View Full Version : How & where do you build the bot when it snows and your robo-base (school) is closed?
Elgin Clock
09-12-2002, 12:25
I'm posting this on behalf of one of my team's advisors.
What do those teams which build their robot at a their high school and live in an area which has snow storms and they don't allow the school to be used when it is closed, what do they do about building the robot????
When our town decides to close our school, they don't let ANYONE in at all, not even to grab some stuff to work on. This is really frustrating when your robot is due in 3 days and we can't get in the school to work on it.
How do you other teams deal with this problem?
UCGL_Guy
09-12-2002, 13:10
Tough one unless you can explain to the powers that be your problem. Is it a securtiy issue or safety issue. Maybe a liability issue. ID why they won't let you then work to find a solution. Last year in the infamous ice storm that hit us here in Northern Ok we were without power for 5 days so that really impacted building, would not have done any good to take somewhere else unless they had a generator.
Tom Schindler
09-12-2002, 13:26
Originally posted by UCGL_Guy
we were without power for 5 days so that really impacted building, would not have done any good to take somewhere else unless they had a generator.
I swear this is why they installed the fuel cell at my old high school.... so we could build in case of any power failures :)
Since the high school is now one of those emergency centers that will always have hot water and power.... they might let the kids work. seems logical to me, but then again... what's logical about school administration?
Tom
ColleenShaver
09-12-2002, 13:34
Since colleges rarely close because of snow, we always have a place to work. College Students and local HS students (and those not-so-local but highly-dedicated) will come and we'll get what we can done.
Although last time a major storm occured (2k1, when tons of teams couldn't ship their robots) we had a thumb-removing incident.. so maybe we won't do that again.
Hopefully there will just be no snow in New England this year (yeah right!)
Katie Reynolds
09-12-2002, 13:40
We build at Appleton East HS ... As far as I know, we've never had a complete power failure during the build season ... we've had fire alarms go off (everyone went outside -- including the robot!) before, and a few snow days here and there. Usually, if there's a snow day, our advisors will call the super intendant and ask if we can still use the school. The answer to that is usually yes. In the event of a complete power failure, I don't know what we'd do ... probably work by candle (or flash) light ;)
- Katie
jonathan lall
09-12-2002, 13:50
We can sometimes get a caretaker to open up the school if there's one in. But we're in Canada, so we're not afraid of snow, plus we don't do very much at the school itself. We get around such problems by doing a lot of our building in a teacher's garage, which he very kindly and selflessly donates every winter. It's a really good system, and we end up being pretty efficient that way.
D.J. Fluck
09-12-2002, 13:53
Our workshop is an offsite, corner of a warehouse in the Public Utilities building, who are responsible for getting the power back on when it goes out :)
Katie Reynolds
09-12-2002, 13:56
Originally posted by jonathan lall
... But we're in Canada, so we're not afraid of snow ...
I should mention that, being in Wisconsin and all, we rarely ever have snow days ;)
- Katie
if we don't' need to be in school and there's a snow day, we just say fine, we'll go home, play, and make the school happy :p. if we needed to get in, we can probably have the custodian who lives on the school open it up for us, or i can ask my mom's friend (who is the vice president on the school board) to make them open the school ;). we usually get what we want though.
mtaman02
09-12-2002, 19:38
Depends how deep the snow is and How many of our coaches can make it to the School to supervise the students using the equipment. Other then that the bot is built withing the school and no where else
Matt Attallah
10-12-2002, 15:43
If it is so deep that we can't even walk through the snow, than don't plan on going. Either than that, we have our own room w/ (soon to come) keys!! Yea! Even a door for our selfs!
Courtneyteam330
10-12-2002, 16:24
What is this thing "snow" you talk about. I have never seen it. :D
Guess thats one good thing about being a SoCal team.........
team222badbrad
10-12-2002, 16:40
We build ours outside in the snow! We go to the school like every other day in the 6 week build period
Bob Merkel
10-12-2002, 23:12
Originally posted by Katie Reynolds
I should mention that, being in Wisconsin and all, we rarely ever have snow days ;)
- Katie
Katie's right about that. Were lucky if we get two hour delay (more time to sleep):) ! So far this year, we haven't had any snow stay on the ground.
K. Skontrianos
11-12-2002, 00:26
We can't get snowed out of our workshop. We have our own site, off school grounds, that has been donated to us for that last few years. (Thank you LandMark!!) It sits in the middle of downtown, facing both Main St. and a shopping mall on either side. No matter what, those are always plowed first and most often. We could have 2 feet of snow and still open up our workshop, if an advisor actually showed up, that is. :)
Joe Troy
13-12-2002, 22:31
We do the majority of our robot work at school...no matter what the weather. We have access to the school on snow days, holidays, weekends and late at night.
We are fortunate to enjoy the support of our Board of School Directors and the Superintendent of Schools. The manager of the Facilities Department has been involved with our team as our "Director of Special Projects". I am an administrator with the school district and part of my role as a team leader is to foster and promote these relationships.
Jeff Rodriguez
14-12-2002, 14:53
Originally posted by Elgin Clock
When our town decides to close our school, they don't let ANYONE in at all, not even to grab some stuff to work on. This is really frustrating when your robot is due in 3 days and we can't get in the school to work on it.
How do you other teams deal with this problem?
If you stay all night, do they kick you out?;) If they do than just say that it's more dangerous to go home han to stay, and while your there you might as well get some work done:D
Moshingkow
14-12-2002, 15:42
pshhh, snow is child's play compared to the predicament our team is in... (and every other NYC team at that.) on snow days, we can get to school no problem, but when there is a MTA Strike, were all screwed. (in case you don't know, the MTA runs all the busses, subways and ferries i believe in NYC). at least this is happening now, and not at the beginning of the season. but who knows, this may go on for weeks to come. people NEED to have the subways and busses to get to school, virtually no students get rides, especially high school students.
DanLevin247
15-12-2002, 16:20
Well, my school rarley has snow days because it's usually no matter how much snow there is, we have school, so that problem has yet to arise.
The Megan 2207
19-02-2008, 19:08
Katie's right about that. Were lucky if we get two hour delay (more time to sleep):) ! So far this year, we haven't had any snow stay on the ground.
Our school never closes either! Last year, we got to leave 10 minutes early one day. We were the only school in the area (maybe even the whole state) that stayed open after noon. It was great. Yay for Minnesota!
Dan Petrovic
19-02-2008, 19:27
If school is closed and the weather is bad past noon or so, then we don't meet. If the weather clears up and the roads are clean enough to meet, then we will.
The robot was finished in my garage last year when the mid-Atlantic got the 4in of pack ice from the sky.
Jon Stratis
20-02-2008, 11:08
We don't build at the school, and this year we haven't had a problem with snow. However we did call off a build day last year because of it. Our general rule is that if the school thinks it's dangerous for the students to come in to school, then it's also dangerous for them to come to our build space. For the most part, students have 2 years or less of driving, which really isn't sufficient experience to be safe when it's snowing heavily out or the roads are real bad. Even now, i avoid going out if the roads are bad if it's at all possible, and i have way more experience driving in bad weather than any students in FIRST do. Safety FIRST!
Cow Bell Solo
01-03-2008, 21:39
Our school never closes because of snow(we live in MN and we never close) All the schools around us end up closing but White Bear Never Closes. The only thing they close on is Sat, Sun, and some Holidays, but school is ussually still open and we will work on the robot if any of the mentors are available to miss work to come to school.
Uberbots
01-03-2008, 23:09
We have been able to get the Vice Principal to unlock the doors for us, and we also have a secondary warehouse.
Its all about how nice you are to the people with power at the school. if you do things for them, they do things for you (and your team).
When school is closed here, EVERYONE is locked out. The alarms are armed, and no one is allowed to be in, or enter the building. They're serious about this.
We've had three school closings during build seasons: one last year and two this year. Last year, they announced at the end of the day that the snow was coming down too fast, and after-school activities were cancelled. That time, we packed up and took the robot to my house, where we continued to work until the end of the build season.
This year, we had two closings: one because of a bomb threat, which didn't hurt anything, since we had chosen to leave our robot and supplies at the machine shop owned by one of our sponsors. The other closing this year was because of a snow day, and although the robot was in the teacher's van, most of our supplies were locked away in the school. Thankfully, it was not problematic because we didn't happen to need any of that stuff (we were mostly doing new fabrication that day), but it made me realize that we can be shut down very easily for something minor. If that day was supposed to be for programming or electrical and we'd left the laptop or wire and crimp terminals at the school, we would've been stuck trying to figure out what we could do.
When you have the possibility of heavy lake-effect snow, it's good to plan ahead to help prevent wasted days. I am thankful for the fact that we don't have as many problems with weather as some other teams. It would be horrible to be locked out of the school for five days, or have your shop flooded (which I believe one team had a few years ago).
Like your team, we were unable to build our robot, however we made up that time by doing 16 hours days the weekend before we ship! Due to an excessive 3 snow days this year, all which happen to be within the 2 weeks we whipped our robot...
Cow Bell Solo
03-03-2008, 00:06
Ya we are able to have the principle unlock the school doors on the sunday before shipping, and it is true knowing an being nice to people in power
TheOtherGuy
03-03-2008, 00:12
What is this thing "snow" you talk about. I have never seen it. :D
Guess thats one good thing about being a SoCal team.........
Heh, I was thinking the same thing when I saw the title of this thread ;) . We only ever get frost down in southeastern AZ... I think the coldest it got this year was ~30 degrees :)
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