Flavorflav wrote:I get four helpers for 52 teams, although I usually have less than 30 devices because so many teams are scared of Mission. I will have to think through the logistics of 15 minute blocks, but one thing that occurs to me right away is that the this schedule will kill two time slots for half of the students, as they wouldn't be able to get to the next event on time. Still, if it improves throughput it could be worth it - to me, at least.
You're right, that is a con of staggered blocks. That said, teams also really hate waiting 10+ min to run their device. It also really, really hurts when teams set up their device, can't run because ES are behind schedule, have to leave for another event and come back later. I've seen tears over this, and that is largely why I prefer staggered blocks. Even if they are not happy about it, their team will prepare accordingly before the tournament, and fewer things will go wrong the day of.
Some other suggestions are to shorten the blocks. Sounds hard, but blocks of 8-10 min, 1 team/block ran very smoothly for me in the past. An interesting variant of this that I heard last year was that NorCal has 1 ES team judge 2 teams/15 min block. This helps the ES accommodate unexpected things like teams taking more than 30 minutes for setup, or tweaking their device after setup for safety violations (e.g. 12V battery). (And any NorCal readers, please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.)
Something I'm stuck doing is making up my own block schedule during impound. I ask teams if they have events right after their block, and if both team members don't, I FORCE them to start setup 30+ min later in their 8-team, 60-minute block. I've even had a couple of teams volunteer to do this when only 1 team member could stay after setup. Even just knowing 1-2 teams are starting later than officially scheduled can be a relief. Some teams will still have to wait 20+ min to run their device (including several medalists last year), but it's the best compromise I've got between staying close to schedule and sticking with 1 ES team to judge all devices (possible at my tournaments).