FRC Qual Rounds on Thursday @ Championship

[Chris]

Perhaps I’m naive.

But being on a team that the last few years that has utilized every second of time to improve our robot (in some cases significantly) I’m also mildly heartbroken at the loss of Thursday.

Yet I understand the need for more matches.

FIRST is basically killing all of Thursday. You're going to uncrate, rush to hopefully make your practice match, and then rush to get inspected, and then hopefully make your first qualification match. Now if you’re willing to get re-inspected Friday morning perhaps you can have from 5:30-8 to do improvements and tweaking (If nothing broke during your matches).

Now I don’t' understand why FIRST doesn't leave Thursday alone, and run 8 to 8 on Friday like they do on Thursday. If you stole a half hour from lunch, you would get the same increase in match time as you are with the 4 hours in the middle of the day Thursday.

If that’s not practical for some reason, I don't understand why they wouldn't make the four hour match block from 4:00 to 8:00 on Thursday, which would double the time teams had for inspection, improvement, and practice.

This announcement came late, teams have travel booked, inspectors have travel booked ect. But this is a great change! I just think perhaps there are other ways to get the same benefit, without the loss of quality practice, opportunities for robot improvement, and quality detailed inspections.

$.02