SBPLI Regional Discussion

[robotics2]

At the long Island SBPLI regional there were poor robot playing conditions, the field had bundles of wires running beneath it and the one side had large wrinkles. After alliance selection, teams who were not selected were not allowed to go out the garage door up the ramp, which is the only way to bring out large items such as tool carts. We spoke to the venue instructor and she said it is a FIRST rule that you may not leave until after closing ceremony. I do not believe this is to be true but I could be wrong. There were the storage boxes for the field near the door which people could have maneuvered around easily. They had asked us if we could get our stuff out through there, but then said it was a liability that something may get damaged, they then said we could take all the stuff up the elevator to the loading dock. This dock was about 4 feet elevated with only stairs no ramp so the only way teams could get their stuff out before closing ceremony was to pick them up and put them down over the ledge or carry them down the stairs. This became a problem with these large heavy boxes of parts and tools. To get these down people had to empty everything out and put it all back. This is unacceptable. One of the teams had a 600lbs cart that they had to empty but even after that still weighed about 200lbs so they had to tip it near the edge and tip it over and let it down. This should be the liability they could have gotten seriously hurt.