Hello, we are a second year team going to worlds for the first time. We were wondering what the viewing situations are when it comes to the pits at worlds. If you sitting at your pit, are you able to see the matches that your team is in?
It really depends on where your pit is in relation to your Division’s competition fields or the large projection screens along the walls.
Some years, we’ve been close to the large projection screens where we can easily watch from the pits. Other years, we’ve been farther away and we’d have to leave our pit areas to watch matches.
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Not usually, no. Even if you are nearby, the view is often obstructed by bleachers or screens. The time between matches will be much longer than you are used to at a smaller tournament, so it shouldn’t be hard to make matches. Use your schedule and favorite clock for the rest.
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You can use a tablet or computer to watch the livestream however.
I’ve never been able to get the livestream on a tablet. In the past, Internet Connectivity has been limited, as the answer to this other post says “No wifi hostspots are allowed”:
The most reliable way would be to tether a cellular device directly to a computer. Be wary of your cell plan’s limitations when doing this, however.
I’ve seen FRC teams have a TV set up in their pits to watch the big livestream. If tethering is allowed, I could see some teams trying to do something similar using a computer(or device that works well with the livestream), and HDMI cord to plug into the TV.
Probably not because there’s no wifi and no hotspots
Then how are teams expected to watch VexVia? Or maybe they’re not?
I’m not sure what the difference is between cellular data and wifi, but I might expect both to be banned.
Cellular data is not banned. Wifi is in the 2.4GHz frequency band, the same as the VEX robots. Cellular data uses other frequency bands which means they are much less likely to interfere with the robots.
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Okay, then using Data and then tethering that directly to another device (no Bluetooth wireless transmission of signal) should be okay. My TV display comes back into mind, granted enough power is available in addition to necessities, including battery chargers, coding computers, etc.
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FYI, at least some years at FRC Worlds they actually provided cable TV drops to each pit which allowed you to plug in a TV to tune into the divisions. That may have been what you observed.
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