Funny thing about the clock

[archiver]

Posted by Chris Hibner at 05/30/2001 9:00 AM EST


Coach on team #308, Walled Lake Monster, from Walled Lake Schools and TRW Automotive Electronics.



I know that everyone is pretty familiar with the rules, but it is amazing how everyone forgets them during the heat of a match. What I mean is that it is amazing that so many people forget that there is no difference between stopping the clock at 0:56 and 0:35 (for example).

The reason I bring this up is because the only way to reset our robot into starting position is under its own power. If our arms are deployed at the end of a match, it is difficult to carry off the field and then we must tether it once we clear the playing field. Thus, if we were more than 12 seconds away from the next time multiplier once we reached the end zone, we would take the time to reset our robot to its starting position before hitting the power button. I'll never forget that every time we did this, all of the other teams would start screaming and yelling at us and I always had to go and calm them down and tell them what is going on.

The reason I bring this up is because I was watching the video from the Indiana Robotics Invitational last night, and we took the time to reset the robot during a match a couple of times. It was quite a sight to see the people in the stands jumping up and down and screaming (literally) "Hit the button! PLEEEASE HIT THE BUTTON!!!!!!", while waving their arms frantically. Then we hit the button, the announcer says "match stopped with 47 seconds remaining", and I can't help but laugh. Forty-seven seconds! What is the screaming about?

Anyway, every time I watch a video of a match when we do this, I literally laugh when I see the looks on everyone's face when we don't hit the button immediately. If I think about it, I'll post a video of this at some point. It's quite funny. No, really, it is.