pic: Rock City Power Outage

[evanperryg]

loading photo ...

[forbes]

Our pit is still lit: https://i.imgur.com/JGtgviZ.jpg

[Toatekua]

What happened?

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by Toatekua

What happened?

The power went out.

[Dancin103]

I was wondering what was going on...

[Toatekua]

Are matches cancelled or delayed until the power comes back on?

[Sperkowsky]

Better watch your voltage or you might brown out again.

[JohnSchneider]

A car hit a pole knocking out power to the entire area. We were without power for 4 hours.

Applause to arkansas FIRST for how they handled the situation. Weaving In alliance selection, awards, and lunch, the time went by fast and we finished at the right time.

Playing matches in the dark would have been cool though

[mshafer1]

Towards the end of the period, a local volunteer had gotten his shop generator setup to run the field. We still kept matches on hold until we had the field lights on the generator as well and used those to do alliance selections. Just as the first match was getting ready to play, the house lights were returned. But I had a chance to take some photos of the field in the intermittent period. (thought others might be able to enjoy as well) I didn't have a tripod and didn't think to brace my camera in other ways, so they are only marginal pictures. Pretty cool still.https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0BwEBn...G1MazIxZk1BLXc
https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0BwEBn...19PeFdINUdORHc

[patar8746]

I wasn't able to attend, but my brother and dad were there, got this text from my dad during the outage:

"[Another Mentor] and I drove by the downed power pole over one hour after the car hit it and killed the electricity to the arena. There were two cops blocking traffic on either side and ZERO guys working on the problem. Welcome to Arkansas."

So props to the venue, Arkansas FIRST, and everyone that helped get everything running again, no props to the local officials

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by mshafer1

Towards the end of the period, a local volunteer had gotten his shop generator setup to run the field. We still kept matches on hold until we had the field lights on the generator as well and used those to do alliance selections. Just as the first match was getting ready to play, the house lights were returned. But I had a chance to take some photos of the field in the intermittent period. (thought others might be able to enjoy as well) I didn't have a tripod and didn't think to brace my camera in other ways, so they are only marginal pictures. Pretty cool still.https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0BwEBn...G1MazIxZk1BLXc
https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0BwEBn...19PeFdINUdORHc

The field looks amazing in the dark... a 'lights out' offseason event with the official field would be incredibly fun.

[mshafer1]

If pursuing a "lights-out" match or event, might need to consider requiring robots to have LED's that show where they are (floor runners?) and team number and outline of frame/extensions (alliance color in some way too??) - it would be cool, but could be really hard to referee (which robot just bumped that one that inside the plane of the defenses?). Also consider how to have enough light to safely load the robots onto and off the field.

The logistics of doing it really start stacking up. Still - cool idea.

[fimmel]

A lights out match where the defenses are kept a surprise would be really cool. let the robots have lights on them, and then the defense and tower lights would be badass

[Jefferson]

Originally Posted by patar8746

...Welcome to Arkansas."

So props to the venue, Arkansas FIRST, and everyone that helped get everything running again, no props to the local officials

Sooooo... do you have any more information about this situation other than: somebody drove by and it didn't look like they were working on it? Any reason to think Entergy wasn't working diligently to get power back on ASAP?
The initial estimate to restore power announced at the event was "at least 3 hours", and it was back on in less than 4.

Comments that throw shade at an entire state, if said at all, belong in private text messages, not public forums.

[Tim Sharp]

This weekend at Rock City was definitely a unique experience for me in my five years of FIRST. It was disappointing to miss out on all of our qualifying matches on Saturday, but the event organizers made the best of a very difficult situation that could have been much much worse.

No injuries were reported that I know of which is nearly a miracle. Moving around safely in the dark was not trivial.

We were kept well informed of the situation and the possible solutions. The coordination between the event staff and headquarters was well executed and, given the circumstances, the best possible solution was arrived at. Kate, the FTA was professional and extremely helpful throughout the entire ordeal.

The partially lit field looked really cool.

The stands resembled a concert when viewed from the arena floor with all of the cell phone flashlights being used.