[reporting from a secure location in Washington DC... of course some of you know where that is] At this point, I can assume that the extreme security measures will be somewhat temporary, but I doubt that there is a sign of any let-up anytime in the next few weeks. I can only hope that we are able to transport buzzer systems on aircraft, albeit it would have to be checked luggage. I'm guessing that many of the security precautions may be lifted by the time Penn Bowl comes around, but if not, then we should be planning to be at our various airports of destination very early to explain out what the buzzer systems are and show them they are operational. Furthermore, there must be a way that the containers can be re-secured once security has gone through them in case there is anyone who works baggage handling who (heaven forbid) decides to put something in the containers. Another alternative would be that we may ask various buzzer system companies if we can rent systems for a weekend. That will involve some planning obviously, but I think it can be done. Clocks may be a weirder issue; I am not sure how a security person would respond to someone carrying a countdown timer attached to an electronic device (as some QuikPros are designed). Otherwise, we could just ship buzzers via UPS, but the processing is going to be chaotic (receiving and returning to the teams). The one thing that I'm assuming is NOT an acceptable option is actually reducing the field sizes of the major tournaments. I'm sure that Penn Bowl is unwilling to reduce its field size from 68 to 44 or fewer just because of the difficulty of getting enough buzzers to the tournament site. Same thing with the NAQT ICT/HSCT and the PACE NSC, since those tournaments also rely on outside buzzers to supplement our own stashes.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:44 AM EST EST