On the first day of competition (Thursday), each team has two practice rounds and all of their initial judging sessions. Unlike the local and state tournaments in NH, the judging sessions happen one right after the other. You start with research, then go right to technical, and finally right into teamwork. The other difference is that you have 15 minutes with the judges, not 10 like at locals/states.

The "rooms" are just curtained off areas in a huge hall (think warehouse), so it is really loud. The pit area is in the same hall, just on the other side of the curtains and there are seven teams being judged in seven side-by-side judging spaces. One team had some long 'tuned' tubes that they beat and banged together in different rhythms. Ordinarily that was interesting, but they went full volume while we were having our research judging. We are convinced the judges could read lips!

All the judges were really nice and encouraging. Then we had two practice rounds on the table. The robot worked great but we had some 'human player' snags. Still, 390 was not a bad score.

Waiting outside the judging rooms