School Closings [Archive]

HUNT397

11-02-2008, 14:39

I am just wondering how many other teams out there are having a similar problem of their school being closed (due to 14 in of snow and -5 F tempatures) limiting when you can work?

FYI... SO far the school has been closed for 5 school days not includeing the weekend.

Team 135

11-02-2008, 15:11

We are having the same problem, and every snow day we argue with the school administration to let us in and we will have to see today what happens.

11Mort11

11-02-2008, 15:42

we just go in
theres an infamous story
of how they worked in the back of the woodshop with no heat locked out had to walk in the snow to school to get the robot programmed if we have to we would go in

ask anyone on MORT we only hear this story six times a day

Koko Ed

11-02-2008, 15:46

I remember the days of school closings.
Now that I work for a living that is just a memory. Unless there is some sort of major catastrophe my job does not shut down. Period.
There was a major blizzard in '99 and it dropped 24 inches of snow while we were at work. They let us go a half an hour early and the snow was up to the hood of my truck. They didn't dig out the parking lot til 1am and I then I was up til 3 digging out my own driveway so I could get my truck off the street. Fortunately they canceled work the next day and then the day after that they got another 20 inches on top of that (but that was a Saturday so not many people were working anyways).
Now I plan ahead and have extra food stored at work and such just in case such a thing ever happens again.

Andrew Schreiber

11-02-2008, 15:50

I know when I was on 27 we went in, gosh thats when I got most of my work done. We had keys to the building. Now 397 does the same, we just let ourselves in. Actually when we have snow days we go in earlier.

EricLeifermann

11-02-2008, 15:52

They don't really close school up here in Houghton. On the off chance they do we just tell the high schoolers they don't have to come if its to dangerous for them to get to the facility, as we don't work at the high school. We did get one day off this year so far, but it was more the 30+ below zero wind chill we had than the snow.

Matt C

11-02-2008, 15:57

Wasn't there some type of extension back in 2k3 due to a blizzard near ship date?

usbcd36

11-02-2008, 16:00

Last weekend, we were locked out of the school because of a bomb threat. Luckily, we'd left almost all of our stuff at one of our sponsor's places. This weekend, we weren't so lucky. Our advisor insisted that we not take too much stuff there, so we didn't. We have the robot in his van, but no OI, programming cables, or kit parts not already on the 'bot. Then they closed school today, preventing us from working.

Jherbie53

11-02-2008, 16:11

Wasn't there some type of extension back in 2k3 due to a blizzard near ship date?

There was a major snow storm in the north east in 2003 and 2004, so they decided to extend the ship deadline to Thursday rather then Tuesday for both years.

Now we don't officially have it at the school on snow days, but it you are passing by and happen to see some cars outside and are wondering whats going on, you can come in. We also stress that if the roads or weather are bad don't come in. I remember a couple of years ago is was so bad that some of the people from Fruitport, which is about 40 mins north of us, on the team had to stay with one of our mentors for the night. It's not worth getting into an accident at night so you can be at school in the morning.

FTCmisfit

11-02-2008, 16:12

On team 11 we do hear they story as 11mort11 said at least 100 times a week:eek:

-Misfit:cool:

artdutra04

11-02-2008, 16:21

Snow days and school closings just mean bonus hours to work on the robot instead of going to class.

If you do get them, enjoy the extra work time. If for some reason you can't get into the shop to work on the robot, then pick up a sled, a ton of snowballs, and some friends and go have fun. :p

Because in only a few more years, having college classes / work canceled for snow will be a very rare event.

wendymom

11-02-2008, 16:21

One of the advantages of being a 4-H team is that we don't have to worry about school schedules. We build at the sheriffs barn. Besides...it never snows here......now if build was during hurricane season it might be a bit different.

AJ R

11-02-2008, 16:24

School closings and snow days are great for our team. We don't meet at the school so we can work all day.

gurellia53

11-02-2008, 16:47

School closings and snow days are great for our team.

Same here. If there's a snow day (in Peoria, that means anywhere above 3" of snow overnight) we try to call the team and go work on the robot. Most of us don't go to the school where our shop is so the robotics team is more of an out of school activity than a club. This lets us be somewhat independent of school schedules and such.

Tomorrow is Lincoln's birthday and only 4 of us are in a school district that has it off. We're planning to be in the shop most of tomorrow.

Beth Sweet

11-02-2008, 16:53

SgtMillhouse648

11-02-2008, 17:09

Same here. If there's a snow day (in Peoria, that means anywhere above 3" of snow overnight) we try to call the team and go work on the robot. Most of us don't go to the school where our shop is so the robotics team is more of an out of school activity than a club. This lets us be somewhat independent of school schedules and such.

Tomorrow is Lincoln's birthday and only 4 of us are in a school district that has it off. We're planning to be in the shop most of tomorrow.

Know what you mean, cept davenport hardly ever closes. We work in a machine shop, and quite a few people on the team have a key, so snow day's are generally a time to get a lot of work done (if the parents let me drive). We have a simple policy when it comes to snow days. On our team, you are only allowed a certain number of absences, so we take roll every night. On a snow day, we still have the meeting (often meeting earlier) and just don't take roll. If you're there, thats great, but if you can't make it, oh well. I remember right before Christmas, we were busy modifying the drive system on last year's robot for Bald Eagle Days, and a handful of us were in that shop darn near every day trying to get the robot ready when it started snowing. That was just an excuse of we didn't want to drive in the weather, and worked till it quit snowing.
Malhon

EricH

11-02-2008, 17:17

There was a major snow storm in the north east in 2003 and 2004, so they decided to extend the ship deadline to Thursday rather then Tuesday for both years.I thought '04 was due to KOP issues... Both years, 330 was glad of the extension due to two more full days of being able to work on (or repair) the robot.

Cactus_Robotics

11-02-2008, 17:37

This is the reason I love living in Arizona...
Todays Weather:
Mostly Sunny, High 71
Low 59

Current Conditions: Sunny 70 degrees

usbcd36

11-02-2008, 18:01

Today's weather in Solon, OH:

Sunny
High: 15°F
Low: 9°F
Current: 10°F

The school closing announcements were made last night because it was too cold for salt to work. Because of this, there was no way to retrieve supplies to work on the robot.

Laxphan1525

11-02-2008, 18:21

We have had 3 snows days but we have one other problem our fearless mentor takes up the sole role of plowing his communities roads and driveways so we are unable to during the snow storm generally. However we did arrange for another mentor to come in once but typically we have to close down a lot this year because of the biggest snow season in three decades in chicago.

Vince lau

11-02-2008, 18:33

Today's weather in Toronto, ON, Canada

-15C
feels like -30C :)

team877

11-02-2008, 19:41

If you get out of school just because of -5 degree and 14" of snow...you are lucky....if you live where I am from we just had a week of -50 degrees with wind chill and still going to school.

Scott Carpman

11-02-2008, 20:00

I've only had one snowday in the past 5 years...we don't get them. As anti-politically correct as this may sound, the NYC school system exists to be daycare for the poor, not to educate youth. Any knowledge gained is a side effect. As such, schools must be open in all weather, so the kids can get breakfast and lunch. It's a sad state of affairs, but it unfortunatley won;t change anytime soon.

Oh, and the weather right now outside my window: 18F degrees, 35 mph gusts.

Jherbie53

11-02-2008, 20:36

I thought '04 was due to KOP issues... Both years, 330 was glad of the extension due to two more full days of being able to work on (or repair) the robot.

Your probably right, I didn't pay as much attention then as I do now to that type of stuff. But I thought there was a storm around that time, it might not of been as bad as 2003, but I could be wrong. We were also glad for the extra two day as well both years. Of well, it doesn't really matter, unless its to educate others and me.

chinckley

11-02-2008, 20:59

We have had 4 snow days so far during build season, including today.
We have also had 2 teacher PD days (so students were not at school) and
had to get back to school. There were 3 other days (the nights before snow days) where it was so bad they would not let us stay. We work in the school, so we can work when they say. So basically we have lost a full week. It really hurts. :(

There can be more snow days after ship, but please no more this week.
We built in some days, but this is getting out of control.

Carolyn

Racer26

12-02-2008, 00:02

I'm pretty sure most of the other South-Central Ontario teams can back me up when I say that the American school boards are pretty wussy when it comes to a little bit of the white stuff. Here in Durham Region there have been exactly ZERO snow days this year, and its nearly been our snowiest winter ever. They're talking about shattering 70+ year old records, and the most they do is cancel the buses. There have been at least 3 different occasions where we received 20+cm (8"+) in a given night this year. Even when there are snow days, its just more time to work on the robot. But unlike some schools, by the sound of it, we're in every weekend too.

zacattack

12-02-2008, 00:11

My school sucks, we had 22 in of snow in North Ogden, Utah and they didn't even cancel school! There have also been other times where we got a lot of snow, one day over 700(out of 1800) students didn't even go to school when there was a foot.

Kat Kononov

12-02-2008, 00:16

My school is residential, and it makes everyone go home every 6 weeks for an extended weekend. Well one of these weekends happens to fall on Feb 14 through Feb 18 (the last 4 days!!!). Last year we moved all of our stuff to a teammate's garage where several space heaters weren't able to bring the temperature above 40 degrees. We finished the robot somehow though. This year we are moving to my basement, which is at least insulated so it should be much better.

k4r3n2

12-02-2008, 00:17

Yeah, our two snow days during build season were quite horrible thanks to the fearless mentor's plowing, although the second one was an early closing and we camped out in my fearless teammate's basement to work on the drivetrain after emptying our room at school of all useful things :) It'll get done somehow!

Blue_Mist

12-02-2008, 00:37

This makes me appreciate California weather. Today we had eerily good weather, with sun, a few clouds and a light breeze. Global warming starting to take effect here by the coast... And I've never seen snow in my eleven years in California, but I have seen hail and ice on the roads (not good when you bike to school!). And bit of crunchy frost on the grass soaking through my shoes when it melts.

And we've talked about sleeping in the shop for so many years, but never actually done it. Maybe this'll be the year?

octothorpe

12-02-2008, 00:48

And we've talked about sleeping in the shop for so many years, but never actually done it. Maybe this'll be the year?

Just watch, we'll stay overnight at the shop and sometime in the early morning a freak blizzard will hit, burying the school in 5 feet of snow and preventing any entrance or exit. Thus we will be forced to do nothing but work on the robot for the entirety of the four-day-weekend... with dedicated parents dropping pizza slices in through the ventilation shafts in the roof.

fnsnet

12-02-2008, 03:03

The Technical Drawing teacher at my School (616) knew the code to the alarm, so snow days were a blessing for us. We'd go to the school about 10am and work all day.

The school building was really 3 buildings attached together though, (Middle School, Technical School, and High School) so once or twice we've walked a little to far up the hallway and set off either the high school or middle school alarm. Those days were fun.

:)
Matt

catsylve

12-02-2008, 07:03

Last year security got kind of tired of us being in at all hours so the school re-keyed an outside door for us. They kind of look the other way on snow days, except when the security guy stops by and asks how the robot is doing!:cool:
The best part of the snow days this year is that when they cancelled work for the first time ever, our engineering mentors showed up and we took a break to play snow kickball before going back to work. Yeah, we like snow days here too.

chinckley

19-02-2008, 10:15

I am not too happy about having one on ship day.
We have another one today (#5 during build season).
Luckily our shipping and receiving guy was able to move it
last night and he is coming in to wait for FedEx.:)

Jeff Waegelin

19-02-2008, 11:00

Our rule for being at the school when the school is closed: don't go past this doorway, or you'll set off the alarm and the police will come and take us alllll to jail (which will make it so the robot doesn't get done)

Back when I was in high school, we actually had the police come because we set off an alarm! Our teacher had a key and the alarm code for the school, so he could let us in on weekends and holidays, and one Saturday, we were working in our shop, and the assistant principal came in to use the weight room. When he left, he armed the alarm for the whole school, instead of just the gym area. So, of course, since we were still in the building, we immediately set off the motion detectors for the alarm. The police showed up a half hour later, with guns drawn :ahh: They were very surprised to see a bunch of students working in the auto shop, to say the least. They didn't give us too much trouble for it, though I think the assistant principal got a phone call...