So this past weekend there was an issue that arose with one of my teams at a competition.
at 11:45 am it was announced lunch would last till 12:30 pm. At 12:15 pm they started finals. Unfortunately due to where this competition was located one of the team members had to leave to get lunch. We mentioned this to the event partner and they said, " Well there is no reason for students to leave and things change, so that team will have to drive with 1 drive."
I understand things change but after telling students that lunch will last till 12:30 pm it’s unfair to penalize them for not being ready at 12:15 pm. The student had actually arrived as they started the match and the event partner would not restart or let that student join her teammate even though only 5 secs had passed.
Any input into this situation would be appreciated. To be clear I was at another competition and one of my assistant coaches had to deal with this.
I can certainly see why you are posting about this, but I’m not sure there’s a lot we can do to counteract it or keep it from happening again. Next time, I would talk with the other team as well to see if having both alliances asking for correct scheduleing helps. At most of the events in my region each team is allowed a 2 minute pause during eliminations. I’ve only used it once, but having it available is great and I hope every EP that can starts offering this.
@Keys made a great point, but I think we are talking about IQ so what I would do is contact your Robot Events regional manager. Tell about the issue, and they will make sure it won’t happen again.
Got caught between a rock and a hard place. The volunteers, coaches, mentors, etc do this for free. Any good EP tries to move things along as quickly as possible to be sensitive to that. I would not be surprised that it happened, and expect it will happen again.
I do understand, as we run events as well but I also in 5 years have never had this happen. All events have yes moved things along but once they announce lunch they don’t tend to start early unless everyone is back and ready. Now if they are not back by the announced resume time I understand that.
We will be reaching out to the regional manager.