A plea for a quieter pit area

[Karibou]

IMO, there were problems with the noise level at Livonia this weekend. At one point when I was in the stands on Friday, I jumped back about two feet when I heard the first field noise blare from the speaker. I discovered that I WAS right next to a speaker, but there was still no excuse for it to be that loud. I also saw someone who had moved next to it during autonomous jump back when the teleop bell played. However, it WAS fixed by Saturday.

In the pits was another story. My team was located towards the back of the pit area, and I was able to hear voices very clearly from the doorway at the other end of our part of the fieldhouse. I cringed whenever one of these loud callers passed by our pit, or even through the row right behind us. The traffic flow was bad, but not bad enough to warrant a voice that loud. There were a few times when I was told by another student that I needed to belt out "ROBOT" at the top of my lungs, yet I was having no problems at the volume that I was using.

This last issue that I have was not a constant noise problem, but was still not pleasant. I was walking through one of the aisles to the door from my pit. Since it was around lunchtime, the pits were mostly empty, so I was able to move at a quicker pace. I was halfway down the aisle when someone jumped down from the bleachers along the wall, yelling at a volume that was louder than the calls of "robot," and was waving something that I think may have been a stuffed animal of some kind at me. Saying that it startled me would be an understatement. Because I was in a hurry, and was already in a bad mood, I didn't stop to express that what just happened was not appropriate pit behavior. I wish I had, but I hope that it never has the chance to happen again.