pic: Design Challenge: Pits

[BrendanB]

My ideal pit is minimal. Since our rookie year we have had a large curtain backdrop the popped into our shelving poles that we hang banners and such off of. It looks really nice and simple which I love. We also keep things neat and organized such as tools in open bins neatly laid out in the shelves so they are easily accessable but out of the way. We also try to keep our pit table cleaned off. At the Connecicut regional we had a nice table cloth, printer/scanner, brochures, and buttons our table in as a neat display that was extremely functional and left us a lot of room. The only addition I would like to see for future years is a foam floor, some cushions to place on our bins so we can slide them out and have a comfortable seat, and try to make our banners/sponsors more unified and in team colors!

Personally I really, really dislike pit walls, roofs, and clunky displays. I think they have some appeal to them however they are extremely uninviting, crowded, and once you have a robot and a few bodies there is not a lot of room left. In crowded/busy events this is even more problemmatic because such pits/teams have a tendency to spill out into the aisles because their pit displays take up most of the standing room. Additionally since 10x10 is never a guarantee based on which event you attend it is much easier to adapt to a smaller pit with less stuff. With our various shelving sizes we can easily adapt to a small pit by adjusting what order we put them long our back wall. Sorry if this offends some people it is just one of my pet peeves!

Less is a lot better in the long run!