FRC Pit size 2015

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by CalTran

That happened at Greater KC as well, where my team was told they could not set up the tent the school uses when they're at events. I believe reason was that "it blocks the fire sprinklers in the event that there is a fire in our pit." I guess I can believe that reasoning, though I imagine the 2 fire extinguishers we had should have sufficed.

Here's Logic...

And WAY the heck over here ---------------------------------> What Venue is Liable For


See all that space in between? We can't be in that space because the Venue could get its butt sued. Once I started thinking about it from the perspective of "what would a lawyer do"* I stopped getting annoyed by things that seemingly make no sense.



* No offense meant to lawyers, what I really mean is "what would an ambulance chasing good for nothing leech do" but that doesn't flow as nicely. Not all lawyers are that, most are good folks.

[GeeTwo]

There seem to be a bunch of new regionals and districts this year, and (at least in our area) not as many new teams as in recent years. My advice is to look up the regional in your area, and find some teams who were there the last year or two. Then, compare the number of teams at the venue this year compared to last year. If the number of teams is level or decreased, expect at least as large a pit as was available last year. If it has gone up, be prepared for it to decrease. At Bayou, we've had 10x10x10 pits the last three years, and we've dropped from 57 teams last year to 48 this year. Most of the reduction seems to be in teams that traveled more than six hours to Bayou.

[Qbot2640]

For what it's worth I just had confirmation that Palmetto will have 10 X 10 spaces for teams, and North Carolina will have 9 X 10 (9 being width).

"Carolinas" Teams Plan Accordingly

[Addison4300]

You could make a pit that is 8x8 and is able to scale to be 10x10. Even if the competition you are going to is only 10x10 or 8x8, you could have both in case you decide to do other competitions.

[Michael Hill]

For some reason the safety advisors only tend to come by when we're doing something not exactly safe...like standing on a toolbox to hang a banner. I think we've only got one smiley face in the morning.

[Qbot2640]

Originally Posted by Addison4300

You could make a pit that is 8x8 and is able to scale to be 10x10. Even if the competition you are going to is only 10x10 or 8x8, you could have both in case you decide to do other competitions.

We're doing something like this...our pit has a pipe frame...we'll cut the pipe to the smallest size we need to accommodate - and use couplers to adapt it to the bigger sizes.

This is a bit off topic - but I really wish FIRST would give teams an hour on Wednesday night to set up their pit - then Thursday morning would start off with immediate attention to the bot.

[nighterfighter]

Originally Posted by Qbot2640

This is a bit off topic - but I really wish FIRST would give teams an hour on Wednesday night to set up their pit - then Thursday morning would start off with immediate attention to the bot.

While that would be very nice, I can see their reasoning for not wanting to do so. (They wan't everyone out on time, so the volunteers can get a good sleep!)

The strategic thing to do, is when the 5 team reps load in on that night: Carry everything in, in a certain order...

Person 1 carries this box, which just so happens to go in the farthest corner, followed by person 2, which puts their box next to person 1, etc...

You can drop everything off and have your boxes/toolchest/carts already arranged, within 5 minutes.

Of course, if you have big pit displays/tents, etc, that doesn't really work. But for the basics, it will.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Qbot2640

This is a bit off topic - but I really wish FIRST would give teams an hour on Wednesday night to set up their pit - then Thursday morning would start off with immediate attention to the bot.

You know good and well that there are teams who will take the opportunity to work on the robot when no one is looking.

My big pet peeve is when team put together their elaborate pits in the middle of the aisle. I even had a team assembling their pit in the que line at Midwest one year.

[Alex2614]

Definitely do adaptable. Never count on an event giving you the full 10x10, even if it is in a huge event center. There's nothing more annoying than a team that encroaches into your pit because they couldn't adapt to 8x8, thus making your put 7x7 or less.

Ours is pretty easy to set up, just four independent towers that stand up on their own. If we are less than 10ft, we don't put the bars connecting the towers. At first we were going to have the bars modifiable but that didn't happen. If you want technical details, I'd be happy to share.

Attached is a picture of the back our pit set up at our state FLL tournament. the front actually has a monitor built in and some open shelves for displaying items.