Lessons learned 2005: The negative

[dbSparx]

Originally Posted by David Gaylord

As lead queuer on Newton I have no idea what you are talking about (24 minutes x 7 matches = 168 minutes). A few teams on Newton with less than an hour between matches chose to stay in the dome but you are talking about almost 3 hours. At that you would be queued for your second match before you played in your first.

If you look at this another way, matches run every 6 minutes so in 168 minutes you will have 28 matches. With 6 teams in each match that is 168 teams in queue. That would be more teams in queue than there are competing in the division. Not to mention that there was barely enough space behind fields to queue 5 matches (30 teams).

If FIRST stays with the same pit/dome arrangement as this year I would recommend teams leave their pits 6 matches (36 minutes) before their match time. If it takes 12 minutes to get to the field you will be there 3 to 4 matches (18-24 minutes) early, depending on if you leave at the beginning or end of the 6th match before yours. This gives you a bit of time to strategize with your alliance before you are loading onto the field or a few minutes to leave the pits late or have a longer time from pit to field.

I know of nothing that says you must stay with your robot while in queue, I want you nearby but don't have a problem if you choose to watch a couple matches from the ends of your division field (behind the drivers station) with your robot behind the field.

I will be queueing next year as well so let me know of any constructive thoughts you may have regarding the queueing.

I am not sure if we are connecting on the same point. I think the queue length should be shorter, not longer. If you take the 24 minutes early (I think that's the estimate we were given, and it ties with the 18-24 minutes you suggest) x the 7 matches we played, that's 168 minutes of time in queue (not minutes per match, but cumulative time spent in queue). That's a lot of time, and our kids were really feeling it by the end of the weekend. Strategy conversations typically take only a few minutes during qualifying rounds and teams can always meet in the pits if they want to. I would really prefer if we cut the number of matches in queue from 4 to 2.