Dear FIRST HQ, Let's talk about the playoff pits.

[jijiglobe]

Originally Posted by adam the great

While I was in that middle section this year with our pit team, numerous volunteers came by and told teams "Just so you all know, only drive teams and media can go out to the fields for matches. Anyone else with pit crew buttons is not to go watch the match." Of course everyone back there scoffed at the idea that a team member dedicated enough to be on the pit crew would not be able to watch their team compete during their most important and final matches. On Curie we collectively seemed to just take the stance of: Robot goes out, Teammates come out; and everyone would just huddle into the media box out of the way of anyone's view of the field and surprisingly they didn't bug any of us that I saw. I was curious how this was working on the other fields, and while I understand not wanting the field to have tons of spectators on the floor in the way. Wouldn't having the simple rule of: You can only be out there when your team is out there be sufficient enough? Cause making it so pit crew can't watch their hard work pay-off is just simply not the solution. (And yes a screen for each field behind the curtain would probably be simple enough of a solution to appease nearly everyone)

This is interesting to hear because we had a completely different experience on Curie. Our pit crew was allowed onto the field to watch matches, so long as they did not help the drive team with any sort of field setup.