Advice from a grumpy old man :)

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by IndySam

Wow can't believe I missed that one. I guess I have been spoiled by a wonderful pit crew that breaks out the broom and vacuum when the drive team leaves the pit.

We put our safety captain in charge of keeping the pit clean overall, since we don't allow them to be on the drive team. As soon as the robot is out of the pit, our pit crew puts away everything that was taken out (tools, spare fasteners, etc), and then the safety captain vacuums or sweeps as necessary. The robot should always come back to a clean pit.

Originally Posted by EricH

Also, be sure that whoever's in the pit has at least one working cell phone number to call the stands (and a working phone in the pit), or some other non-radio signaling method. I could tell of a time or two when someone was needed in a hurry in the pit and either had to be paged via PA or was turned around in the stands to get to the pit.

I can't even stress how important this is. Also make sure that you can tell if you're being called. The only quiet place at events is the bathroom, so make sure the phone is on vibrate (or a very loud ringer, but that can turn obnoxious quickly)


-Don't forget to put your safety glasses back on as you enter the pit if you had to leave for some reason! Someone WILL notice.

-Please please PLEASE respect the size limitation of your pit. PLEASE. If you don't, that just means that someone else gets less space. At one of our events, we arrived about an hour later than most of the other teams, and ended up with less than a 7 foot wide pit. There's no one team to blame for this (each team going over a few inches adds up quickly), and once pits are set up, they aren't going to budge over such a small amount. We dealt with it, but it was still endlessly inconvenient when we needed four sets of hands and could only fit in three bodies. Remember that while 10'x10' is the suggested pit size, you are NOT entitled to expand to that if your event's pits are 9.5'x10'. Which brings me to my next point...

-...Make sure that your pit configuration is adjustable, because you won't always have a 10x10x10 space. Plan for the minimum when you're creating your pit - I've never seen one smaller than 8x10x10, since that's really the minimum workable space anyways. 10x10 tents (if you choose to use a tent, which I don't suggest) should be a no-no unless you don't care if it doesn't fit.

-On the topic of pits, wear deodorant. Everyone at the event will thank you.