MAR SCH Event

[Lil' Lavery]

This was one of the most challenging events I've had during my time as a FRC participant. But ultimately, 1712 pulled through. We have plenty of lessons learned from a slew of errors that haunted all morning and into the early afternoon on Saturday. Dawgma would simply not have been able to compete without the aid of several other teams in the event, particularly in terms of spare parts. We experienced failures in areas we did not anticipate (or in one case, far more failures than anticipated running us out of the spares we already had, prompting a Sunday morning redesign). Gigantic thanks to teams 708 (for all sorts of tools and the dustpan), 225 (for the event-saving 14 tooth gear), 4342 (for the shaft adapters), and 3974 (for the latest firmware). Also huge props to the volunteers and field staff, and particularly Ron for his FTA/CSA support in aiding us solving our roboRIO issues from our first couple matches.

And of course thank you to 4637 for seeing past our Saturday morning issues to select us for your elimination alliance, and to 103 for being a gracious alliance partner as always. I know the matches didn't work out as we had planned, but we're looking forwards to playing with both of you again in the future.

With regards to the schedule changes, I have some mixed feelings. The positive was that I had some recovery time on Sunday to be ready for work today. Normally Saturday/Sunday events are a nightmare the following Monday. However, the issues we experience were certainly exacerbated by having to run all 12 qualification matches in a single day. After shearing our drive gear in Q24, we were very fortunate that 225 had a replacement 14 tooth gear, otherwise we would have been immobile for the remainder of the event. At a typical 2-day event, we would have had more time to fully rebuild our drivetrain prior to Sunday morning qualification matches. Not to mention Saturday was a generally exhausting experience. 13 straight hours of FRC is a whole lot.

[M.O'Reilly]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

With regards to the schedule changes, I have some mixed feelings.

I will definitely echo that...

Nice to have the extra time Sunday afternoon, and makes sitting through awards a little easier when you're on a smaller team with limited resources.

However, Saturday was soooo so difficult. For those not aware... because of the threat of snow on Sunday, all qualification matches were played on Saturday. In a 31 team event with 12 matches per team, the average match turnaround was ~5 (imagine the stress of the elimination match schedule all weekend). If something broke (which happened almost every match), it could be 2, 3, or more matches before fully repaired. There was also very little time for the practice field and autonomous tweaking.

I must conclude that spreading the matches out as much as possible is definitely the best way forward, no matter how much I like my Sunday afternoon.

That was my only complaint, but the event staff executed their plans flawlessly.