FIRST Festival of Champions

[Jessica Boucher]

In my retirement I feel like I'm qualified to armchair philosophize this a bit...

In staffing an event like this, you're going to want to focus on efficiency. You've got FTC and FRC events going on in the same building, there is no need to have a full double suite of volunteers. Additionally, with such a dense area like New England, there's also no need to do a full call for volunteers - you'll have the cheapest option, volunteers within driving distance.

So, if you are double trained in FRC and FTC, you're immediately more valuable as you can speak to both vernaculars. FTC is not as strong in NE due to Vex, so if you're local, see if you can sneak in a FTC event into your roster this year. Many of these are in February, so you'll have to take time out of build to do so.

Additionally, playoffs are a different beast than qual matches. Alliances tend to clump together into little families because they're working so closely together, so they're easier to queue. The largest arena in NH does not have the space to do pits that are field side (if you assume a layout of the field towards the end of the arena as is typical of a hockey arena), and with the added point that playoff pits also include all four teams into one space, there may be some queueing, but not much.

I also expect that many staff members will take over key spots, as they already do at Champs, but even more so because (again) they're local, and they built the system. I'd expect an average amount of FRC resetters (around 8-10, mostly because there's a lot of counting to fill the fuel correctly) and refs.

I'm not involved this season at all so this is just my guess, but I think it's a pretty good guess.