Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace (Post 1347605)

All I want is time to make up for what was lost due to being locked out of my team's shop due to uncontrollable weather issues. 7 days of Build Season lost. I don't want 7 days time worth, just enough to test our chassis. Sure, we can withhold 45 lbs, but we didn't have time to test our drive-train before bagging it. And the west-coast teams got at least 3 extra hours during Build Season. With those three hours we may have been able to test the programming.

How about people who couldn't submit Dean's List get an extra three hours to submit their essays, and people who lost valuable time on their robot because of snow days get an extra three hours to work on their robots?

Originally Posted by Madison (Post 1347633)

Maintaining server uptime is a solved problem. Controlling the weather is not. I'm not sure how the two are equivalent and this comparison is a bit ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace (Post 1347605)

All I want is time to make up for what was lost due to being locked out of my team's shop due to uncontrollable weather issues. 7 days of Build Season lost. I don't want 7 days time worth, just enough to test our chassis. Sure, we can withhold 45 lbs, but we didn't have time to test our drive-train before bagging it. And the west-coast teams got at least 3 extra hours during Build Season. With those three hours we may have been able to test the programming.

How about people who couldn't submit Dean's List get an extra three hours to submit their essays, and people who lost valuable time on their robot because of snow days get an extra three hours to work on their robots?

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace (Post 1347605)

All I want is time to make up for what was lost due to being locked out of my team's shop due to uncontrollable weather issues. 7 days of Build Season lost. I don't want 7 days time worth, just enough to test our chassis. Sure, we can withhold 45 lbs, but we didn't have time to test our drive-train before bagging it. And the west-coast teams got at least 3 extra hours during Build Season. With those three hours we may have been able to test the programming.

How about people who couldn't submit Dean's List get an extra three hours to submit their essays, and people who lost valuable time on their robot because of snow days get an extra three hours to work on their robots?

Originally Posted by mathking (Post 1347630)

I would love for FIRST to pursue some simple technical solutions. Perhaps you can save and if the system is down the saved essay would be submitted. This would make me feel a lot better about starting ahead of time, as it would be possible to update with good things without running the risk of timing out in submission.

Originally Posted by Bob Steele (Post 1347635)

How would you have felt if your weather conditions closed the school on Tuesday and you could not have put your robot in the bag and FIRST told you you could not compete? It is a deadline after all...

These teams were ready to submit... it was not a matter of needing extra time to finish the submissions.... this ball was dropped by FIRST....

Originally Posted by Taylor (Post 1347634)

So is the assertion that expecting a professional to function before 10a is preposterous.

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace (Post 1347641)

IF the system had STAYED crashed through Noon Eastern time and never came back up before the deadline passed, THEN I would call foul by FIRST.

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux (Post 1347649)

I believe this was the case for our team. We attempted to submit with 20 minutes remaining and the website wasn't accepting it. We e-mailed FIRST the entry and hope to hear a reply soon. Technically we were done prior to the deadline and the website didn't accept our entry.

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace (Post 1347641)

There was plenty of time to submit. The site came back up with at least 3 hours to spare. It wasn't convenient. It probably was a pain in the butt for people who did set alarms for 5:00 AM, BUT it was possible.

IF the system had STAYED crashed through Noon Eastern time and never came back up before the deadline passed, THEN I would call foul by FIRST.

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace (Post 1347651)

That could be a possible issue. What day/time did your team attempt to submit?
According to this thread, the site was back up as of 8:36 AM Eastern time.

Originally Posted by Nirvash (Post 1347655)

So, your school is closed due to weather the day of bag day, no one can get in to bag the robot and if you don't bag by 11:59pm you can not compete. But then in the last few hours of the day, the school updates their website and says, sure you can come in.
Is that reasonable?

Originally Posted by mathking (Post 1347630)

I would love for FIRST to pursue some simple technical solutions. Perhaps you can save and if the system is down the saved essay would be submitted. This would make me feel a lot better about starting ahead of time, as it would be possible to update with good things without running the risk of timing out in submission.

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace (Post 1347532)

The system definitely needs work. That's undeniable. I agree.

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux (Post 1347656)

We tried around 10:40 AM CST. I just found out that FIRST also did not accept our appeal. It would be one thing if we were past the deadline to submit the entry, but technically it was before noon EST and the failure was on their end. I guess next year we'll make sure not to include some of the build season successes of our students and submit much earlier. Thanks FIRST!