pic: NJ Regional - The Pits

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I spy rubik’s cube crate. :smiley:

the calm before the storm…

Hey, could someone take another picture of the pits from the same location in the middle of regional? Then another one at the end? It would be a cool before/during/after series.

I’ll gladly take one there on Saturday some time(s) throughout the day if I remember.

In case I don’t since I’ll have a lot on my plate that day,** if you’re reading this & it’s Saturday,** and you have my cell phone number, send me a text to remind me. :slight_smile: Thanks!

Edit: Ok, I just e-mailed this pic to my phone, so I should be able to see it and remember myself… lol

If you go to Wisconsin or Buckeye regional you will easily spot 1714’s crate this year.
Joey

Hey…I see our crate! :slight_smile:

Strangley enough I felt the urge to take a loner pic of the rubix cube :slight_smile: It’s somewhere on my phone

Wow, when my team painted that crate we had no idea it was gonna stand out that much, oh well, it made it REALLY easy to find this morning. Sadly, the crate is not solvable.

Where is the pit area in relationship to the field? In other words how is everything set up? It looks great.

the pit area is on one side of the arena (as shown) and the field is on the other (left of picture) separated by a curtain.
If you look closely, teams also have pit areas on the outskirts in a semicircle compared to most of the teams placed in rows. I guess so everyone could fit.

So the robots queue on either side of the curtain?

The robot queue similar to that of other regionals on one side (top of pic).
Last year, our pit area was the closest to the other end on the bottom of pic. Very little traffic from robots leaving the field only and we had a lot of space since no robot pit was next to us.:smiley:
I can tell that the pic is early on, because there is a lot of items at the pit area desk and I hardly see any robot crates in the semicircle area. The only disadvantage for those teams is that they have to go all the way to the back center of the semicircle area and then come all the way back to enter the field.

I haven’t seen a regional set up like this. I know, hard to believe.

Lone Star has been in the Reliant Center and has its own space for the pits. This year will be different in a different location. I don’t know what that layout will be.

I saw the Florida Regional last year and they had one outside pit and one inside pit that was behind the curtain, so the access to the field for that regional was interesting. That will be changed this year for them in their new digs.

It seems a simple thing for most who are used to this layout but I would like to see the flow of coming and going with the robots to see how it works. I envision traffic cops I guess.

NJ, Boston, Hartford, Chesapeake (possibly more), all use this divided line (curtain) pit/field relation setup.

The bad thing with NJ (& Boston as well to a less of an extreme) is that there is absolutely no room (maybe one single file lane if that) for people to move between the pit and the stands, so the stands become a walkway.

In Hartford & Chesapeake, there is plenty of room, so robots and people can concurrently move in the “lanes” back and forth between the pits at the same time.

The arena in NJ is in is so small (hockey arena) that it is a pain to get used to, but it’s worked (well?) in the past 4 years I’ve gone there.
Kind of.

As far as Traffic cops, in Boston, NJ & Hartford it was imperative they be there to keep robot/people flow under control.
In Chesapeake, there was a lot of room to flex, so they are there but it’s an easy job most of the times (IMO).

At Lone Star, on Fridays, students from different schools come to visit. They have been invited to walk through the pit area and visit with teams/observe. In a set-up like this, it seems it would be difficult because of the tight space and accessibility. It’s not a bad thing, it is just something I haven’t seen. All the regionals are different, that is what is so cool about them. The same only different.

that is interesting because all the regionals we ever attended looked like this give or take the size only. I guess we have to go to Lone Star next year to experience the configuration.:stuck_out_tongue:

Having been part of the pit set up for two years, NJ feels pretty roomie compared to the Philadelphia Regional, which also uses a curtain to divide the pits from the playing field. We had more room to store and I guess just move around in NJ. In Philly there was no wiggle room at all, each team was using every inch of their pit. Correct me if Im wrong, but I think the pits were smaller at Philly last year than the standard 10x10x10.

I think next year we’ll back at the Reliant Center.

I think you would like the regional and the set-up. As far as I know, we don’t have a crate that looks like a
Rubik’s cube but the blue bonnets are usually out. They might could make up for that. :slight_smile: Oh, and then there’s the competition. <grin>

how may teams are there this year…
you guys look kinda short on teams…