for our money, but when you don't have time to make simple repairs or follow your pre-match checklist between matches, it's insane and unnecessary.

As others noted, I agree whole-heartedly... We had two instances where we only had one match between ours, which actually cost us a match. Never in 1038's history, prior to Pittsburgh, had we ever missed a non-practice match... But, we broke a chain in match 26 and were unable to get the chain repaired and the robot back on the field in time for match 28. I get that FIRST is trying to use an algorithm which scrambles the alliances for fairness, but how was it fair to our alliance partners to go two on three in a qualification match because of a brutal schedule? Due to the fact that 20% of the teams were on the field at any one time at Pitt, possibly the smaller regionals should forgo trying to give all teams 12 matches and drop back to 10 or so, with an additional 3 minute break between matches to allow the teams to catch up... Our apologies to 1503 and 128 for missing match 28, we would have been a powerhouse alliance!