Pit Management

[sg999]

I'm curious as to how other teams decide who gets to be in the pits when, and how they manage to keep everything and everyone organized so that everyone is accounted for and everyone who wants to gets a chance to work in the pits. In past years, this really hasn't been a problem for us, as we've always had few enough members that all of them can be in our pit without creating havoc. However, this year, because we have more members, we started having some problems

How do other teams solve this problem? Do you guys make pit schedules? Who gets precedence for signing up (seniority, attendance at meetings, etc)? Is there a "pit manager" who's there all the time, and makes sure everything is in order? Is this usually a student, or is it better to have a mentor take over? What if the robot breaks and it's all freshmen who are scheduled to be in the pits? Is there a crisis management team that then steps in?

What about those that aren't in the pits? How are they accounted for? I ask because we temporarily lost a member of our drive team (me ) while at the NYC regional (in my defense, I was helping another team pass inspection).

[dcarr]

While there are lots of threads about setting up a good pit (equipment, storage, promotional displays, organization, setup, etc.) I've seen less on this particular topic, so I'll share.

We didn't have this figured out until last year. It came down to creating a list in advance, giving professional nametags to those individuals, and telling everyone else to please refrain from being in and around the pit. There are still some visitors who haven't heard the word, and others may drift in and out, but typically it runs fine with 5-7 students and mentors at any given moment. It is relatively clear who needs to be there: a lead pit mentor and a lead student crew chief who know the robot well and can assign tasks, a programmer who can push code changes as needed, and a few other students and mentors who helped design and/or build the mechanisms on the robot and are familiar with their maintenance and repair.

For our Thursdays to run smoothly, we create a very detailed schedule in Excel stating exactly who needs to be in the pit to perform which task, when they will be be there, and for how long (and what tasks can occur simultaneously, etc.). This maximizes efficiency when there is a ton of work to do and you don't want to have people stepping on one another. We also have some people wear bluetooth earpieces so they can easily call/be called in as needed.

[CENTURION]

Aside from one or two students to talk to judges, one or two mentors for supervision, and the occasional programmer typing away in the corner, the only other people commonly in our pit are the drive team.

There's only so much space for people to work on the robot, so the drive team does almost all the work on it. We rarely bring in other team members to fix things, most of the time, they just end up in the way. If something totally catastrophic happens, we may get some other students involved.

If too many of our people end up in or around the pit, they are told to clear out. We also have a rule that if we as mentors are in the way, the students can tell us to clear out (we stand just outside the pit to keep an eye on the students, but nothing more).

As far as keeping track of team members; it's really going to depend on how your team structures their regional trips. We let the students roam free at the event, but they have schedules, and are told to meet up at a certain place and time for lunch, and at the end of the day. Mostly, the students end up either in the stands, in the pit, or walking around the pits checking out other teams. There really aren't many other interesting places to be.
Our mentors also have everyone's cell phone numbers in case we can't find somebody.

[dudefise]

We also had a larger team this year, and had a pit qualifying test. To be in the pit, team members had to pass this test. We put it together to have different sections such as electronics, pneumatics, award interviews, programming, design etc. We then devised a schedule of hour-long shifts based on the scores, balancing each shift with people from each category, and so that people got roughly equal assigned pit times. We had a total of 9 assigned pit crew at any given time - the drive team, a programmer, and 4 people on rotation - although at least two were usually off doing something else. We also assigned a four-man "crash team" of the team's best and fastest in each section, to be called to the pits in the event of a major system failure or at critical times such as during eliminations.

It worked fairly well in terms of organization - people were for the most part in the right place at the right time. One of the pitfalls with this system we encountered, though, was that some of the newer members thought the pits to be boring; they happened to be on a shift where nothing broke and we didn't have any matches scheduled.

In terms of keeping track of members, we all have a list of each person's phone number and make sure each person knows where our pit and stands locations are. The scouting leader makes sure those who should be scouting stay in the stands, while the pit leader makes sure people in the pits are actually there, and makes any necessary personnel adjustments. If unnecessary people appear in the pit, we usually assign them back to scouting (we have a small team so everyone is assigned to either scouting or pit at any given time). If the scouting team doesn't have anything for them, we will usually assign them to more specifically subjective scout certain teams, usually upcoming high-rank opponents or possible alliance partners, and create a complete profile.

[VioletElizabeth]

This year our team has more members (~60) than we have total alumnae. So you could definitely say we've grown recently. But what we've done for pit has largely still worked.

Most important rule:
Only people on pit duty in the pit, not including drive team and mentors. We have few enough mentors, and the drive team is away enough, that this has never really been an issue. Safety captain enforces this.

Everyone has a cell phone; it's a requirement to be there.

The leaders make a pit, spirit, and media rotation, with shifts lasting roughly from one match until the next.

We have a pit captain, a safety captain, a batteries person, two pit crew members, an awards person, and a programming person on the schedule. All the roles except batteries and pit crew have a limited number of people qualified to do them, typically 2-3, so those people switch off.

We have people fill out a form saying what they want to do. Anyone who wants to gets at least one shift in pit. Everyone scouts, unless they have a really important role, like Chairman's presenter or drive team, or pit captain.

Most of the people not in the pit are scouting. Anyone who's not scouting is doing spirit or media.

This sounds like a lot of people in one pit, but
a) Not all the people are there all the time. Programming is just standby, and awards talks outside the pit, for example.
b) A lot of people fit in our pit.

I hope this helps you see what other teams do.

[ToddF]

Our pit crew is 5 people:
-Mechanical Lead: Makes mechanical repairs. Changes bumpers.
-Electrical Lead: Makes electrical and pneumatics repairs. Changes battery after every match.
-Software Lead: Fixes code. Operates robot during functionality check after every match.

One of these people is the pit lead, responsible for executing the pre-match checklist, and responsible for the overall operation of the pit. If possible, the leads should be students with at least one year experience on the team. First year students should get to enjoy at least one regional without heavy responsibilities.

Chief Ambassador: Interfaces with all visitors to the pit, including student scouts, judges, parents, and public. Responsible for controlling access to the pit so the Leads can maintain and repair the robot without interruption.

Assistant Ambassador: Rotates every hour. Helps the chief ambassador, and is available for assistance in the pit if needed. This job is where students see how things work in the pit. Students must volunteer for these slots, and must have earned the slot by their hard work and competence during the build season. Generally, there are 5 assistant ambassadors, who each take two shifts during the day. Before becoming a Lead, a student should be an assistant at least once.

There is one mentor who hangs around the pit to keep an eye on things, and who can call in other team members or mentors in an emergency. If a particular subsystem goes down, the students who worked that subsystem during the build season can be called in to make repairs, no matter what else they may be doing at the time.

[Audrey Chu]

We always have at least the two most experienced mechanics, the head programmer, and the head electrician in the pit. They're often easy to choose because they showed up the most and worked the hardest during the season to earn their titles.

This year we had eight mechs, two programmers, and two electricians. We don't usually have that many.

We also always have out safety captain (who in the past few years has always been an experienced mech).

Our drive team is usually made up of people who would already naturally be in the pit.

We also have two PR representatives, who do no work on the robot whatsoever, who hand out buttons, address the media, and so some judge talking. Handles the business aspect of the team. They head mech or programmer handles the engineering aspect.

Aside from this, we have a pit rotation. Every two hours, two scouts come down to the pit to do work. Usually everyone gets to work at least once or twice a day. All non-pit members are scouts. Whoever is chosen to be head scout usually opts out of the pit rotation.

[Ryan Caldwell]

We assign a student pit leader it is their job to track all parts and tools needed for the repair and maintain the robot. They have 1 electrical team assistant, 1 mechanical team assistant and 1 programming assistant. The 5th member is a mentor who basically is a backup for the students on the Pit team. All the members of the pit team are kept up to date on our marketing, PR programs, recruiting methods and of course robot operations.

Our standing rule is if your not actively helping anything and can count to 5 people wearing the same shirt as you leave the pit.

[SarahBeth]

We usually have the drive team, safety captain, and a few adult mentors, including a programmer (or 2) in the pit at any given time. We're a fairly small team and it works for us.

We also have a head scouting person and she recruits a few students to help her out from the stands during the competition.

As far as what other students do - they're usually walking around, talking to other teams, cheering, volunteering at the safety glasses table, etc. They know that they need to be in the stands with our team during opening and closing ceremonies and to cheer during out matches - but other than that, they know they have to travel in groups of 3 or more, and we have cell phone numbers to track down anyone missing as needed.

[Jimmy Nichols]

I'm curious as to how other teams decide who gets to be in the pits when, and how they manage to keep everything and everyone organized so that everyone is accounted for and everyone who wants to gets a chance to work in the pits. In past years, this really hasn't been a problem for us, as we've always had few enough members that all of them can be in our pit without creating havoc. However, this year, because we have more members, we started having some problems

How do other teams solve this problem?

Typically I would hand pick the students based on performance during the build season and commitment. This year we had sign ups and planned to qualify students. But we ran out of time. So picked a couple full time pit students and 2 floaters. I also have a college alum who is hoping to take over as the Pit Boss after he trains for a few years.

Do you guys make pit schedules?

If we have more than 4 then we create a schedule and swap in and out. Typically 4 hour shifts starting on Friday.

Who gets precedence for signing up (seniority, attendance at meetings, etc)?

Anybody can sign up.

Is there a "pit manager" who's there all the time, and makes sure everything is in order?

Yes! I think that it is important to have a go-to person who is in charge and can make decisions when needed.

Is this usually a student, or is it better to have a mentor take over?

This has been myself for our team since 2006. Recently a college alum has been asking to be the Pit Boss and I have been working with him to train, but since some of the students are still his "peers" its still difficult for them to see him as an authority figure. I think its important to be a mentor, they should have the experience to be able to make quick decisions as well as be aware enough to involve all those in the pit in activities and maintain focus.

What if the robot breaks and it's all freshmen who are scheduled to be in the pits?

I would schedule all freshman, I would ensure you always have a veteran student or the mentor Pit boss there when the robot comes back from a match.

Is there a crisis management team that then steps in?

Typically for us if a critical part fails or we have some other catastrophic failure then a mentor or senior student steps in, if needed. This year at Crossroads our shooter wheel motor shaft sheared due to a poor coupling method. The student who lead the shooter team, who was also on the drive team, stepped in to help make the repair but pulled me in to help him decide how best to quickly repair this.

What about those that aren't in the pits? How are they accounted for? I ask because we temporarily lost a member of our drive team (me ) while at the NYC regional (in my defense, I was helping another team pass inspection).

We have students dedicated to helping other teams as well as any member of the drive team or Pit crew must inform the drive coach or Pit Boss when he or she is leaving for any reason. We had a rookie student drive team member who when the robot came back to the pit, she went back to the stands and we couldn't locate her. She thought that's what she was supposed to do. We failed to let her know that she needed to stay and that she needed to let us know when and where she was going.

The best thing to do is to do what is best for your team and the dynamics of how your team operates.

[ablatner]

We don't have any of that sort of organization. It's almost always just the safety captain and whoever needs to be there. If there's nothing to work on, only a couple of people are there. If there's more work to do, the people who know how to do the work are there. Precedence goes to whoever has work to do, and everyone else, minus programmers and the battery person, are sent to wander the pits or go to the stands. Usually though, the people who are working are the drive team (3 of them are leads), section leads, and others who can work well without instruction. We almost never have mentors actually in our pit. If they're there, then they're usually just standing outside the pit watching or chatting.

I find that there's so many unpredictable things that happen at competition that scheduling people ends up more inefficient than just the right people working when they need to.

[Phyrxes]

We have a rotating duty schedule for students and mentors that works pretty well assuming no catastrophic robotic issues.

Student #1 - Leadership - Primary responsibility is to talk to people.
Student #2 - Safety Officer, usually a mechanical or electrical team member
Student #3 - Technical, usually of a specialty that is different than the Safety Officer.

Often there is a mentor or two on duty.

We also have a mechanism for keeping students out of the pit that aren't supposed to be there, this is especially problematic after a match when the driveteam is also trying to hand the robot over to the pit crew and get away from the congestion.

Every student on our team is given "G tokens" (Named for Mr. G, head teacher and drive coach). They are used a currency for a reward system for our trip. Spotted doing something awesome and a mentor hears about it you get some, likewise spotted doing something not so awesome we take them. At the end of the event there is a bonus given to the student(s) with the most tokens.

Our experience is that making students responsible for a tangible currency keeps them on their toes and on task. As a mentor, catching students doing awesome stuff and being able to reward them on the spot also creates memories.

Edit: One thing to also remember is tell kids to take a break, eat, relax, or otherwise decompress as no one can be "on" for three days straight and not suffer some ill effects.

[jasp]

My team has around 60 students so we limit who can be in the pit and for how long they can stay. One student in charge of the pit who doubles as the safety captain. Also before competition we come up with a pit list; the list generally includes the sub-team leads, the captains, and a few others who proved to be very helpful, along with a programer or two. Everyone else can come to the pit at times but can not stay long, because they are scouting or going around helping other teams and it gets to crowded.

What our team does that I have not seen other teams do is that we bring only the pit crew on thursdays so the we can make any changes of fix the robot from travel without people hanging around the pit.

[Brandon Zalinsky]

We usually give 10 students (including drive team) "1058 Pit Crew" buttons. Students that have a button are allowed to be in the pit and work on the robot, but they know that if they don't have a job, they're to go up to our section in the stands. People without a pin can be down in the pits, but are encouraged to stay clear of our pit for safety and crowding reasons. The students that don't have buttons or are off-duty help the Lead Scout scout the robots that are on the field. The 10 pit buttons are given by seniority and the student's contribution to the team that year.

[kiasam111]

In our team, we have 3 groups that have priority access to our pit.

• Drive Team
• Pit Crew
• Chairman's Team

So in total, we would have a maximum of 10-15 people in our pit at one time. In Hawaii, multiple team members spent the majority of their time away from our pit, helping either of the Chinese teams, or LAN Down Under (4774), only returning to our pit when in need of tools.

Whenever we had people congregating in or around our pit, we would send them away back to the stands, or over to the other Chinese pit (4831 didn't get their visa's approved, so they had an empty pit ).

I did find this year that people were quite good at sensing that they were "in the way," especially after a match. I felt it a few times, and when people felt this, they were quite good at getting out of the way. This is probably one of the things that I think is quite is important to stress to your team members.