2012 MAR Rutgers University District

[Deetman]

A few tips from Hatboro-Horsham:

• Get inspected as early as you can on Day 0 (Thursday). This makes the "compressed" district time schedule much less stressful the morning of Day 1. This weekend I do not believe they were letting teams go to scheduled practice matches Friday morning unless they were fully inspected. Thursday practice matches required the first "practice" to be a safety inspection and subsequent practices required full inspection. If for whatever reason you can't get completely inspected Thursday, get as much of a partial inspection done to save yourself and the inspectors time Friday morning.
• If at all possible arrive on Day 0 at or before the opening time. This gives you quite a bit of time with the robot unbagged for work, inspection, and practice. For Hatboro-Horsham the pits were open from 4PM to 10PM.
• There will probably be a small practice field at the event. Utilize it early and often to calibrate, check functionality, etc. Hatboro-Horsham had a real bridge and a real barrier. There are significant differences in both of these that the low cost wood versions do not accurately represent. In general, the bridge is more difficult to tip and the barrier is at the proper height and the corners have a radius. We had difficulty with the wood barrier, but had absolutely no problems with the field barrier.
• VERY IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE AN INSPECTOR IS PRESENT WHEN YOU UNBAG AFTER ARRIVAL!
• Ask for help if you need it. Teams are super helpful and day 0 seemed to be slightly lower stress than day 1 at the older regional formats.