[FRC Blog] FRC Expands Regionals to Four Days

[EricH]

I think there's a couple of things with the setup of pit and the field being open. I'll try to address those briefly. And NEITHER is what you'd expect.

Pit setup: I'm not concerned as much about competitive advantage here. There are a couple of reasons why setting up the pit is, or could be, not allowed, and a couple of items I'd like to point out.

#1: Verification that you're NOT working on your robot. Yeah, I realize that there's the bag and all that, but here's the thing. Inspectors are typically a skeleton crew on load-in. You've got maybe 5 or six inspectors going over bags and checking to make sure nobody's taking advantage of that green tag being on the bag to do a little early work. That, and once people start working, it's VERY difficult to get them to STOP working. Have you guys who are asking to be allowed to set up ever even TRIED to get the entire pit area cleared for ceremonies or end of day on Thursday or Friday? I'm not talking about just your team, I'm talking about clearing the entire pit area so you can go home and get some sleep before beating the teams in the next day. It's not as easy as it sounds. If you haven't, please contact your volunteer coordinator and ask if you can volunteer at pit admin.

#2: Some of the "It takes so long because everything has to be set up" might be mitigated by better planning. 973 has a beautiful setup: they bring everything in, drop it off, it's already just about in position--what's more, they can bring it out to the field if needed in a matter of moments. I suspect that some careful planning of the "what is packed where and deposited where" may be in order for speedy setup. Or maybe bringing less stuff into the venue--there aren't restrictions on tools and COTS items being stored outside and brought in as needed, last I checked. (That doesn't hold true for fabricated items under last year's rules, mind you.)



As far as the fields go, there are potentially a number of reasons. As noted, one is inspection. Inspectors want to see your robot at inspection early. (As an unrelated side note, I'd be in favor of allowing teams onto the field only once with just a safety inspection; anything after that with a minimum of partial, or a pass from inspection/FTA to try to get field connection.)

But there are others. One is field wear and tear and repair. Even on practice day, there can be damage to the field that needs to be repaired. Also, there is a huge cushion left in case of major problems, which you'd rather have fixed on practice day. And we can't forget the fatigue factor, both on the mechanical parts of the robots and on the humans manning the field. That four hours is a great time for the field crews to meet up out of sight and evaluate anything that needs to be evaluated, as well as connect any robots that haven't connected yet.




That said, I have a compromise proposal on both counts. For the pits: All the setup you want, but you get exactly one trip per early window, make it count. (Translation: 1 trip during night-before load-in, one during early-bird.) One bonus trip during either window for helping any two other teams carry items in, not extendable past one trip regardless of number of teams helped. For the field: Extend the field open hours by two hours, for any teams that have passed inspection OR that need to work on communication problems, on a filler-line basis (comm issues take priority). The caveat here is that because your team is so prepared as to require this extra practice time, your team will of course also have team members volunteering to help the inspectors and technical staff eliminate rules non-conformance and comm problems and field issues of all types, unless of course you do not want to take the field during this time. (BTW, that "volunteering" isn't exactly volunteering. It's more of "You look like you're not busy, come help us fix this ziptie/carpet tape/comm issue/oversized robot/etc."

For those that can't detect mild sarcasm, or a side of snark, the above proposal isn't exactly serious. But if folks will insist on rules changing to accommodate their bending of rules, may as well change them so they are required to help out other teams who work within the current rules, no?