FRC Blogged - Share your FIRST Story, and *Preliminary* Championship Match Schedules

[Kpchem]

I was one of the FTAA's at the Colorado Regional a couple of weeks ago, and we were consistently turning 6 minute match cycles - when there were no 30 point climbs. If there was a robot that needed to be belayed off the pyramid, the cycle for that match became 8-9 minutes due to the time required to safely get it down. While we were able to keep a 7 minute schedule going for most of the weekend, we only had 5 or so 30-point climbers in a field of 48 team, or around 10% of the field

I believe FIRST's primary concern about decreasing the cycle time is that the very thing that causes the largest delay in match times is also the thing that requires the most care and attention from everybody involved. With this being the Championship, there are probably more than 10 30-point climbers in each division, and that will slow down the cycles even further, making it extremely difficult to hold to a 7 minute schedule.

Having said all of that, I personally agree that 8 matches is not enough, and I have thought for years now that we need smaller divisions to create a fairer schedule. And I hope that FIRST tries to find a way to get every team 9 matches this year, because after attending 2009's Championship I don't want things to go back to that level. But if the decision is to hold 8 matches per team and safely get every robot on and off the field or hold 9 matches per team and risk injuring either a team member or a robot in the process, then 8 matches is the right thing to do.