We regret to announce that Northshore Knockout for this coming weekend in Louisiana has been postponed/cancelled. Our field supplier, AndyMark, has informed us that due to the recent Covid surge in our area they cannot support an event in Louisiana this week.
While disappointed, we certainly understand and respect AndyMark’s decision. We had in fact been having the discussion around whether to cancel or postpone with our attending teams and within our team over the past several days. We have notified everyone registered, and are in the process of notifying all of our volunteers. We are refunding all registration fees paid by teams for the event.
We had been keeping discussion around the event, and especially safety protocols, off of social media and via direct conversation with those participating. This was in order to avoid the normal course of “Covid related” conversations on CD. We will go ahead and share now what we had planned for social distancing and Covid safety, however. We are simply sharing this as what we came up with, and as potential ideas for other events, not to “argue against” AndyMark’s decision or suggest that their decision is wrong.
- All attendees would have been required to wear a mask.
- We were providing 15’ x 15’ SUPERSIZED pits per robot.
- Pit layout included a 3’ alley between all adjacent pits to provide extra distancing.
- We planned to have temperature checks and prodigious amounts of hand sanitizer available.
We will be communicating with AndyMark, our venue, and other involved parties to see if we can come up with an alternate date. AndyMark has indicated they may be able to support us at a later date. Looking at the calendar, however, and AndyMark’s field availability we think it will be difficult (though not impossible) to reschedule for this fall.
In any event, we DO plan to host this event next year (and with more advance planning/notice to teams), but dates obviously TBD, and will be set in consultation with our friends from Denham Venom and Fusion so as not to have conflicting dates with Red Stick Rumble 2022 and Beach Bot Battle 2022.
We would very much like to thank AndyMark and our event FTA Nick Lawrence for their support, and being upfront and forthright with us on this. AndyMark has been great to work with, and we look forward to working with them again on either a rescheduled or future year event.
We also want to thank our event host / sponsor – Southeastern Louisiana University and the Department of Industrial & Engineering Technology who made this event possible.
Can’t wait to “meet on the carpet” somewhere / someday.
Mike
