pic: Another Time Out?

[Mike Nawrot]

Unfortunately, 11 ran out of time to fix the robot, and we wound up asking 237 to give up their time out to help us fix the robot so we could have a fair match (we had used ours during quarter finals when one of our alliance partners had gone into the eliminations not in working order, and we eventually wound up resorting to a reserve). 237 happily gave us their time out, one of the most gracious acts of all of yesterday's event, and we had an extra 5 minutes to fix our sheared 1/4 steel drive shaft (normally an hour to one and a half hour fix, considering we had to take off the bumper, side plate, electrical panel, and gear box; disassemble our gearbox and remove all the snap rings, sprockets and gears; change the drive shaft; mount all the gears sprockets and snap rings; reassemble the gearbox; and remount the gearbox, electrical panel, chains, side plates, and bumpers. Everything was locktighted too, making it take even longer.) The head refs and event managers rushed us, and wound up not letting us compete, sending out only 2 of our alliance partners (we wound up fixing our robot half way through the match). Then the match was started with no warning at all, not allowing 1676 to turn on their robot, making it a 3 on 1 match. They called for a restart the second they started the match when no one was ready, only to have the refs give a thumbs down. After the match, both alliances fought for a rematch, since it had been unfair and rushed, and i witnessed another gracious act from 237: they argued relentlessly to give us the rematch, only to be shut down by officials. What irritated all of us was that we had had to wait for an excruciating amount of time in que while the quarter finals before us were restarted and time outs were called. We were only given a 5 minute time out, while others got 10 minute time outs, because they had a tight schedule to keep. After falling behind more than an hour, what would five minutes be?? If the head refs had taken the time to check that everyone was prepared with the traditional "blue team ready? red team ready?" and the match had been a 2 vs 3 match, everyone would be disappointed, but not annoyed. I understand that they had a schedule, and I understand it wasn't intentional, but yelling at teams to get on the field and starting the match while no one is ready just to keep a schedule that has already fallen behind is unnerving, especially when the drivers from the opposing alliance argue that they weren't ready when the match began either. I hope that next year, nothing like this will happen.