[FRC Blog] FRC Expands Regionals to Four Days

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

And on the topic of practice, Frank, why the heck do we close the field SO early on practice day? It kills us for a perfectly good Field to be sitting right there, and not being able to use it past 4PM or whatever it is when practice day goes until 8PM. We pay an aweful lot to just stand around and look at an empty field Thursday night.

I completely agree. I understand it could make a long day for volunteers, but I'd much rather see 3v3 matches going until 7PM than the same handful of teams doing 1v1 matches at 10am. Just shift the schedule back.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

I completely agree. I understand it could make a long day for volunteers, but I'd much rather see 3v3 matches going until 7PM than the same handful of teams doing 1v1 matches at 10am. Just shift the schedule back.

I'd even settle for 2 teams at a time, for 4 minutes, from a filler line, to do whatever they want on the field. Doesn't even have to be matches. Most venues cannot accommodate a proper practice field and the late PM when everyone needs it is when everyone is ready for it and crowding it, and the real one is there, but closed.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

And on the topic of practice, Frank, why the heck do we close the field SO early on practice day? It kills us for a perfectly good Field to be sitting right there, and not being able to use it past 4PM or whatever it is when practice day goes until 8PM. We pay an aweful lot to just stand around and look at an empty field Thursday night.

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

I completely agree. I understand it could make a long day for volunteers, but I'd much rather see 3v3 matches going until 7PM than the same handful of teams doing 1v1 matches at 10am. Just shift the schedule back.

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I'd even settle for 2 teams at a time, for 4 minutes, from a filler line, to do whatever they want on the field. Doesn't even have to be matches. Most venues cannot accommodate a proper practice field and the late PM when everyone needs it is when everyone is ready for it and crowding it, and the real one is there, but closed.

Aside from volunteer time, a big issue is inspections. Believe it or not, there are usually 1/3 or more of teams that haven't passed inspection yet when the field closes (and sometimes teams that haven't even started yet!). Teams spend the whole first day doing work on their robot that didn't get done before it was bagged up and playing on the field... they just don't prioritize inspections. I honestly worry about giving teams more time on the field so they could put off inspections even later, causing a situation where we couldn't possibly get them all inspected before their first match.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Aside from volunteer time, a big issue is inspections. Believe it or not, there are usually 1/3 or more of teams that haven't passed inspection yet when the field closes (and sometimes teams that haven't even started yet!). Teams spend the whole first day doing work on their robot that didn't get done before it was bagged up and playing on the field... they just don't prioritize inspections. I honestly worry about giving teams more time on the field so they could put off inspections even later, causing a situation where we couldn't possibly get them all inspected before their first match.

We already require a preliminary safety inspection to get on the field at all. I think most of us would be fine with a "must fully pass inspection to practice on the real field after 4PM" type of requirement. Problem solved, and it brings another new incentive to get inspected sooner than the morning of qualifiers.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

We already require a preliminary safety inspection to get on the field at all. I think most of us would be fine with a "must fully pass inspection to practice on the real field after 4PM" type of requirement. Problem solved, and it brings another new incentive to get inspected sooner than the morning of qualifiers.

I agree, pits should be allowed to be setup during load in and practice field should be open after 4pm. We don't even need there to be matches we could run them like the practice field with one or two volunteers and teams just getting 5 mins each to drive their robot around. The full practice field at IRI is my dream for every event.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

We already require a preliminary safety inspection to get on the field at all. I think most of us would be fine with a "must fully pass inspection to practice on the real field after 4PM" type of requirement. Problem solved, and it brings another new incentive to get inspected sooner than the morning of qualifiers.

I agree. This would allow more teams to get the practice/testing they need. And it would probably make the early Friday matches more entertaining too, as they're usually quite dull and often there are dead robots on the field early-on. We don't even stay at our local regional after the main field closes because we know we're going to have to wait a very long time to be able to use the practice field for a few minutes and it's never worth it in our opinion.

[Mr. Mike]

We at the Innovators decided early on that the pit would remain simple. 2 rolling work benches and our robot cart. The only loose items are 2 tubs with scouting in one and outreach in the other. The goal is to roll into the pit and in 10 minutes we are capable of working on the robot. After competition is over we can be also be out in the same time frame.

Adding another day of work is not something I would like to see.

[EricH]

I think there's a couple of things with the setup of pit and the field being open. I'll try to address those briefly. And NEITHER is what you'd expect.

Pit setup: I'm not concerned as much about competitive advantage here. There are a couple of reasons why setting up the pit is, or could be, not allowed, and a couple of items I'd like to point out.

#1: Verification that you're NOT working on your robot. Yeah, I realize that there's the bag and all that, but here's the thing. Inspectors are typically a skeleton crew on load-in. You've got maybe 5 or six inspectors going over bags and checking to make sure nobody's taking advantage of that green tag being on the bag to do a little early work. That, and once people start working, it's VERY difficult to get them to STOP working. Have you guys who are asking to be allowed to set up ever even TRIED to get the entire pit area cleared for ceremonies or end of day on Thursday or Friday? I'm not talking about just your team, I'm talking about clearing the entire pit area so you can go home and get some sleep before beating the teams in the next day. It's not as easy as it sounds. If you haven't, please contact your volunteer coordinator and ask if you can volunteer at pit admin.

#2: Some of the "It takes so long because everything has to be set up" might be mitigated by better planning. 973 has a beautiful setup: they bring everything in, drop it off, it's already just about in position--what's more, they can bring it out to the field if needed in a matter of moments. I suspect that some careful planning of the "what is packed where and deposited where" may be in order for speedy setup. Or maybe bringing less stuff into the venue--there aren't restrictions on tools and COTS items being stored outside and brought in as needed, last I checked. (That doesn't hold true for fabricated items under last year's rules, mind you.)



As far as the fields go, there are potentially a number of reasons. As noted, one is inspection. Inspectors want to see your robot at inspection early. (As an unrelated side note, I'd be in favor of allowing teams onto the field only once with just a safety inspection; anything after that with a minimum of partial, or a pass from inspection/FTA to try to get field connection.)

But there are others. One is field wear and tear and repair. Even on practice day, there can be damage to the field that needs to be repaired. Also, there is a huge cushion left in case of major problems, which you'd rather have fixed on practice day. And we can't forget the fatigue factor, both on the mechanical parts of the robots and on the humans manning the field. That four hours is a great time for the field crews to meet up out of sight and evaluate anything that needs to be evaluated, as well as connect any robots that haven't connected yet.




That said, I have a compromise proposal on both counts. For the pits: All the setup you want, but you get exactly one trip per early window, make it count. (Translation: 1 trip during night-before load-in, one during early-bird.) One bonus trip during either window for helping any two other teams carry items in, not extendable past one trip regardless of number of teams helped. For the field: Extend the field open hours by two hours, for any teams that have passed inspection OR that need to work on communication problems, on a filler-line basis (comm issues take priority). The caveat here is that because your team is so prepared as to require this extra practice time, your team will of course also have team members volunteering to help the inspectors and technical staff eliminate rules non-conformance and comm problems and field issues of all types, unless of course you do not want to take the field during this time. (BTW, that "volunteering" isn't exactly volunteering. It's more of "You look like you're not busy, come help us fix this ziptie/carpet tape/comm issue/oversized robot/etc."

For those that can't detect mild sarcasm, or a side of snark, the above proposal isn't exactly serious. But if folks will insist on rules changing to accommodate their bending of rules, may as well change them so they are required to help out other teams who work within the current rules, no?

[nicholsjj]

I think I have a nice perspective on this as I attended an event where we were extremely short on inspectors and one where we had 15+ inspectors . I will say personally I wish teams were allowed to set up early because, usually IMO, the teams that take longer to set up their pits almost always have a robot that is going to pass inspection in the initial or at very most second time look at. The teams that take little time to set up their pit usually have a robot that will take longer to get through inspection. As for a competitive advantage, I don't think it is much even though our team's drop and pop pit https://www.flickr.com/photos/ftcstl...n/photostream/ always makes us first in the inspection line which helps the team meet its goal of being the first team to pass inspection at each event that we attend. I agree that it would help if we let at least half the field be a pseudo practice field for fully inspected teams after 4 would be a welcomed change for many events. I wouldn't be against teams being able to set up their pits during load in day as it should help initial inspections during the practice day morning, but I also like Eric's idea of teams being "strongly encouraged" to help out other teams, or help field volunteers set up the field in order to be able to set up. I know our team enjoys helping the event get up and running as you get to see the hard work and develop much respect for the people running the event.

On a side note I do agree that a little pre-planning and not having quiet a fancy pit still allows for nice judging looks, a safety inspector told me we had one of the cleanest and nicest pits he had ever seen, and also a very functional pit.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by EricH

Have you guys who are asking to be allowed to set up ever even TRIED to get the entire pit area cleared for ceremonies or end of day on Thursday or Friday? I'm not talking about just your team, I'm talking about clearing the entire pit area so you can go home and get some sleep before beating the teams in the next day. It's not as easy as it sounds. If you haven't, please contact your volunteer coordinator and ask if you can volunteer at pit admin.

Just to clarify I'm LRI at Alamo and volunteer at a lot of events. I welcome the opportunity to politely ask people to go home when pits are closing and I'm often close to the the last person out. Myself and my team also have done field setup at Lone Star each of the past 3 years. We could easily still do this and have a couple people putting up our shelves in our pit so we don't have to do it Thursday morning.

All notes about working on the robot during that time are just silly to me. You have weeks with your robot in the bag at your facility; if your morals are so low that you are going to cheat why in the world would you do it when you could be caught. Bag and Tag is an honor system to begin with, at the events is the only time when its even remotely enforceable.

I'm also sure we could find a few volunteers that would stay and let teams run on the field Thursday night. I'm pretty sure the IRI practice field has 2-4 volunteers max and it seems to do just fine each year. The fields see a ton of events and off-seasons and they hold up pretty well. If 24 more hours of play time (4 hours * 6 weeks) is going to severely damage the field we are building in way to small margins on what they can take.

The ability to put a better product on the field should be the goal for all these rules. Pits and robots that are set up and ready to go when the competition starts is better for spectators, students, parents, news crews, and everyone else we are putting on these events to inspire.

[Mastonevich]

2nd for Allens thoughts.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Mr. Mike

We at the Innovators decided early on that the pit would remain simple. 2 rolling work benches and our robot cart. The only loose items are 2 tubs with scouting in one and outreach in the other. The goal is to roll into the pit and in 10 minutes we are capable of working on the robot. After competition is over we can be also be out in the same time frame.

Adding another day of work is not something I would like to see.

Yeah, real simple.
Lets see you do the same if you had to come to the Hawaii regional.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

On second thought, I think these are such valid issues that I'll submit them for Frank Answers Fridays. But until it"s addressed, let the discussion continue.

EDIT: Submitted. We shall see.

Dave,
you definitely have my vote for BEST suggestion for 2015. Hoping for the best....

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Just to clarify I'm LRI at Alamo and volunteer at a lot of events. I welcome the opportunity to politely ask people to go home when pits are closing and I'm often close to the the last person out. Myself and my team also have done field setup at Lone Star each of the past 3 years. We could easily still do this and have a couple people putting up our shelves in our pit so we don't have to do it Thursday morning.

All notes about working on the robot during that time are just silly to me. You have weeks with your robot in the bag at your facility; if your morals are so low that you are going to cheat why in the world would you do it when you could be caught. Bag and Tag is an honor system to begin with, at the events is the only time when its even remotely enforceable.

I'm also sure we could find a few volunteers that would stay and let teams run on the field Thursday night. I'm pretty sure the IRI practice field has 2-4 volunteers max and it seems to do just fine each year. The fields see a ton of events and off-seasons and they hold up pretty well. If 24 more hours of play time (4 hours * 6 weeks) is going to severely damage the field we are building in way to small margins on what they can take.

The ability to put a better product on the field should be the goal for all these rules. Pits and robots that are set up and ready to go when the competition starts is better for spectators, students, parents, news crews, and everyone else we are putting on these events to inspire.

Well said Allen!

I still think the issue of working on the robot can be easily worked around: one volunteer writes down the tag number for each team's bag as it walks in the door during load in and does a quick bag inspection. This is just like we've always done it and it can be done by one inspector on the first night. Thursday morning when the entire inspection staff is there goes around to verify the same tag is on the bag and the bag is still intact. This is not hard to implement.

If we really allow teams to get to work on their robots straight off the bat on Thursday morning you will see inspections start sooner, more teams will be able to practice, keep the field open for longer on Thursday, and the level of competition at events will increase as well. This benefits a lot of teams!

[1629GaCo]

+1 for early set up of the pits on Load in night. It would make life much easier before the whole team arrives Thursday morning.