Hi! I’m Diana Van Atta, representative of Neurodivergent of FIRST, and the marketing/business team captain and safety co-captain for the Sir Lancerbots, FRC team 2977. Last weekend was the local Seven Rivers Regional event, and I was designated as the team’s resident media badge holder. All in all it was a pretty normal competition, bar the field running a bit behind.
The Sir Lancerbots are local to the area and a founding member of the Seven Rivers Robotics Coalition, so transport of the team was fairly quick, a 20 minute drive is not that long. The field did fall behind schedule, which caused some matches to be held the following day rather than on Friday. This wasn’t a huge deal, and the event went smoothly, even if our team had technical difficulties.
There was a quiet room at this event, and it was brought up during the safety captain meeting as well as a seminar that another team held on mental health. However, generally people don’t know that the quiet rooms are there, and so don’t use them. I know that we are working to ensure that everyone at every event has a quiet place they can go to, and as such when interacting with other teams I made sure to mention that there was one at the event and where it was located. Unfortunately the quiet room’s location was right next to the playing field, which led to noise seeping in from the field. The space was still very helpful, but for the first two days it was insisted that the door be kept open so the quiet room wasn’t super quiet.
I did bring this up to both the event volunteer monitoring the room, and one of the lead people planning and executing the event, and the door was closed shortly thereafter. Fidget toys, earbuds, coloring sheets, and bean bag chairs were all available for use and really provided a calming and overall chill atmosphere that was great for taking a break from the noise of the field and pits.
Noise overall wasn’t bad at this event, I wore earplugs, and noise canceling headphones to help with my own sensory issues. However, it was expressed to me that for those who didn’t have the aforementioned items it got pretty loud and overwhelming. I was glad that I had put a whole bag of earplugs in the pits so that I could help out those needing some noise cancellation.
The lights right by the field are bright, and from my position in the media box it was both a blessing and a curse. I got great pictures of the event, and you could see what was happening clearly, but it did get a bit overstimulating at moments.
Overall the event went spectacularly, there was even a team that set up a place to play chess with other teams, and I had a great time meeting other teams, spreading the word about Neurodivergent of FIRST, and watching the amazing engineering of everyone.
This post is part of a series on the experience at competition from everywhere in FIRST. Take a look at a mentor's take below. Stay tuned for future perspectives!
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