pic: Buckeye Regional Pits

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Gene Williams

Before I say anything too much about pits I must say that I truely enjoyed the Buckeye venue. I like this Regional. It is well run and the town has some great things going for it. I also like the fact that there is a Team Social for all to enjoy! Kudos to the planning committee and all those that helped.

About pit size, dimensions and room (or lack of): At Buckeye we had a corner pit and had more room (or so it seemed) than we did at GLR. I don't know if FIRST has a "standard" for pit dimensions, but I'd like to see it increased if they do. If we preach so much about safety...then to insure that we are not tripping over everything (safety hazard) we need to come up with a solution to allow easy movement in our pits (both inside the pit as well as the isles). After GLR I went out this past week and purchased some shelving and a new tool box to help consolidate pit "clutter" which drives me absolutely crazy! I will continue to try to maximize on the minimum that we get for our pits. We are working on solutions to make the compact size of pits work to our advantage. As you look around and see the vast amount of stuff we drag in to support our robots it truly becomes necessary to give some thought to this subject.

As far as team number placement, yes it becomes very difficult to locate teams BUT I understand that we need to mix low number teams (older teams with experience) with those high number teams (newer team still learning) so as to be able to offer help and guidance. Just think if we had such a rigid system that place teams in the same numeric order at every Regional. We could easily find each other but then we'd never have new pit neighbors to meet and become friends with.

My 2 cents

Well if we were never next to 1714 Jeff Huspen would never have been as available to help them fix their robot just like he may not as been as available to help 1765 in FLR in 2006 if they weren't next to us. It's easier to notice you neighbors problems when you are witnessing them firsthand all day long then on the other side of the pits (it also helps to have a robot that doesn't require alot of reapirs).