My team, 492, attended the PAC NW regional and I am pretty sure that this never happened during the quali+final matches for us.
This happened a few times during the practice matches, but some thing happened between the practice matches and the quali matches, maybe they got a talking too.
Another thing that happened a few times (more than them forgetting about the auto-loader) in the practice matches was that they forgot to remove the hanging tetra until long after autonomous was over. I have a feeling that this was never taken issue with due to the fact that it did not really impede anyone strategies as not being able to get a tetra from the auto-loader would have.
I saw autoloaders that weren’t even manned in the practice rounds :ahh: The team that mentored us our rookie year sat with no tetras to stack for half the match becuase they had no one manning the autloaders. That practice is really important at your first regional.
I mean…there is very little that an autoloader who is being as fair as possible can do to influence the outcome of the match. After a while you get into a rythm with the speed and distance that you feel comfortable with at putting tetras on the station. Alo consider the fact that many of the volunteers are alumni of teams or parents of kids on teams so it it happens sometimes that your old team or current team could be on the field. One of my old team’s mentors was actually worried about me being up there and my lil’ brother driving at the same time, but after a couple of matches it was very clear that there was no problem.