Re: Snow days
 

Having lost 4 days of build season will be a challenge. The team leads and mentors have been trying to stay in touch to get overall designs and concepts for our robot and what we want it to do. Still not being in our workspace for almost an entire week will certainly make for an interesting beginning to build season.:rolleyes: Still have never been more excited for school to start!

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It seems as though we are going to have another snow day....
*sigh*

This is going to be a rough weekend...

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We will have lost an entire school week of build season by the time we are allowed to meet this weekend. I suspect we'll be putting in "crunch time" hours for a while, and perhaps adding shop time on our usual days off.

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Same here. We are meeting at Panera to try to get some actual meeting time in. Web meetings and Skype calls just don't do it when you have a FIRST game at hand.

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We have lost 5 days of school now due to snow. We had to go directly from the kickoff site in Indy to our homes (could not stick around to brainstorm or read rules) and could not meet again until today. It was very inconvenient, but we finally got to meet from 12-4 today and seem to have 5 days worth of brainstorming slammed into one day. We are cancelled tomorrow, but will be able to have an open shop for kids to come in and work on designs and CAD. We will find a way to get stuff done, one way or another, the snow days just make things more interesting :rolleyes:.

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We got back into school today, but were not allowed to have a robotics meeting due to afterschool activities being cancelled because of the weather. We have met twice: once on kickoff, and once yesterday.

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So, perhaps the weather problems are part of "Getting It"?

Localized weather problems, even as large as half the USA freezing up for a week, do not generally affect market pressures on product development. In a 35 year career, I lost work days in Hartford CT, Dallas TX, Colorado Springs CO and Atlanta GA over the years (plus college days in Golden CO and Stony Brook NY). Nearly half of my career has been in Chandler AZ, where I have never lost a day to weather.

It's part of the lesson. If your fabs don't shake because you built them somewhere that is geologically stable, your yields are higher and you make more money. If people can either get to work no matter what, or tele-cooperate with desktop sharing over reliable communications networks, you will make more money.

TJ

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Ok, Ill admit, its the one advantage us Hawaii people have.
Cant imagine how frustrating it is not being able to meet when you want to.

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To top it all off, today, some of our school's pipes broke, so we no longer have heating in the building for an indefinite amount of time. If the whole thing freezes due to the cold weather outside, that amount of time will lengthen. We cannot get into the building until it is fixed.

I can admit that my frustration is slowly growing :mad: .

Well, thank goodness I put Autodesk Inventor on my laptop.

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Looks like another lost work day for our team and many others in Minnesota tomorrow...

Temps down to -25 degrees up here and windchills to -50 degrees.

...and we choose to live here.

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Wow we had our first snow Friday and we only got 3 inches.....can't imagine what it's like up North

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We have had our 4th snow day last week for this 2014 season in western Michigan, and the weather looks like Monday and Tuesday will be canceled as well. 6 days lost in a 6 week build season is hard to make up. Last year we lost 5 days and we didn't get our robot tweaked in until the third competition and lost our chances to qualify for state. It is definitely an obstacle to get around.

I don't like excuses, but I will whine about it :)

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Zeeland and Holland get a little more snow than Muskegon, but we are in the same boat. I can't think of the last time we had four snow days at this point in the year. If it gets really bad, and we miss much more, we plan to pack as much as we can and get some work done in a heated garage if needed... I'm still trying my best to not work weekends if we can.

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i know we are trying to increase are working days. last week we had three days of snow and missed all three because robotics is a school activity,and guess what we are about to have a snow storm :yikes:

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Yeah, tomorrow is the fourth snow day this build season. Skipped meeting the first two (polar vortex, was right after kickoff anyway). Third, the weather wasn't that bad, so meeting was non-mandatory. Waiting to see what tomorrow is like.

Wish Michigan Tech would close...

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At my school the the robotics team is trusted and we can pretty much do whatever we want so we come in all day :p . So during snow days we keep to the lab and work through the whole day gotta love it :) .

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Well, Schools are closing throughout the Midwest due to the Polar Vortex riding in for another blast. Windchills to -30 coming in the next few days. School in the suburbs has been called off including all activities for tomorrow and Tuesday's status will be determined tomorrow. Snow is due overnight, on top of the 4-6 we have received since Friday. It looks like Chicago Public Schools will also be closed. Tueday temps well below zero with winds over 20 MPH.

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They cancelled school fir today and tomorrow. Up to 5 lost days now. Between school closings and back orders from VexPro, this is turning into the build season from hell.

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-2 at my house this morning, with wind chill at -20. This may be the high for today with real temps headed to -19 overnight.

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School was cancelled for us today as well (fourth time this season!). However, one of our captains wrote an empassioned plea to the school board and got permission for the team to meet anyway, mostly using the logic that students won't be standing out for a bus - they'll be driven in by their parents. Usually we meet for 2 hours on week days... Today it's closer to 6!

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When school is canceled, we normally still have robotics, unless it's like, snowpocolypse or something. We haven't had many snow days because of snow, we had most due to wind chill. Most of us just brave it out and go to robotics even if school is closed. I mean, its not like we meet outside or anything...

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You're lucky. Most schools have a policy of not allowing after-school activities on the days that are cancelled. We're cancelled again today, and likely tomorrow. It's put us back probably a week or so in our schedule and we've got a week one event. We'll just have to work that much harder!

Our side-roads are impassable in places because of the drifting.

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Yeah - us too. We lost the entire first week. The school was closed for snow the first 2 days of week 1, then the negative temperatures caused a pipe to burst which shut the school down for the rest of the week. Between weather and supplier issues we're at least 1.5 weeks behind.

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Same boat here as Chris and Tom. I was hoping we'd have school today here in Jackson county, but at midnight last night we had quite a bit of new snow (guessing 3-4 inches), but lots of wind causing it to drift. Tomorrow doesn't look any better at all for being open. I'm guessing we are a week behind where we should be, but at this time of the season I always say that.... :)

It is frigid out there though. I was up at 5:00 am to snow blow my driveway and the 1/2 mile loop in our neighborhood so my wife could get out to the main road and to work in A^2 (hospitals don't shut down). After being out in that for 2.5 hours, even if I had the opportunity, not sure I would want to ask students or parents to go out into this stuff.

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We are on our 4th day today. This does not count this last Saturday. When the schools are closed here we are not allowed to have meetings. Saturday is when we get the most work done. Three of our other mentors could not make it to a main road. I made it to the school but could not get in the driveway. There was a good 3ft of snow plus drifts. Needless to say we had to cancel Saturday making 5 missed days so far. I suspect schools will also close here on Tuesday due to temps.

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I feel your pain. School isn't cancelled for our team, but the school district cancelled all extracurricular activities due to temperature/wind chill -- despite the fact that we meet indoors. 7 lost days, plus the 2 all-day sessions we would have had on the snow make-up days.

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-20 this morning with windchills -45. We have a 7 foot drift in our front yard from the wind yesterday. Tomorrow morning it is supposed to be -25 or colder for actual temps. Hope we have school...never thought I would say that when it is this cold...

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MechEng83,

(thread hijack ahead)

How are the roads around Indy today? My nephew had his baptism over in Speedway on Sunday, so I drove my family down from Michigan on Saturday and then back on Sunday. I-69 on the Northeast side was bad and so we took 37 into Indy from just south of Marion (we got off the highway to avoid the backups Saturday on I-69) and everything was a pretty good mess on Saturday - lots of hardpack snow that turned to Ice. Not as bad on Sunday, but still pretty bad though.

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Roads where we are (southern Indy) are generally ok. I keep hearing reports it's worse the further north/west you go. Friday night was not fun due to drifts that had accumulated on the roads, but today was clear on my drive to work. To un-hijack the thread, I'll continue to rant how it's not (in my opinion) unsafe to travel, and we should be allowed to meet since it's indoors.

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Last Friday we had a Houston-wide school closing because of extremely low temperatures and a possibility of ice and snow (very rare for Houston). Most schools were closed, and it probably affected a lot of teams. I know our district still held some after-school activities, but because we don't build at the school we ended up being okay.

The downside is that the scheduled make up day replaces a holiday which used to be the day before stop build.

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I always wonder what extremely low temperatures are in a place like Houston.

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Andy, you and your team are welcome to come over to our work shop and bring whatever you need to keep working. We try to meet even when school is closed as long as the parents are comfortable driving the kids. We'll be here until 8 tonight.

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Thanks for the offer. We might take you up on that but I'm hoping we won't need it. School policy lets us meet 1-5 if weather is better, roads are clearer, and the world hasn't ended yet...

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Ok. If you want to go later than 5, come on over. We'll be here until 8.

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Freezing cold here as well, school cancelled so no robotics :(

I guess the only upside to this is that we would have probably spent most of today sitting around waiting for parts anyways.

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About 20 degrees. Very bipolar, 20 one day then 60-70 the next.

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Not to rub it in but since we are associated with 4H and not much with the local high school we can still meet on snow days.
Even though the high school was closed all last week, we were still able to build.
Stay warm and stay safe.

On a differnt note. I was stationed at Kelly AFB in San Antonio for 10 months in 1976. One day it snowed 1 inch and the highway patrol closed the interstates around San Antonio. Since I'm from Indiana and 1 inch of snow is a dusting, I went around the barricades and had the whole interstate to myself :D

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Well, we are 90 miles north of Houston. I lived in PA for 4 years and learned that and cold is a relative term :D

For Houston and counties north our cold was...brace yourselves and don't laugh...@18...yes it is a positive number which is why I said don't laugh. We did get 2in of snow but the problem down here is that people do not know how to drive in it safely and salt? No they use sand down here.

Unfortunately we lost last Friday as well and are looking at maybe losing tomorrow if the current forecast holds up (predicting rain this evening with drastically falling temps and then 2+ inches snow starting around mid-night). So we will see, will this be a first for our east Texas team and lose not just one but two days to SNOW? We will keep you posted!

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High 50s low 60s here in sunny Ga. Probably the warmest day of the year. The weather service has actually suggested that we go buy milk for tomorrow's snow storm. It is fun to watch our northern transplants demonstrating how not to drive on wet snow & ice. :ahh: :)

We have a huge fusion powered snow remover down here. It can take a couple of days to work sometimes, but is cheaper than snow plows for a once in 5 year event.

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We had a 2 hour delay here in Corry PA today. So it started out looking like we were good, but just got a phone call that all after school activities have been canceled. :( Also if tomorrow goes as forecast, it looks like we will be out 2 or 3 days this week. Saturday we ended up putting in more hours than usual because we expected this to happen.

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CPS (Chicago Public Schools) will be closed tomorrow for now the 4th "extreme weather" day this month.

Honestly, this is more days off this month than I had in 12 years as a student going through CPS.

My team meets and builds at the school, considering the school is closed for safety reasons with student traveling to and from in extremely frigid conditions, I'm not sure how our team is going to recover the lost time.

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Its amusing. Generally we only miss days for school due to hurricanes in Baton Rouge, LA. Of course, during Katrina we missed almost two weeks of school so they can make up for snow days. Still, that is only during the fall.

This year, I am looking at having two more snow days between tomorrow and Wednesday. This is beyond the one we had on Friday. Unfortunately, we are in a relatively suburban area and there are a lot of bridges around here that tend to freeze. This will keep us closed.

Just to give an example - there were over 200 traffic accidents on Friday alone with the ice that was on the roads. No salt, only sand. Still my own children (7 and 9yrs) are looking forward to playing in the snow for once in their lives.

Best -
Daniel

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If you don't get enough snow, for your kids, I can ship you some of our snow :D

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Panthrobotics is about 5 miles away from us so the conditions are the same for the BulahBots, no school Tuesday and most likely Wednesday too.
Our coach has communicated to us that we will not meet Tuesday because of weather and driving conditions and that we'll see what happens on Wednesday.
So we'll loose about two days of build at the end of build season:ahh:
....and the pressure sets in.

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I'm going to assume that by the time we get there on March 4, we won't have to worry about being frozen to death. :)

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School and all activities including robotics have just been cancelled for Tuesday as well. Students are to stay home. Even work is telling people to use their judgement and stay home if they can. However, as a broadcast engineer, if I don't come to work, no one can watch TV (Sesame Stree, Clifford and other PBS children's programming.) tomorrow. Leaving the cabinets open tonight so pipes don't freeze.

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The county just cancelled school for our school, so we lost a day of build that we need - and we're so close to stop build, too.
Mother Nature needs to calm down until Feb. 18.

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I wouldn't count on it... It probably won't be -50 windchill, but subzero temperatures at this point I would say are quite likely. Fortunately, if you're staying in any of the downtown hotels in Duluth, you probably won't even have to go outside to get to the venue-- Duluth has a great skyway system.

EDIT:

Also, my school district (ISD 196) has had five cold days this January. I'm pretty sure that that's more days off that we've had over the last three years combined. Ridiculous. Fortunately we're still on schedule...

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We are staying at Spirit Mountain and had planned to spend a day at the Park snow tubing, skiing and zip lining.
Well, maybe not?:ahh:

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Even though we could have met today (we can meet snow days), we cancelled because the weather is in fact bad. It was a good idea, since at ~3pm, I couldn't start my car without jumpstarting. I was out today, since MTU was basically the only UP school open.

Here's what my deck looks like, with snow pressing against the windows. You can have some if you want :p

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We're the same here in Michigan. It was -12 one day and then it was 50 degrees and raining. Now we are back to -4, I miss 20 degrees a little.

Muskegon stopped using salt a while back. The mix we have is only good to 17 degrees. We've been below 17 for so long that they have been doing sand from Lake Michigan beaches to at least give us some grip. I need school to open again. We're not just behind for robotics, I'm going to have a hard time meeting all of my standards for my classes.

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Duluth will definitely still be cold come march, i wouldnt be surprised if its sub zero with windchill, especially if your down by the lake (like where the DECC is) , and not up on the hill (which im assuming where your tubing place is). Just dress in layers and everyone will be fine, will probably be a shock though for a few people how cold it is :P , but the DECC is a great venue so its worth it.

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No...it will probably be at least 30 or 40... Last year we had to stay an extra day in Duluth because of the snow. March isn't our coldest month but it is our snowiest month!

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So Houston gets another citywide school closure tomorrow. Gonna have to see if the districts cancel before or after school activities. KISD didn't last time, but you never know...

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Week 1 events seem like great ideas until you get 4 days locked out during build season like last week. I fear we may lose a couple more. Not cool, weather.

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Well in Dallas it is a 45 degree temperature drop (from 75 sunday afternoon (I wore a t-shirt and shorts yesterday!) to 30 late sunday night.

It rarely gets below 20 degrees (F) here.

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yep same here in Louisiana

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60s yesterday in Columbia, barely out of freezing today with tons of snow expected. Since USC closed today, 4901's out for at least one day.

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Today is the 5th or 6th time my HS district closed schools (been so many times now that I've lost count). Wasn't so bad Days 1-3 of Week 1 because we could just meet at one of the mentor's house and talk strategy/rules/design. But now, all our parts/tools/machines are locked up in the school building.
Not fun when 1/6 of your build season is taken from you.

It's gunna be a tough year for Midwest teams.

It's gotten so bad here that the University of Michigan cancelled classes due to weather for the first time since 1978.

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I swear that we from chicago bring the warm(er) weather with us. The last two years at duluth it's been mid 30s :D

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It's been ridiculous in Michigan with the school closures. Rumor is that the governor is actually going to pardon several of the days because they were statewide closings. That would be great, since I don't want to have our days extended / have to make up the days in the summer.

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I just want to let you know Al, that I convinced people to show up today because Wildstang is probably meeting anyways.

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We were prevented from meeting yesterday and today by school edict. Electrical did a phone conference but everyone stayed at home.

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The snow finally came down and it's about 3 inches with some solid ice underneath. I know the state doesn't have the salt ready for everything that's about to happen. So 4901 might be out several days down here.

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This past week has been the second time we have missed school on Monday and Tuesday. because of that we were not able to meet. To my knowledge this have been the most snow days (4) that my school has missed in a year in our schools 113 year history. Hopefully we won't miss many more because it will really impact our build.

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I think we're going to be allowed to meet today!

So far we've lost 6 days due to school closure, 1 additional day because of extracurricular activity cancellation, and 1 Sunday because I actually made the call that it was unsafe to go out (foot of snow the day after kickoff).

With the amount of school closures, it'll be interesting to see how all the teams fare at our regionals. We're attending week 4 and week 6 events, so I suspect it will have less impact on those competitions compared to week 1 and 2 events.