Keeping the Pits Streamlined

[Chris is me]

First, make sure your pit is organized and planned out before you get to the event. An organized pit holds more people.

Second, assign only a few competition roles to the pit. Take shifts if you want, or only have your most technically oriented / charismatic students in the pits (Mechanical / Electrical captains, etc) at a time. Have a pit boss student or mentor that manages who's in the pits all the time, making sure they kindly turn away students who don't need to be there.

Our team has, at any time, the safety captain, a few mechanically oriented students, programmers, the drive team, and (if we need it) team reps to talk to other teams and judges in the pits. Most of these roles overlap, and many of the roles don't actually require people having to stand in our pits the whole time, so in reality we'll end up with like 6 or 7 people in the pits at the time. If you have a different job or no reason to be there, as a team we say ahead of time to avoid being in our pits for an extended period of time.

So in short, plan ahead, assign roles, and work together.