FRC Pit size 2015

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Libby K

Safety, for sure. I know at one of our events we had a 'take a pin!'/brochure stand outside of our pit by about 3 inches, and the Safety Advisors wouldn't leave our space until we scooted it inside of the taped line. (Not sure how 3 extra people refusing to leave our pit made it any safer, but...)

We got a frowny face on the next morning's form for it.

Pretty sure getting a frowny face from a safety advisor means you're doing it right.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Cory

Pretty sure getting a frowny face from a safety inspector means you're doing it right.

Libby got the name right. You should too. They're Safety Advisors, not inspectors. They don't exactly have the authority some of them seem to claim.

If one of the green-shirted folk tells you to do something that doesn't make sense, try to comply without compromising real safety, and then ask him or her to join you in a conversation about it with the Lead Safety Advisor. (The alternative is to laugh and say "You have no power here. Begone before someone drops a robot on you!" And then suggest the conference.)

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Libby got the name right. You should too. They're Safety Advisors, not inspectors. They don't exactly have the authority some of them seem to claim.

If one of the green-shirted folk tells you to do something that doesn't make sense, try to comply without compromising real safety, and then ask him or her to join you in a conversation about it with the Lead Safety Advisor. (The alternative is to laugh and say "You have no power here. Begone before someone drops a robot on you!" And then suggest the conference.)

What happens when the person telling ordering you to do something that doesn't make sense is the Lead Safety Advisor?

That's happened to us, too.

Off-the-thread-topic, but: I'm looking at this from two hats - a mentor, and a Volunteer Coordinator.

No matter how much I try on the VC end, I still see a few SA's being way out of control and ridiculous. I've seen a Safety Advisor yell at kids at the event I was working. Yell. I told him to calm down or I'd ask him to go home. There is no reason for any volunteer to yell at kids. Your job is to be there and make the event experience the best possible for the students...it's not about you. That's always my reminder to volunteers, every morning. And yet, it still happens. I'm not even sure how to fix it anymore.

As a mentor? Hey, maybe stop yelling at my kids. What you're asking doesn't make any sense. Let's talk about this calmly instead of you standing in our pit in 'protest' until we fix your issue.

Back-On-Topic-Point being - keep everything inside of your 8x8 (or 9x9 or 10x10 if you're lucky) box, and hopefully you won't have to deal with that.

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Libby got the name right. You should too. They're Safety Advisors, not inspectors. They don't exactly have the authority some of them seem to claim.

If one of the green-shirted folk tells you to do something that doesn't make sense, try to comply without compromising real safety, and then ask him or her to join you in a conversation about it with the Lead Safety Advisor. (The alternative is to laugh and say "You have no power here. Begone before someone drops a robot on you!" And then suggest the conference.)

I've been told that judges will often confer with other volunteers at the event to ensure that judged awards will go to teams who are deserving in all aspects of the competition. Teams need to listen to the green shirted volunteers, be gracious, professional and graciously professional about it.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by Libby K

As a mentor? Hey, maybe stop yelling at my kids. What you're asking doesn't make any sense. Let's talk about this calmly instead of you standing in our pit in 'protest' until we fix your issue.

This happens to us at least once a year and it is absolutely infuriating. I guess we just didn't have enough baking soda for our non-spillable batteries or something.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by JVN

I've been told that judges will often confer with other volunteers at the event to ensure that judged awards will go to teams who are deserving in all aspects of the competition. Teams need to listen to the green shirted volunteers, be gracious, professional and graciously professional about it.

Last year we were told by the Safety Advisors that we would no longer be allowed to work in our pit unless we cleaned/tidied our pit up to their standards. They seemed certain that they had the authority to do this. Then again, we were once told by a Lead Inspector that we wouldn't be able to win the Chairman's Award at an event because one of our students was seen running nearby the playing the field. So I'm certain that the standards on the power of individual event volunteers varies greatly by event.

[wesbass23]

As long as we are on the topic of safety and such (sorry this got off topic OP) what is the idea behind having to wear clear safety glasses? I have a personal pair of slightly tinted safety glasses that I use at work/home that I mainly wear because they are comfortable (some say I have a weird shaped head). At a few events I have been asked to put on a different pair of glasses or leave the event claiming that they needed to be able to "see my eyes" but could not give a better reason.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by wesbass23

As long as we are on the topic of safety and such (sorry this got off topic OP) what is the idea behind having to wear clear safety glasses? I have a personal pair of slightly tinted safety glasses that I use at work/home that I mainly wear because they are comfortable (some say I have a weird shaped head). At a few events I have been asked to put on a different pair of glasses or leave the event claiming that they needed to be able to "see my eyes" but could not give a better reason.

The FIRST Safety Manual specifies certain tints as being allowed, with all others being disallowed. If your tinted glasses are one of the allowed tints, and someone tells you to change, I suggest asking them to reference the FIRST Safety Manual before asking you to change glasses. If they won't, pull out your electronic copy and show them. If they still refuse, I suggest having a chat with the Lead Safety Advisor or VC about someone going beyond the requirements in an unproductive manner, or some such topic.

Now, as far as "seeing the eyes", that is a reasonable request. The tints are allowed to help deal with the brightness in some areas. But once eyes are harder to see, then there is actually a real risk that you can't see something as well as you need to.

[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.