Pit work during ceremonies

[Dillon Carey]

Originally Posted by Libby K

You can put your power tools down for 20 minutes to give these people some respect. Send all-or-most of your team to the stands to respect FIRST's invited guests, and if you really feel like you need 3 or 4 people in the pit, make sure they know to keep it down.

How is that so hard?

I am going to restate that this is a very reasonable way to deal with the situation. The way the rules are currently stated outline this, however they could be clarified.

To address all the people that seem to think that everyone should be forced out of the pit because that last 20-30 min isn't necessary, you're wrong. In some cases everything just works and you can attend the ceremony, but in my experience, there is nearly ALWAYS something that isn't working right.

People have said that tweaking these little things aren't worth missing out on the ceremony. I'm sorry, but some of these kids have put an enormous amount of effort into their robots. They have spent 6+ weeks pouring all of their spare time into trying to make the best robot they can, and even with all of that time, many teams can't quite get it all done.

I was forced out of the pits when I was a student, even after showing the rules which stated I could stay, and it was very frustrating. Sometimes the all of the effort you put into your bot comes down to that last 20 minutes. As long as the rules state (very clearly in my opinion) that it is allowed to work in the pits I will argue this with any volunteer that states otherwise.

I don't want to see a kids entire competition ruined because they were forced out of the pit.