Snow days
 

Our team in Northern Michigan, much like many other teams this year, has had an unusual number of school closings due to weather. I was just curious how this effected your teams' build season. Our team meets each evening from 630-830 and on Saturdays. For us, if school is canceled, Robotics is canceled and we don't meet. In total, we lost an entire week of building because of snow days including the final evening for bag and tag. Ouch! How do other teams handle things like this?

Re: Snow days
 

We're just out side of Detroit, and if school is closed we still have robotics at 3 until around 9 every night during the robotics season. A few important mentors had a funeral in another state they had too attend sunday and monday before the bag and tag day, that seemed to set us back more than the weather this year!

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For the first time of my years in FIRST we lost a week of build as well due to snow days. It was a huge blow to lose the last day as well but we will manage. We have to really utilize our 6 hours before Week 2 well.

We tried to make up time by making more and longer meetings. We did not end up making up for all the lost time but that is even more motivation to work harder in competition season.

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Now I feel really bad about all the times I complained about not having a snow day. :o

There's been quite a few times in the past few years that literally every district and private school surrounding Bloomington, MN has had a snow day or late start and we haven't. In January we might have had a snow day - if the blizzard hadn't happened during the 4-day weekend. :p

This is a big point though. Losing time like that can really hurt. Most of where we lose time is from people being out sick - various illnesses can catch like wildfire, and if you miss school, you can't be in an activity, even if you feel better. Plus a lot of our kids take classes at local colleges, so even with our team of about 20, many nights and weekends we had numbers under 10.

Better luck next year, I guess! Minnesota weather is bipolar, so this is one of the snowiest winters we've had in recent years. Last year, it looked like soggy November most of the time. Really sucks when the weather affects robotics. :(

Maybe someday, one of the geniuses in FIRST will invent a weather machine so that it's always 65 degrees and mostly sunny with a cool breeze whenever anything having to do with robotics is going on. :D

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We're in Houghton, MI, and if school is canceled but it is safe to drive, the meeting is optional but will still be held.

Though, I guess if a school disallowed meetings, that would be a different story.

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We just assume we are going to lose 3-5 days each build season due to snow and ice. Because of the number of elementary, middle, and high schools in the district, each with different start times, it's very difficult for the district to have a delayed start or early dismissal, as each school bus runs two or three different routes. So while all the surrounding districts may have a two hour delay, we just end up cancelled. Which means even if the roads are fine after lunch, all after school activities are also cancelled.

So we just plan for having less than the full time to build, and deal with it. Plus we lose almost a full week every year due to finals, as we do not work the weekend before finals or the Monday-Wednesday of that week. Finals end on Thursday and we resume working that night. So we effectively plan for a 5 week build season. The team tries to have parts that require outside fabrication designed before finals, so that we can get that done and have them back when we resume work.

Re: Snow days
 

What is this "snow" you refer to?
:cool:

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We only ended up with 1 snow day. We don't meet every day and I can honestly say that after doing build season differently, less is more. Having a couple of days off a week didn't change the amount of work that was done in total. It did change the amount of youtube watching and just sitting around chatting by the team. People came in and worked. I was very pleased. It also allowed for orders for parts to be placed and time for those parts to arrive. We spent almost every day working the last week, but doesn't everyone? A snow day then would have hurt.

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Something like very cold, wet volcanic ash.

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Out here in Flagstaff, Arizona we ended up with only two snow days this year. We usually work, as long as conditions are not totally horrible. A few years ago we lost a whole week to snow because the weather was so bad.

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Our title sponsor who supplies us with our build area, equipment and much of our materials is a Snowmobile and Powersports Repair shop www.jtsnowmobile.com. Getting around in the snow is never an issue. A snow day for us means the team can build all day at the shop! Many of the kids have their own sleds (kids as young as 12 yrs old can get an operator's permit) that they ride to school every day which makes finding rides that much easier.

Go ahead nature - do your worst!

Re: Snow days
 

Until several years ago, a snow day at the high school meant bonus work time at the TechnoKats shop. Now, the rule about not having extracurricular activities if school is cancelled due to weather is strictly enforced.

Fortunately, that didn't cut into the team's work time this year.

Re: Snow days
 

We were fortunate to only have 2 snow days and enough parents and more experienced student drivers with big cars(benifits of Michigan is snow really doesn't bother a lot of people. I actually enjoy driving on and in it) but we made those optional meetings. Seemed to work well enough no accidents this year to my knowledge in transit to and from build space!

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We lost some days due to weather as well. Add to that not being able to work late most of the time (working past 8PM is an almost impossibility in our school - security has to be around if the building is occupied, and we share space with 3 other schools, so the principal of our school really has no control over what happens in the building), and you have a really compressed build season.

Fortunately our team captain graduated early, so during most of build season he was able to come all day and work on stuff. Sort of a double-edged sword though - he's the only one that knows a lot of stuff (including the mentors - look at my rookie year :D), so I'm really scared for what happens to the program next year. He's said he'll come back when he can, but it's the "when he can" part that scares me :)

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Alright everyone, welcome to Canda! This thread is officially closed. Done. I don't think anyone can top "our team is sponsored by a snowmobile company and most of our team rides them to school"

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In the past we had entire week lost to snow. This year we had an almost perfect snowday - It occurred today! A day to recoup, had it been on Wed. instead of Thursday it would have been perfect.

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Y'all are lucky. I think I can count on one hand how many times its been below 40 this year in Louisiana. Only snow day I've ever had was in 8th grade, for half an inch of snow! Needless to say, a snowball fight was had.

EDIT: At the same time though, we had an entire week off last week for Mardi Gras, and that did mess with out schedule some.

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Make that "the geniuses from FIRST". It could be coming. Next year's FLL challenge is titled "Nature's Fury." We may change global warming to global control any decade now.

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LOL, you win.

We lost 2 days this year due to a blizzard we got a couple of weeks ago - lost all day Friday and all day Saturday - if school is closed then we can't have robotics at night (Even if the roads are ok) and if it's bad weather on the weekend, its our call if we want to have it. However, with Nemo (Also known as the Blizzard of 2013) the whole state was shut down with a driving ban so getting to the school was not an option, LOL.

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Never been to the big island, Cynthia? Mauna Kea is up there in the snow-zone on top of the world's tallest mountain. ;)

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Many teams in Southern New England lost four days to winter storm "Nemo".

This was in the next to last weekend before Bag and Tag, which is typically the most productive. Some teams build space is based in schools, which were shut down due to +2 feet of snow. Friday through Monday.

At the Suffield Shakedown, almost half of the teams did not even show up, including the always competent Aces High, who sponsor the event.

While we have had winter storms affect our build seasons in the past, this was one of the worst.

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Exactly right, and the reason why the Gaelhawks were no-shows at Suffield.

Re: Snow days
 

So do you have surf days down there on the island?

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We do occasionally get sent home for a tsunami warning.

If there were a hurricane we could miss the whole build season, but fortunately it's after hurricane season.

No active volcanoes on our island. Maybe the Big Island has to deal with that.

Basically, though, it's just sunny, mostly sunny or partly sunny, with the occasional shower. It has been cold this winter - down to the lower 60s at night!:eek:

Re: Snow days
 

What Team Paragon didn't know was that the Scrimmage originally had the 30 teams, plus a stand-by list of 16. So that means out of 46 teams, only 14 were able to show up & compete. So that was the impact of Blizzard Nemo here in the N/E. We did manage to complete the robot. I must say, it looks fantastic. If it performs anything like it looks, it should incredible. I hope other teams were able to finish their builds.

Re: Snow days
 

Obviously snow is a natural part of living in the northern states in winter. Here in Michigan we usually handle it pretty well. I was really just curious how other teams handle snow days. When we are not allowed to meet it gets frustrating. Usually we don't have very many snow days and it can be a relief to have one or two. This year just seemed especially icy and therefore, we lost more days. As far as hurricanes and tsunamis go.......I can plow snow......can't move a hurricane. :p

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It's funny you saying that being from Michigan... I graduated from Western (Go Broncos!) back in the day ('02), moving to a school district in Maryland that will close if there is even the slightest hint of sno* in the air. I remember student teaching for several districts in Michigan (Mattawan and Vicksburg) and they wouldn't close for anything (I should have stayed in Michigan). Being the faculty member/coach/advisor for our team in Columbia, Maryland, any time I receive word from the district to not have a meeting after school, or open the building because of sno*, I have to follow district policy... despite if it actually does snow or ice. 95% of the time it does not. 100% of the time it bugs the mentors...

I have seen the liability take effect with other activities that required students to come in, where there were accidents causing blame on the school districts, so there is reason why a lot of the larger districts aim to be safe. Just hope for no snow... Do not allow for students to wear their PJ's inside out... and get as much work done per night as possible!

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For the most part we work all day on snow days. So for use snow days are a blessing of several more hours of build each day. We only got one during the season, but we're up to 4 with all the snow we've gotten the past few days

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So, we already have a build season work session cancelled due to weather. Our local school district, based on a forecast for extreme cold on Monday (4 days from now) is cancelling school and all school activities for Monday.

At least we can plan for it, and are thinking of meeting on Sunday instead, (which is likely to be just as cold, but the district doesn't make rulings for weekend days, as far as I know)

And from what I'm told, if the cold doesn't arrive, they don't have a procedure to reverse their decision.

Re: Snow days
 

As a team that operates out of a Boys and Girls Club, we have some distinct advantages (and some glaring disadvantages) over a team based out of a school when it comes to snow.

One of these advantages made itself apparent at last year's WPI Regional. It snowed from early Thursday morning clear through to extremely late Friday. Most school districts in the area had school cancelled by Wednesday afternoon. This left some other teams participating at WPI in the lurch, while we were able to manage a trip Thursday unimpeded by red tape.

One of our disadvantages, however, is that on snow days, the club closes, and means if we are to have a meeting, team members have to find a way to our club, and that's assuming we feel comfortable meeting on a day like that.

I've dealt with snow in the past with a school team; in high school, I remember one particularly bad season where we lost a day a week on average to snow.

Dealing with snow is a challenge to (FIRST) life in the northern parts of the US and many other countries and areas. Having a successful season is all about overcoming obstacles, and I've come across some harder obstacles than snow.

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Just for my own curiousity, what constitutes "extreme cold" in Minnesota? I've been there for -40 temperatures (up in Bemidji) and things seemed to be running fine.

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I remember back in 2009, Philadelphia schools were closed close to 3 weeks straight because of badly timed snow -> ice cycles. Myself and three other student ended up building the robot, from kitbot, in three days.

It was similar in 2010, but there were a few days in between the three weeks. It wasn't as bad.

Best think to do is to find a place offsite to work. It may be difficult logistically, but it's worth it to get stuff done, especially if there's supposed to be a lot of snow, and if it's back-to-back.

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Depends on the district. There are plenty of places in the state where the phrase "extreme temperatures" doesn't mean anything. Other places have thinner skin (or jackets :P).

Team 2220's school district basically doesn't believe in snow days. Only truly bizarre weather warrants snow days. Snow in January, no way, snow in May, maybe.

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Our snow days always seem to be the days we need most. We usually lose a week. (So jealous of the teams who have such nice weather they can even practice outside). If schools closed, were not allowed by the town. The best you can do on those is CAD.

Im a bit worried this season because we have had alot more snow days than usual at this point.

Re: Snow days
 

You guys are so lucky. At least you get snow :( Our winter is your summer!

Anyways, I'm pretty sure it is based off the rules of the school.

Options:
Work from home, maybe video chats
Day off
Move to Arizona
Find out if you can go to school

However, I don't know if it would even be easy to go to school. There will probably be snow everywhere.

Re: Snow days
 

We're likely to not have school on Monday either. -35 wind chill at 7AM is downright dangerous. I'll most likely be CADing up different robot ideas and making up quizzes on the game manual for my team.

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There are advantages and disadvantages of both hot and cold weather. If it is cold, you can wear more clothing, or even burn some wood (hey, the stuff grows on trees!). But imagine getting several inches of snow, once a week, that you absolutely MUST move off any surfaces you might need (driveway, sidewalk, street). And if you do not move it, that surface cannot be used until March or so. Look up "Sisyphus".

Hot feels nice sometimes, but 120 in the shade is brutal, I don't care if there's no humidity. When your shoe soles start to melt, you are in trouble. When it is real hot, you can remove clothes only to a certain point, and then what?

(I wonder: Do they close schools because it is too hot?)

Re: Snow days
 

Yep. We've had both heat (is that what it's called?) days and snow days.

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I believe we've had school closings due to heat. (not during build season though!)

And meeting offsite on a snow day is not allowed. The point is, it is too 'dangerous' to expect kids to travel. I'd not be surprised if technically, meeting 'online' via Skype or Google hangout is not allowed, given that the district rules were probably written assuming meetings meant travel.

That's why we are meeting on Sunday.

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Yep we have snow days and that's one thing but a whole of exam days.

I would take a snow day now and then but a whole week, oh well we just work around it.

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The TechnoKats have a workshop that isn't part of the school. Years ago, a snow day during build season meant a chance to spend many hours working on the robot. Now, we're kept from doing that by the strictly enforced policy of cancelling all extracurricular activites, on-site and off-site, when school is closed for weather. We will sometimes consider opening up the shop for an unofficial evening work session if the weather improves during the day, but we don't want to put our supportive school in a bad situation in case there's an "incident".

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This happened in your very own state ~2 years ago, Don (and yes, our school's website did say it was due to 'extreme heat'):D

Snow days are always a major inconvenience, but it's an obstacle that you just need to always have a plan for/expect to happen eventually.

I just hope that the snow won't stop FIRST from releasing an encrypted manual tomorrow..

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In New Jersey? OMG.

And nice, getting the school board to bring up the team name like that....:p

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Our team does this as well. Since we don't work at our school, we meet at the shop like it's a Saturday!

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For 4004, we will see how the road are in the afternoon. If the road are decint then we will have an extra long meeting for those who can make it. Mainly it depends on the student's decision.

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For 306 it is rare that Corry schools will close, being in the snow belt of Northwestern Pa we are used to a ton of snow. When they do close, we lose out on a build day because we are not allowed in the school. Then the make up days are days we originally had off which were full build days, so we lose them too. What hurts us the most is when they cancel all after school activities. Every one has to leave the school, thankfully they know we have a tight schedule and they will work around the team and if it isn't to bad leave it up to the activities discretion.

Over they years we have lost up to 2 weeks of build because of it, but it hasn't been that bad in years.

Re: Snow days
 

3314 (Clifton, NJ) has school cancelled on Friday, which makes sense, but they are playing it safe and cancelled all activities for Saturday already. No bus, No kickoff. Kids are going to watch from home and read the rules on Saturday. Adults are still going to NJIT to run kickoff. Oh well. It gives them time to read the rules for Sunday morning.

WHEA on the big island (3881 I think) has wind days because they are outside by the ocean. An amazing school.

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I can count to 31 (32 including zero) on one hand (1023 on 2 hands!)
Thank you binary

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Once we had a snow "week" that was set on the last week of the build season. We ,as many are, were no wear near complete. Our team has a shaky relationship with our school who provides us with our space and we have a set of keys that our mentors carry that allows us to enter into our section which used to be a classroom/shop/cad room (we had 2 rooms separated). So we did the smart thing. We sneaked into the school and worked on the robot. Afterwards our head talked to the principal and told him what we did. Our team-school relationship has been getting better since.

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I applaud your honesty but realistically the schools have very good reason to discourage this. It's a security problem and it does come with actual risk.

It would be better to remove the robot from the school and work on it where the property owner knows what is going on.

I will fully admit that in the distant past I've worked around some issues like this but unlike the situation with the snow it was a political problem. I still feel the goal was to manufacture a failure by shortening the work time arbitrarily or to weaken team members by exhausting our much more limited resources at the time. Whether or not that level of intention and foresight was really involved is subject to interpretation.

These days there is much less risk for this. Several mentors and myself are more than adequately equipped to safely transport the robot and most of the tools offsite. The school has been a great help and if push comes to shove we could load up and roll out. We actually do this for good reason when we transport the robots offsite to our mock field.

I think it's important to recognize that sometimes extraordinary circumstances create extraordinary situations. However I don't want people to think that these deadlines are an excuse to simply ignore the very real concerns of others especially where safety is involved. Then again I should hope that in return for respecting other people's concerns they should respect the often extremely hard work so many people put into FIRST.

Re: Snow days
 

Back in 2010, 449 had to deal with the fabled "Snowmageddon," which dropped about 50 inches of snow in ~4 days on an area that generally averages under 10 inches per year.

We correctly predicted that stuff would be closed for about a week, and hastily put together some contingency plans beforehand. Ultimately, we basically packed up all of our projects and tools, brought them to mentors' houses, and got snowed in there. It was reasonably workable. We kept in skype contact between the various locations.

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It's expected to hit -30° F with -60° F windchill in central Minnesota this Monday. . . I feel like this might affect some build sessions including ours.

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MN Governor has closed all MN public schools on Monday:

http://www.kttc.com/story/24355963/2...dayton-closes-
public-schools-statewide-on-monday

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You're very lucky that situation worked out as well as it did, as opposed to, say, your principal removing your team from the school for breaking into it while it was closed. Not what I would call the "smart thing"...

Now that the entire country is on the bag and tag system, am I the only one that thinks FIRST should be a little more flexible with waivers for snow days? This can be a safety issue, and it's not like the whole build process isn't pretty much on the honor system anyway...

Re: Snow days
 

To a certain point I agree. However I think there should be a cut off. If the total number of days exceeds a certain amount then I think whatever climate related issue caused it is safely a disaster and at that point the people involved might be better off focusing resources on that.

For example if a hurricane blows through and levels the school. I doubt it makes sense to focus on FIRST when everyone's education is laying in the rubble.

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As a HoCo student, snow days really hurt. We already lose a week to midterms, so every year we have to work with a 5 week build season. I know for the 2010 game, RAID lost a week to Snowmageddon much like Blair Robotics did (loved your eat, shooting, and leaving, btw ;) ) in addition to the midterm week we lose. So we had to work with a 4 week build season. That was painful.

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Pretty sure most schools have midterms or first semester final exams in the middle of build season. Most teams in my experience actually work MORE that week, not less, as the students have more time off from classes than usual.

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Minnesota public schools were just shut down for Monday due to the cold. Our team has changed our plans to use the entire day as a work day. Any other Minnesota teams taking advantage of this?

Re: Snow days
 

If that were to happen, then the team should be smart enough to realize this. I don't see why FIRST would have to enforce this, especially by choosing some number of days off from school as a benchmark.



I wouldn't mind this happening (I might be biased), but FIRST would need to make it clear that it only counts as a snow/other day if:
A) School/Extracuriculars are closed on that day in the town where your team meets.
B) The team does not work on any physical part of the robot. Not even one person in his/her garage.

Unfortunately, it would be nearly impossible to stop the team from working on CAD/code, so I would say that you don't get to make up the first 3 snow days to even things out.

Re: Snow days
 

Provided it's safe to travel, we may meet later in the day. If it's -60, we'll probably all just stay home and CAD :P

Re: Snow days
 

rzoeller Minnesota public schools were just shut down for Monday due to the cold. Our team has changed our plans to use the entire day as a work day. Any other Minnesota teams taking advantage of this?

4607 plans to unofficially meet. Just a couple members from the design and strategy teams plan on brainstorming ideas.

Re: Snow days
 

The problem is that HoCo doesn't allow any after school activities during that week, or else we'd get extra work in as well... :/

Re: Snow days
 

To go back to the original topic of the thread, our team usually meets on a snow day. Being from southeastern Michigan (= no lake effect snow), what snow we have typically melts by midday/end of school. Unless it's very icy or the roads are unplowed, we meet. Of course, some student absences are understood, but we always have enough people to keep working.

We have had a "hot day". A few years ago, our air conditioning stopped working and we got sent home. Like most people here are saying, Monday is a different story. We're banking on a "cold day" :rolleyes:

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That's what I plan on doing. -60 degrees is not to be messed with. There's a reason why there isn't school.

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Our superintendent ended up cancelling all activities on Monday... Including robotics. I guess that means we have to prototype at home!

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Michigan will be like MN this weekend with some parts expecting about 12" - 16" snow and 9 below zeroo!

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For those of you who are planning on getting together in MN I would take caution when you plan where to meet.

Temperatures of -30 will be hard on vehicles, lowering battery cranking current as well as making your car stiff and your fluids thicker.

If you venture out with a car on Monday, I would be sure to have a plan ahead of time in case it does not restart after sitting outside in the cold.

Also, be cautious of the potential red tape associated with having a school activity meeting on a day where the governor has ordered no school, even if it is off-campus.

I would be much more inclined to advise teleconferencing via something such as google+ hangouts.

Re: Snow days
 

mine is not a school. and if rode's are that bad I can pick up the team on my sled. small town only 4 team members

Re: Snow days
 

I don't know how many other teams are in situations such as ours, but our team doesn't start physically meeting until next weekendish/Monday, as school (academy) starts back with college.

I say build it into your schedule. Add a day or 2 of padding for hard stop days to accommodate it.

Re: Snow days
 

I think that our team hopes for snow days during build season. About half of our team is within easy walking distance if conditions are terrible for driving, and that gives us a 12 hour workday rather than 5. Kansas weather now is notorious for ice, meaning that the school is forced to cancel school, since about a third of the students live out in the country. Last year, we had a week straight of snow days. There was a lot of work done in that time.:D

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Our school does not allow the mentors to schedule meetings when school has been canceled. Though the students are free to get together on their own, the mentors cannot tell them to show up anywhere.

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Usually, if school is closed then we cannot meet at the school. Today, for instance, we had a snow day and our 6:00-9:00 meeting was canceled. Tomorrow will probably be canceled as well. This is not the way I wanted to start the build season.::ouch::

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Better in week 1 than in week 6.

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This is very true.

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Our county just announced the next two days will be 2 hour delay days, because of very cold morning temperatures. How awesome is that? Prototyping later in the evening, 'cause the kids now get to sleep in for two more hours!

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I wish my school district would only delay school instead of canceling it. Like another said, at least this is only week 1 and not the end of week 6. ;)

Re: Snow days
 

This system works well for us considering we live in Minnesota and there are sure to be more snow days on the way.

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Even in the deep south (Alabama), we were shut down due to the weather.

Re: Snow days
 

We were too :(

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It's going to be a balmy 30ish degrees here in west Texas tomorrow, so school will proceed as normal.

Re: Snow days
 

We wanted to have an 8+ hour meeting today, but the huge amounts of snow made it so that not eve the janitors could get into the building. We do have approval though, that as long as there are janitors, we can be at the school building. Tomorrow we are hoping they can make it in (they are usually told to come in on snow days, unless the weather is REALLY bad), so that we can have a long meeting.

On the plus side, it gave me time to finish chassis and electronic board CAD :D .

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On snow days, our mentor has to contact the administrators to see if we're allowed to meet later in the day, unfortunately we weren't today, fingers crossed for tomorrow.

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Yep. Here in Georgia, school is closed tomorrow. "Too cold" crap. No robotics.

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No meetings for us today or tomorrow due to the snow & -23 degree wind chill here in the St. Louis area. Better to happen now than week 5 or 6 though I suppose.

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My team is from Connecticut. We have this very unfortunate situation this evening involving the fact that all day today it's been over 50 degrees and raining steadily... and tomorrow the absolute high temperature is 15 degrees. The temperature drop and flash freezing starts tonight.

The snow days and mass cancellations of after-school activities have already cut out tonight's 6:30-9:00 meeting, and if we lose tomorrow's school day, which it's likely that we will, that's another one out the window.

Our team likes to treat snow days as "No school? Let's treat it like a Saturday!" (on Saturdays during build we meet from 8:00 am - 5:00 pm), but it's a little different when the roads are coated in ice. :(

Re: Snow days
 

Just something to think about:

With bad weather, closed schools and limited resources...

FIRST teams might want to consider ways to communicate that reduce travel and team practices that are practical in the event we have more bad weather like this as an example.

In the grander scheme if for no other reason then perhaps to tap mentoring and knowledge from more remote people that might be just too far away.

More and more businesses in the professional world are working remotely.
People make stuff in China all the time and clearly they all don't go to China to do it.

Re: Snow days
 

We're losing at least 3 days at the beginning of build season (yesterday, today, and tomorrow) so far, plus the makeup days where we usually meet all day, including the day before bag day.

On the communication front, I had a nice long meeting with my engineering captain this afternoon by Skype. We got a lot accomplished, though certainly not as much as if we were able to meet in person.

Re: Snow days
 

Since people usually overreact to "cold weather" in Louisiana [its 34 here]...schools have been delayed and even cancelled around Baton Rouge. Thankfully, our school is smarter and instead of delaying, they're letting us wear jeans instead of the uniform shorts/skirts.

Re: Snow days
 

You all are more than welcome to come to Israel. It's going to be a cozy high of 68 degrees, with lows in the lower 50's....

Seriously though, stay safe everyone :) The weather sounds horrible

Re: Snow days
 

Our school cancelled after school activities today due to bad roads, so myself and a few other team members had a google hangout to discuss designs and the game itself. It was much more helpful than not communicating with each other at all.
This type of build season with lots of cancellations is nothing new for us New Englanders.

Re: Snow days
 

Day 4 of cancelled meetings. The team leaders are having skype discussions and working on CAD, essays, and scouting from home. It's a good thing these technologies exist.

Maybe this is a blessing in disguise in that it forces the team to do CAD before building anything...

Re: Snow days
 

Being one of Indiana, we have had to do the same thing. We have a robot plan... now we just need to get to building. School is out for tomorrow... hopefully we get some work in on Friday?

At this point we just have to hope that they don't keep us from out work during the weekend. That's all that the school board, and the snow, can't touch.

Re: Snow days
 

For folks in Indiana and surrounding states.....a few suggestions.

We have had great success this week with discussion using Google Docs. We have been able to discuss strategy, sub-system specs, and other topics.

We have also viewed Inventor images using join.me which allows a user to display their computer screen to others with an additional chat window available for discussion. This requires a free download for the host all others just use a code to access the meeting.

Re: Snow days
 

We haven't had any snow days this season, but we are still affected by all this, we have not yet received our kit of parts... Are there a lot of other teams that don't have their's yet?

Re: Snow days
 

We've been fortunate enough to avoid an outright ban on school meetings on every day except Monday, given that windchill was -50 earlier this week in our area.

As always, "the show must go on." Snow days are just another challenge of build season. Personally, I've been happy that it's encouraged a lot of healthy discussion and meetings outside of scheduled times more common. There's no way to get people to work on the robot than telling them that they can't work on the robot.

Re: Snow days
 

I have students WISHING they had school, so we could meet. :confused: How awesome is FRC that it makes students wish there was school? ;)

Re: Snow days
 

Solution: Move to the sunny California Bay Area or Central Valley! Solano County and surrounding counties have been in quite an anomalous drought this year. I can only remember having two rain days since September 2013, and usually it rains almost every day here once October comes around, and then is on and off between March and June. The hills here in Vacaville are still brown from the summer. They're usually green this time of year.

It would be cool to have snow here, but I understand how difficult it is to try to have a consistent build season in snowy conditions, and I am not wishing for that. I feel at an unfair advantage being in an area with no snow (and no rain for the moment). It might be more fair to have build season in the spring but that may not happen in the near future. Props to all the teams who have to deal with snow and all other forms of frozen water from the sky!

Re: Snow days
 

Is there any chance that FIRST would postpone the deadline for teams that have experienced these snowdays? Our winter break has essentially been extended by 4 days with these snowdays, which while restful, has KILLED our build season.

Re: Snow days
 

Not a chance. Such is FIRST (life, too?).

Re: Snow days
 

Not likely. And as one of the affected teams, I wouldn't expect them to. This is one of those things that teams should plan around. This is why having a business plan with contingencies comes in handy.