Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

This is definitely the first that I've heard of this. All that I've read so far is that TIMS was down during the night and came back on sometime between 7:30-8:30 AM Eastern time. My understanding (and what my reasoning was based on) was that there was a solid 3-4 hour window when it was working, not that it was spotty during that time.

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

Our coach tried to turn them in at 7:40ish PST but the system refused to log them in, so that's why we couldn't get ours in.

When we initially contacted FIRST, they were considering an extension, but then later emailed us that they would not be extending the nominations.

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

Has everyone checked to make sure their submissions are still in as checked? I submitted ours on Tuesday during a down time before bag-n-tag. Put in a Robot picture and robot name. Was all set.
I went in shortly after noon on Thursday and my check-marks were gone. I immediately contacted FIRST and was told to e-mail FRC teams support. I was then told that my submission was not complete. I called again today and was told that the essay was there, pictures were there but an event was not selected and a grade was left out (I may have missed that one on the 2nd essay)? Do I have to keep selecting an event every time I make changes? This was one of the first things I did. Everything else stayed selected, student info, essay, pictures? This really wasn't that difficult. Like the rest of the prepared people I had it all in early, just Tuesday early for the 2nd essay. But early.
I have contacted FIRST again. It seems a bit uninspiring to not give kids the chance at this award because of issues on their end.

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

If I were a volunteer for FIRST reading essays for submissions like Deans list or Woddie Flowers I wouldn't be upset at the fact that I had to read a couple more inspiring essays to be able to choose the best of the best in FIRST. These students deserve a chance at being recognized for the hard work they do to make FIRST loud and it's sad that we aren't going to see these student rise to the top with the rest of the submissions because of a crashed server and "upset evaluators". All teams wanted was a small window to submit essays, not an extension to be able to polish essays. I really hope FIRST makes things right, if not this year, at least for next year.

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

Huh? I'm not sure why FIRST is taking this position this year?

In 2012 the morning of the deadline TIMS was down, couldn't submit Dean's List nomination. I called FIRST and they acknowledged the problem and told me to email them the submission _before_ the time deadline and they would take that as our official entry.

IT WORKED, because our nominated student WON Dean's List Finalist at Alamo Regional.

Can't help but wonder if there's a student(s) locked-out from consideration that would have won had the exception been made in 2014 like it was in 2012...

--Michael Blake

EDIT: I believe later that day, they extended the deadline (using TIMS for submission) after receiving many emailed entries.

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

Woah, low blow. Some of us don't function too hot before certain hours for a variety of reasons. I don't know Madison's exact scenario (and I frankly don't think it's relevant here) but I know there've been plenty of times I've not been functional before 10am due to work reasons. When you are up until 4am babysitting a server expecting you to be functional the next day is preposterous.

So, as a professional who doesn't function before 10 am frequently - a 9-5 job isn't what makes you professional, doing your dang job is. And the idea that we have to work on someone else' schedule is ridiculously narrow minded.

Mike, I expected better than this from you.

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

Its clear to me that FIRST is using the same server as Obama Care.
But look at the bright side we can bring 15 extra pounds of prebuilt stuff because of some chilly weather. How much graciousness and professionalism do you expect? (sarcasm if you didn't know)

Granted we had plenty of time to submit but as mentor we have jobs, family's, bills to pay, kids to evaluate for this award, robots to build, just a crap ton of things to deal with. Our team gave every child the opportunity to be nominated by waiting till a week before the dead line. We did get them in on time but I truly think that FIRST should make this good. We do this as volunteers and this is one of the single greatest ways we can show our kids and FIRST we notice the sacrifices, hard work and dedication they gave to the team. If this happened to us I would be heart broken and cry and so would our kids.
Bad form FIRST.:(

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

How sad.

Not all people can take time off of work to keep checking if the site is back up.
It seems like FIRST is forgetting that the people trying to submit are volunteers. They have spent a lot of their time writing the best essays they can and trying and retrying to upload their essays. I know if I treated my volunteers like that, I wouldn't get others eager to help.

Others have mentioned that people should know that the site goes down during submission times. I'm not sure that everyone would be aware of that. I do think that if it has been such a problem in the past, that FIRST should have also known that and had someone watching out for the situation.

I do agree that deadlines should not be taking lightly, but I think this deserved a different outcome.

Just my .02

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

I can't speak to others, but for me I hit submit in the morning, maybe 9:30ish (the system was back up and running) and it timed out. Didn't get another break to try again. One of those days.

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

I don't think this is fair. Yes, many people who read Chief Delphi and have been in FIRST for a long time are well aware of FIRST's past server issues, however there are many more that are blissfully unaware. That second group would have no reason to think they needed to submit days in advance just to be safe. (Full Disclosure, we submitted ours on Tuesday evening, partly because we were nervous about past server issues.)

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

"You had since November" is a pathetic excuse. So we're supposed to have written a Dean's List entry for a junior based on one or two build seasons? We're supposed to just assume that the servers will go down and do it early?

FIRST has decided an arbitrary deadline is more important than honoring deserving students. Students are getting shut out of awards because of THEIR mistake, and they somehow twist logic in a way to blame it on us?

It's inexcusable to not at least extend the deadline by, say, half a day or so. I'd love to hear what is so excruciatingly crucial about the time they picked that they are unwilling to budge even in the face of their own mistake in the last 24 hours the award could be submitted. Unacceptable.

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

Looks like FIRST wasn't feeding the interns enough so they stopped peddling to power the toaster-server.

I guess we could use the defense of FIRST sites going down before in crunch... the most similar example being 2012 STIMS submission deadlines... except that deadline was extended by, I believe a full day (or maybe even 36 hours?)

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

We are talking about volunteer mentors nominating outstanding students for recognition. Not accepting a late submission because of a server issue sends the message that FIRST doesn't value mentors' time.

If the issue is that week 1 events won't have time to read all the entries if the deadline is extended, I will gladly personally review as many as I need to this or next weekend, and I'm sure others will help as well.

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

Earlier I posted in here, and got kind of a negative response. My first post was a bit rude, so I feel like I should explain why I was a little upset. A mentor on our team was going to submit, but when he couldn't get on to TIMS, he gave up. Later than night (while I was sleeping), he gave me a phone call saying TIMS was back up. But, the mentor didn't have a copy of the submission at his house. So, I got in the car, and started driving to the office that holds the key for our build space. I was told we couldn't get into the space late at night, but I headed down there anyway, where I found that the janitor happened to be doing a late night cleaning of the nearby offices, who could let us in.

I wasn't really happy to miss most of my sleep that night and instead spend about two hours driving around to grab the submission to submit it. I feel like FIRST has this thing where they expect all teams to be always checking the website, which isn't always super reasonable. Most of us do other things besides first.

Re: TIMS Down - 2/19/14
 

Just wanted to post an update. We appealed FIRST's decision and they accepted our Dean's List submission for the St. Louis regional. Thank you FIRST!