Field Crew Bragging Rights

[Pat Fairbank]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

The one that kills me is teams bringing the e-stop with them to the field still on.
How many times do you have to be told not to bring it or have it on? It makes connecting to the field harder.

I'll do you one better. A team came onto the field Thursday at Waterloo with the 2009 KwikByte driver station, and asked the FTA how it was supposed to be hooked up...

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Here are some stats on field turnaround.
Each event centers around the match times they set for themselves. Some events target 7 min per match while others scheduled 8 min per match, so a high number is not necessarily bad.

Queuers, drive teams, field reset, refs, scorers, FTA/FTAA, inspectors, etc. all contribute in working together to get teams the most matches possible.
High penalty counts, ref discussions, team/field issues, team disorganization, initial field crew training - all can slow things down.

Avg match cycle - # teams - # matches - Matches per team - Event - Week

0:06:25 - 58 - 97 - 10 - Autodesk Oregon Regional - 4
0:06:31 - 52 - 87 - 10 - Oklahoma Regional - 3
0:06:33 - 63 -105 - 10 - Washington DC Regional - 4
0:06:35 - 50 - 84 - 10 - Seattle Olympic Regional - 3
0:06:36 - 50 - 84 - 10 - SBPLI Long Island Regional - 4
0:06:39 - 50 - 84 - 10 - Seattle Cascade Regional - 3
0:06:41 - 41 - 74 - 11 - Lake Superior Regional - 2
0:06:42 - 52 - 87 - 10 - BAE/Granite State Regional - 1
0:06:44 - 60 -100 - 10 - San Diego Regional - 2
0:06:55 - 48 - 80 - 10 - Peachtree Regional - 3
0:06:55 - 56 - 94 - 10 - Greater Kansas City Regional - 2
0:07:00 - 42 - 76 - 11 - Boilermaker Regional - 3
0:07:01 - 51 - 84 - 10 - Wisconsin Regional - 2
0:07:02 - 55 - 90 - 10 - Lone Star Regional - 3
0:07:03 - 54 - 89 - 10 - Sacramento Regional - 3
0:07:04 - 64 -105 - 10 - Los Angeles Regional - 4
0:07:08 - 60 - 90 -- 9 - Chesapeake Regional - 3
0:07:11 - 64 - 96 -- 9 - Alamo Regional - 1
0:07:16 - 52 - 84 - 10 - Midwest Regional - 4
0:07:17 - 39 - 65 - 10 - Pittsburgh Regional - 2
0:07:31 - 38 - 76 - 12 - Waterford District - 2
0:07:33 - 61 - 90 -- 9 - New Jersey Regional - 1
0:07:31 - 48 - 81 - 10.3 - Overall Averages
0:07:37 - 43 - 65 -- 9 - Palmetto Regional - 4
0:07:42 - 34 - 55 - 10 - Hawaii Regional - 4
0:07:44 - 36 - 66 - 11 - WPI Regional - 2
0:07:50 - 44 - 74 - 10 - Finger Lakes Regional - 1
0:07:53 - 66 - 88 -- 8 - New York City Regional - 2
0:07:56 - 60 - 99 - 10 - Florida Regional - 2
0:08:01 - 40 - 80 - 12 - Ann Arbor District - 4
0:08:02 - 38 - 64 - 10 - Bayou Regional - 3
0:08:06 - 45 - 70 -- 9 - Arizona Regional - 3
0:08:14 - 40 - 80 - 12 - West Michigan District - 3
0:08:22 - 38 - 76 - 12 - Kettering University District - 1
0:08:36 - 30 - 54 - 11 - Waterloo Regional - 4
0:08:42 - 34 - 68 - 12 - Niles District - 4
0:08:47 - 28 - 52 - 11 - Saint Louis Regional - 3
0:08:47 - 39 - 78 - 12 - Detroit District - 3
0:08:57 - 50 - 84 - 10 - Israel Regional - 2
0:09:15 - 40 - 80 - 12 - Traverse City District - 1


P.S.
Minimum time is arount 4 minutes.

I'm actually surprised Midwest times out as well as it did.
To be blunt UIC Pavilion is the worst facility of all the events I attend. It's old, tight and unsafe in some aspects (there's some sort of fault line running through the arena that goes through the que line and into team's pits. I think it's where the divider for the hockey boards were). Because of how tight the place was we had to have teams exit through the corner to the left of the scoring table which caused bottlenecks galore. The Field Supervisor made the call to slow down getting teams on a bit so we could get teams off so teams weren't crashing into each other carrying robots. I thought the turnaround times would be closer to 10 minutes but things were going smoother on Saturday once all the software issues got squared away and the teams got used to the routine of getting onto and off of the field.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

I'll do you one better. A team came onto the field Thursday at Waterloo with the 2009 KwikByte driver station, and asked the FTA how it was supposed to be hooked up...

To have one of those they obviously can't be rookies so they have no excuse to do this.
There can only be one response to this

[ATannahill]

You are wrong about them not being rookies, Ed. Andymark still offers them. I know because every year someone tries to be helpful and buys one.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by rtfgnow

You are wrong about them not being rookies, Ed. Andymark still offers them. I know because every year someone tries to be helpful and buys one.

Well if they're just rookie we'll downgrade them to a single facepalm.

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

You'll notice that the Michigan District events are mostly at the bottom, too.
That's because they decided on a fixed 12 matches per team and a small number of competing teams.
They don't need to run that fast to keep up, so the pace can be slower.

The high number of matches and low number of teams also means less time for teams between matches. There's more of a last-minute panic in the pits if your robot isn't working. I know that matches don't wait for anyone (aside for robots having connection issues on the field, sometimes), but the shortened repair time is probably a slight contributer to the match pace.

[JesseK]

I thought it felt like we were moving through matches much quicker than usual in DC. I was exhausted by the end of Friday, but man it was nice to have 10 qual matches in a regional!

[Retired Starman]

At Peachtree two small things helped a lot.

1. The Queue teams placed stickers on robots that got to the start line on time. This small reward for punctuality was eagerly sought after by teams.

2. Robot Inspectors on each end of the field checked each robot to make sure the battery was plugged in, that the radio was plugged in (power and communications on both ends), and that the driver station was booted. Further, inspectors told students to turn on their robots as soon as they hit the field-- before aligning robots and placing game pieces.

Rewarding punctuality and making sure everything is ready to go helped keep Peachtree in the fast end of the list. One unplugged cable can cost a match two minutes in turn-around time.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by Retired Starman

1. The Queue teams placed stickers on robots that got to the start line on time. This small reward for punctuality was eagerly sought after by teams.

The queuers at Long Island did this as well. I think they had three levels of promptness stickers and we had a special overflow queuing area for the real early birds.

During the closing awards ceremony, the most on-time team (FRC Team 2161 Walt Whitman HS) was formally presented with a special award-an ubertube signed by all the field crew in appreciation.

[Carol]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

The queuers at Long Island did this as well. I think they had three levels of promptness stickers and we had a special overflow queuing area for the real early birds.

During the closing awards ceremony, the most on-time team (FRC Team 2161 Walt Whitman HS) was formally presented with a special award-an ubertube signed by all the field crew in appreciation.

This is being done at many regionals. Perhaps the Lead Queuer training suggested it?

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Carol

This is being done at many regionals. Perhaps the Lead Queuer training suggested it?

I think Lead Quers decided to do something to encourage teams.
That's why I set up those seats at Chesapeake for the drivers to sit with their controls behind the stations. So they'd willingly do it (no room to do it at Florida or Midwest).
When you do things that the teams enjoy doing (like rewards or premium seats behind the drivers station between matches) the kids will practically fight to get to the field.

[woogit]

I'd like to know how each of the regionals did on popping tubes. Truck 8 did pretty awesome I'd say.

[RobotsVsKittens]

Does anyone have updated data to include last week?

Thanks Mark for compiling the list and thanks to crew at SBPLI for making it my favorite regional to work year after year!

[Mark McLeod]

I have the data in an updated spreadsheet, but I'm in Richmond for the VA Regional and won't be able to post it for a few days.

[Fletch1373]

I believe the CT regional holds the record for earliest time the truck was packed Saturday with 6:20pm. We have photos to prove it, and our FTA txted pictures to a bunch of people(including Bill Miller, FRC director, and a few of the other FTA's and FIRST staff)