Westtown MAR District Won on Eliminations Tiebreaker Rules

[TomWx]

Originally Posted by MisterJ

Speaking of "timing" at Westtown... On Saturday, the crowd was asked for their patience while the event turned into a big "dance party" for twenty minutes. No explanation given except that the event was "too far ahead of schedule." (I think I heard a collective groan from all the mentors and volunteers that had been working until 10:00 the night before and knew they had to wake up at 6:00 the next morning.)

There has to be a better way to use this extra time, right?

So, I think I'm uniquely qualified to answer this. As the event MC, or an Event Manager for FIRST Mid-Atlantic, or the Senior Volunteer Coordinator for FIRST Mid-Atlantic, or a team mentor. Take your pic.

As Libby said, the goal is to keep the event on time. Not early, because that can negatively impact a team who needs every second to repair a piece of their robot (which is their right with the posted schedule). So we had the first dance break on Saturday afternoon, which brought us from nine minutes ahead of schedule to six minutes ahead of schedule. Which is why I made the reference to it during Sunday's Opening Ceremonies.

Coincidentally as we went to take more time, there were issues with the field. Brian Sherman, being one of our many world-class volunteers, led his field crew to repair the problem while we had another dance break. We were still able to pick up time on Saturday after those breaks, ending matches about 6 minutes ahead of their scheduled time that evening.

Our goal is to make sure that the students have fun at events, first and foremost. Most students, that's playing with the robots. Which is awesome, and the point. For some students, they want to get up and dance. It's hard to have people sitting or doing the same task for a repeated period of time, so I would like to think that the momentary break in action to do something fun was generally welcomed by all. (I do believe I heard more cheering than groaning when the dance songs came on.)

If you have any other thoughts or suggestions on how to make the experience better for students going forward, I'm happy to hear them. Feel free to send me an email, twexler at midatlanticrobotics.org.

Congrats to all the students and teams who attended the Westtown District. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting every team, and loved seeing all the robots perform on the field.

-Tom