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Originally Posted by PayneTrain
The Virginia Regional ran 95 matches, with 9 matches per team. The field cycle was really odd compared to the NJ Regional, going about 3 minutes slower due to problems that went unexplained. I think it had something to do with WPA keys and and router models. The FMS live-scoring died in the middle of the marathon semifinals, which left me a little edgy the entire time. All I know is that we never broke for lunch, which was a little depressing. 422 is not a very large team, and having to video tape every match, I couldn't leave the center all Saturday.
The regional was lots of fun, I just hoped the match cycle would have gone down a minute, not up three minutes.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Rotolo
There were a few 30-40 minute stops during the day Friday for unexplained reasons, and we were so far behind by the end of Friday they decided to try and make it up early Saturday, pausing around 9:30 for a quick opening ceremony.
The field problems continued on Saturday. I cannot blame the field staff; they were the ones trying to fix it. Although not as bad as some other regionals, I did notice people who came in off the street to watch were put-off by the delays and walked out. When FMS finally failed and they went to hand-scoring, and then went with only 2 representatives for most awards, I knew they had pulled out all the stops in an effort to minimize the effects of running so very late. (several ties in the semifinals didn't help either)
I'd love to say "Why can't FIRST make a more robust FMS", but that would be doing a disservice to everyone: The FMS is actually quite good, but I think that we're still stressing it further than it can handle sometimes. I don't know the architecture (Windows?) but perhaps they will redouble their efforts on robustness next year.
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I'll let the FTA and other field crew get into as many specifics as they feel are necessary, but rest assured, the field crew was doing absolutely everything they could to get the event running as quickly as possible. There were issues with communications and FMS that slowed the event down dramatically (especially interesting considering the same field had almost no issues with it the previous two weeks in DC and Baltimore).
While I wasn't volunteering in an official capacity this weekend, and only attended the regional on Saturday, I have worked with most of the volunteers at the event before. They are some of the hardest working and best volunteers I've come across, and are typically great at solving field issues (VCU was a week 1 regional until last year).
We're lucky that VCU is so supportive of FRC, and the delays were taken in stride by the VCU employees (unlike the crews at some other venues).