FRC Qual Rounds on Thursday @ Championship

[Jeff Pahl]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

I really like the idea of inspections on Wednesday night, even if just weight and size.

That would be fine if FIRST would have published this schedule well in advance of everyone making travel arrangements, including the Lead Inspectors, some of whom are at the mercy of team travel schedules. Plus it was Thursday morning last year before they managed to even find us all the inspection station equipment. And don't get me started on the inspection forms.....

And with two weeks of regionals already complete, and teams having already withheld 65 lbs of robot that they shipped to ATL, expecting to have all day Thursday to put it back together, it places those teams at a disadvantage compared to the teams that can plan for this.

[Rob]

It seems that the inspection team was caught just as off guard by this as the competing teams. I would not count on being able to do inspections on Wednesday night. In the past we have been kicked out of the pits immediately after uncrating so that the crates can be easily removed from the aisles.

I now consider my team to be lucky that we did not withhold anything and we are not making any major changes, only routine maintenence and replacement of identical parts.

I would suggest that any team that CAN get inspected right away do so as a courtesey to the teams who have some work to do before they can be inspected. Whatever division 78 ends up in, I hope your size & weight inspectors are ready first thing on Thursday because we will be knocking on the sizing box door!

Another idea might be to share inspection resources between divisions. If one division has a run on inspections while another seems to be at under 100% utulization then sharing can improve the efficiency of the process.

Hopefully this goes smoothly and does not stress out the inspectors and team members due to a compressed schedule!

Rob

[sircedric4]

Originally Posted by Jeff Pahl

That would be fine if FIRST would have published this schedule well in advance of everyone making travel arrangements, including the Lead Inspectors, some of whom are at the mercy of team travel schedules. Plus it was Thursday morning last year before they managed to even find us all the inspection station equipment. And don't get me started on the inspection forms.....

And with two weeks of regionals already complete, and teams having already withheld 65 lbs of robot that they shipped to ATL, expecting to have all day Thursday to put it back together, it places those teams at a disadvantage compared to the teams that can plan for this.

And this is our biggest problem. We are a poor team that can only afford to go to our local Regional and can't attend two Regionals. We were barely able to get the money for Nationals, and that was with a success under our belt. The Bayou this year was the first week, so when we won our Regional and got the honor to go to Atlanta, we held back our weight allotment and crated the robot.

We thought we had plenty of time Thursday to get the small changes we wanted done and get the robot back together on Thursday, but now that qualifiers are going in the afternoon it has changed how much we are going to change our robot. It is now a "run what you brung" Nationals, which would have been nice to know before we pulled off some of our systems.

We were lucky in that we are mostly happy with our robot's performance, all we have to do is get the electronics back on it, and tweak a few things, but not everyone is happy after their first regional. If you only attend one regional and were counting on Thursday to make your robot better you are out of luck at the Nationals this year.

I can't imagine how much worse the inspections are going to be when everyone in the World Trade Center lines up at 10:30 to get inspected. With the time it takes to organize and setup your pits and get the basic withholding allotment stuff back on your robot, that puts everyone trying to get inspected at the exact same time. I hope they have a nice queing area setup and the inspection station isn't like its been in the past because I can see the lines interfering with traffic and possibly other people's pits.

Some Wednesday night work and pit setup, still limited to 3 people, I think is almost a necessity unless they want this to be a disaster. Especially when you figure on Snowmageddon, and if the sad state of unfinished robots that I saw at our Regional is any indication of other regionals.

[Gary Dillard]

From the FRC Manual, Section 3 "At The Events". (emphasis mine)

3.6.2.1 Qualification Match Schedules: Before the pit opens on the morning of the second day, the Pit Admin Supervisor will place a copy of the Qualification Schedule on each team's pit table.

3.9.5 Inspection To ensure all robots are safely constructed and fall within the FIRST parameters, there is an official robot inspection at each event. Certified inspectors will be on site all day on the first day of the event, until Pit closing time, to inspect machines.

Not sure how they can change the rules this late, given that teams have already made decisions based on this schedule.

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

3.6.2.1 Qualification Match Schedules: Before the pit opens on the morning of the second day, the Pit Admin Supervisor will place a copy of the Qualification Schedule on each team's pit table.

I suppose if you want to nit-pick, you could say that if they distribute the qual schedule at 11am on Thursday, that still fulfills the requirement of "before the pit opens on the morning of the second day"....

[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

[Gary Dillard]

I'm also concerned with what we gain from the practice matches as far as keeping the qual match schedule on time. With all of the field issues we have had so far (it looks like there were still nearly as many problems week 2 as week 1), getting each robot on the field to check out coms prior to qualification matches certainly saves that delay time on Friday. If you have to add a couple of minutes per match, pretty soon you've used up whatever you gained on Thursday.

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

I suppose if you want to nit-pick, you could say that if they distribute the qual schedule at 11am on Thursday, that still fulfills the requirement of "before the pit opens on the morning of the second day"....

Man, you are GOOD. I better inspect your robot extra carefully

[Chris is me]

I kind of think they shouldn't even offer practice matches at Champs if they have quals on Thursday so people can get through inspection.

While the change sucks for teams that do the right thing and iterate, teams that make no changes end up being really, really bored on Thursday, and it's better than only 7 quals.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I kind of think they shouldn't even offer practice matches at Champs if they have quals on Thursday so people can get through inspection.

While the change sucks for teams that do the right thing and iterate, teams that make no changes end up being really, really bored on Thursday, and it's better than only 7 quals.

No, then they get inspected and get out into the fast lane on the field and get in as many matches as they can on Thursday.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

No, then they get inspected and get out into the fast lane on the field and get in as many matches as they can on Thursday.

My team did that and it still got pretty boring after awhile. 1714 / 365 / 368 must have played at LEAST 5 or 6 matches together. I'd rather never practice and run 10 quals than practice and run 7.

[GaryVoshol]

Add another rule: No practice matches until you are fully inspected.

Michigan districts have very limited practice run time, and we used this rule. That way teams wouldn't use time practicing that could be better used to get them through inspection.

[Nawaid Ladak]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

I'm also concerned with what we gain from the practice matches as far as keeping the qual match schedule on time. With all of the field issues we have had so far (it looks like there were still nearly as many problems week 2 as week 1), getting each robot on the field to check out coms prior to qualification matches certainly saves that delay time on Friday. If you have to add a couple of minutes per match, pretty soon you've used up whatever you gained on Thursday.

It's all about the backend turnover time. I've seen turnaround times as short as 5 minutes per match, to 3 hours....

If they can maintain a six to seven minute turnover time per match, I think we should be good.

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Add another rule: No practice matches until you are fully inspected.

Michigan districts have very limited practice run time, and we used this rule. That way teams wouldn't use time practicing that could be better used to get them through inspection.

I think this is the rule for the FastLane (or at least it was at the Florida Regional)

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

My team did that and it still got pretty boring after awhile. 1714 / 365 / 368 must have played at LEAST 5 or 6 matches together. I'd rather never practice and run 10 quals than practice and run 7.

Chris,

I can see where you're coming from here, but I disagree.

I'd much rather have at least one practice match Thursday than none.

Reason: If my robot isn't going to communicate correctly with the field, I'd like to find this out in a match that doesn't matter.

-Dustin.

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by thefro526

If my robot isn't going to communicate correctly with the field, I'd like to find this out in a match that doesn't matter.

Ah come on, what are the chances of that ever happening?