I’ve heard many events are running extremely behind for a variety of reasons. I’ve seen a few threads already for individual events, but this seems like a system wide issue. Curious as to how far behind each event got, and any info that was given to teams regarding the reason(s) for the delays.
Waterbury seems to be about 3 hours behind the posted schedule.
Palmetto Regional: 2 hours behind on Friday, and currently about 2 hours behind now (Saturday). All issues seem to be due to the field management system. There have been multiple 45-minute delays each day attributed to the FMS (according to the announcer, “having trouble assigning team numbers to the correct driver stations”).
I saw some events getting around this by marking the matches on the FMS as test matches. It seemed to work, it was just confusing for all of us watching.
Gainesville is at least 2 hours behind. Practice matches got cancelled.
We are about 3 hours behind at MAR Hatboro-Horsham. Currently in a 45 minute shutdown, that’s not fixed yet. Either 2nd or 3rd today. The field crew is resetting in 7 to 8 to minutes from start to start.
Tippecanoe is currently running 3 hours behind
FIM Kettering. Finished Friday’s matches at 11am on Saturday. Officials did great, bringing us back from 5 hours of delays.
West Valley was at one point over 3hrs behind, by alliance selection it was only 1hr behind.
Palmetto ended probably about 3 hours late. I cannot thank all of the volunteers enough for their dedication!!
Southwest Virginia went from an hour behind to three hours behind. To make up, matches will start at 8:15 AM tomorrow.
This behind (hatboro)
Good Evening,
As I am sure you are all aware we experienced some issues with the field today. These issues have left us in overtime this evening, and significantly behind schedule for this event. It is with a heavy heart that I write this email, but we need to make a significant change for tomorrow. We will not be able to play the remaining 36 matches as originally intended, and complete eliminations. With approval of FIRST Headquarters and in conjunction with our Primary and Secondary FTA and our Head Referee we have asked for a variance to the planned 12 matches per team. Attached you will find a refined schedule for the balance of the event and an updated match schedule. Please know that this decision was not made lightly, but we believe that it will provide the best experience for all participants given the significant difficulties that we experienced today.
District Point Ranking System
The district point ranking system is no longer based on the number of matches played at an event but the ranking of teams at an event. There will be NO negative impact on any team’s advancement to FIRST Mid-Atlantic Championships based on the reduction in the number of matches.
What I hope is that our students are getting a valuable experience from this, and every competition. Numerous referential points were taken into this decision, including transportation time.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns please see me in the morning.
Thank You,
Eric
I understand if thats what they gotta do, then so be it. Just curious as to what the issue is.
At Waterbury, the field wasn’t put together until today, mid-day. It seems many of the field parts FIRST sent were not properly manufactered (e.g. some holes didn’t line up, etc.) or weren’t sent at all (e.g. field ropes, pins for airship ladders).
I believe that South Florida was an 1 1/2 to 2 hours behind. We ran matches until 6:55 PM last night, when they were supposed to end at 5:30, and we didn’t get through all of them yesterday either. Everything seemed to run smoothly today, alliance selection ending around 1:10, and then eliminations starting around 1:30.
*8:15 AM, FYI.
We actually started on time and were about an hour behind near the end of the day which is pretty standard honestly, but then something happened and we had like an hour and a half of down time
Right, I think I remember hearing 8:15 now that you mention it. I have edited the original post.
Things were running pretty smoothly up in Duluth until the semi-finals. And then we got hit with this and it all slowed to a crawl.
South Florida at one point got nearly two hours behind. After Dallas 2015 getting behind doesn’t faze me anymore. Whenever people say thing about dealing with troubles at an event I always say “Yeah, well at least it’s not on the level of Dallas 2015 or Einstein 2012!” Your event needs to reach apocalyptic level disaster to impress me nowadays.
from another thread talking about the same thing