[FRC Blog] FRC Expands Regionals to Four Days

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

And on the topic of practice, Frank, why the heck do we close the field SO early on practice day? It kills us for a perfectly good Field to be sitting right there, and not being able to use it past 4PM or whatever it is when practice day goes until 8PM. We pay an aweful lot to just stand around and look at an empty field Thursday night.

I couldn't possibly agree more. The 10-4 practice schedule is horrendous and teams are less functional and competitive as a direct result. Even in the rare case where we're basically ready to compete as soon as our pit is set up and we've passed inspection, we can maybe get one match in. If we delay full inspection until after 4, then we're contributing to the end of day rush that absolutely exhausts inspectors. If we do it the way that seems right, get inspection taken care of before practice, we're lucky to get a single match in, and then the practice field is already full for the next day and a half!!

12-6 for a practice schedule is the exact same amount of work for volunteers working the field and far more useful to the teams competing. I've never been to an FRC competition where I saw more than 4 robots on the practice field before noon. Rather than have teams who are ready to practice twiddle their thumbs the last 4 hours the pits are open, let's give them at least some field time. Please.

Honestly if getting fully inspected is an issue, make the field open even later and require inspection. Whatever, anything for later field time works for me.