Stuff To Do During Long Downtimes at NJ Regional?

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by ,4lex S.

Down time does happen... We will be attending our first NJ regional and have no real idea of what to do with the majority of the team. We are a big team, so we have a core group that we normally send ahead to get the robot ready. Our mentors are looking for something for everybody else to do on the Thursday.

Seeing as how we don't have much experience with the region, does anyone have any advice for entertaining ~20 people (on a budget too, :/ )???

3 words.
Scouting, scouting, & scouting.
More specifially, pit scouting of the robots you wil be competing with the next few days on Thursday is your best bet.
Match scouting is more important on Friday & Saturday when actual matches are run.

Or, just chill in the pits & stands & start socializing with teams & making friends - ones that can give you some local advice as to what to do for entertainment at night while you are there. (Besides team meetings & dinner that is.)
It's not just about robots you know.

I'll reiterate what Alexa said as well. Trenton is not a regional you want to go wandering outside off the grounds of the arena for ANY reason at all.
The neighborhood is a bit sketchy.
Stay in the arena, & enjoy the atmosphere there until it is time for your team to leave for the day.

[Akash Rastogi]

Note to large teams about pits, try to keep your numbe rof members in the pits to a minimum if you can. It gets crowded. =/

[,4lex S.]

Our experience with other regionals has always been that most teams do not have full function on Thursday (at least where we are from...), so I am not so sure about Thursday scouting. The thing is, we don't want to crowd the pit and our grade 9's probably aren't interested in scouting all day (I already made the suggestion, and our mentors said it wasn't a viable solution). Is Philly any good??? I think we have a bus. Our team will be well represented though, at least 15 of us should be there on the thursday.

You crazy east coasters have free time? This is Madness!

[SU 39]

NO! this ...is...jersey?


.
Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the region but I'd suggest a smallish (10 max) group pit scouting and the rest just bonding unless you find somewhere else to go.

[amariealbrecht]

haha free time...im not sure about that but if you do run into some free time do as the robettes do and "robo bond"...its a classic to getting know teams and making friends and learning more about the program!

[flyingcrayons]

well this certainly is not the jersey i know... i went last year, and i barely sat down... there was always something to do there... if you really don't have anything to do, cheer on the comppetition, or go to the pits (in small groupd tho, not that much space), or go meet other teams... we definitely love when people come around asking for buttins... i know hackey sacks will probably make an appearance this year, go see if a team happens to be giving them away... there's always down time , but not long periods as suggested by the title... and you probably shouldn't leave the venue, especialy if you don;t know where you are going... trenton is not that bad, but you certainly don't want to get lost there... especially near the SBA, not the best part of town...

[nuggetsyl]

sleep

[Brandon_L]

Bring a Zune and watch movies (zune's pwn Ipod's in the video realm.)

[cloud_254]

i'm in cali but it seem like the only free tiem we get is after we leave the comp.

[Liz Smith]

As an individual watch some matches, go through the pits, talk to teams, and check out some of the other robots. There are 60+ other teams that have spent 6 weeks putting their effort into their machines and more time into their team... they will be more than happy to tell you about it. Besides talking to people on other teams, talk to volunteers as well. There are some really cool people at the NJ regional, getting to know them is an awesome opportunity to have. FIRST competitions are great places to "network".

As a team with downtime.. I never have seen a team that doesn't have anything to do. People have suggested scouting and things. Look to see if you couldn't improve your strategy on the field or tweak your robot before your next match. If, as a team, you find you have nothing to do you must be very successful. Perhaps you could offer assistance to other teams who may be struggling to do things like pass inspection or fix their robot.

After the competition day is over, food and sleep are the only things my team has ever had time for. (That and video games in the hotel)

[Aren_Hill]

Or do like we did in colorado and find a bunch of team titanium's balsa wood planes and put them together till you've got a 4ft wingspan thing....then fly it from the top of the stands.

this was thursday after matches were done, the atmosphere at colorado last year thursday was awesome, laid back and everything it was weird yet really enjoyable.