POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

I think we've seen some fantastic discussion in the Six Week Build Season thread that Mr. Bill started: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hreadid=139373

I like data. I thought a poll as a supplement to that thread would be nice.

What do you think? Should we change the nature of the Build Season?

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

I'm not seeing a poll option.

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

You should create an option for 'Study the problem further'.

Cause my vote for 'Tools down after a certain date' ignores that I'd still like teams to have FRC style robots of some sort to learn with year round.

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

I voted "keep it just like it is" but I'd support having more unbag time (~6hrs every week) as was suggested here.

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

I wonder how representative this poll could be among all teams? My guess is that teams that build a practice bot now will be over represented...just because the teams that put in a lot of extra time doing stuff like that, also happen to put in extra time on CD.

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

I put it at least 40+ hours a week kickoff through championships, probably still will if bag day was to be taken away.

The true benefit I see to getting rid of bag/pause build day is the cost savings to my team. We will no longer need to build 2 robots, HUGE cost savings to a team with the resources we have, our sponsors would definitely love us more as we wouldn't be begging as much for quick turn around and such as well.

The added benefit should be an increase in competitiveness as now every team will have a practice robot. A well driven "lower-tier" robot will beat a poorly driven "upper-tier" robot ever single time. I cannot count how many times I have seen this posted in these forums "the thing that pushed our team over the edge was when we started building a practice bot"

There are lots of things that go into the elite teams being elite but the single greatest thing that those teams have is stick time. You look at the teams that are on Einstein nearly every year and the one thing they will all have in common is at least 3X more drive time than other teams.

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

The third option is not enforceable.

I voted remove all restrictions, but giving 6hr/week unbag would be a good compromise. Especially so for those poor regional teams who get NO unbag time. :eek: :eek: :eek:

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

The third option is just as enforceable as many other rules we have within this competition. There are myriad ways to cheat, but the ethos of the competition keep people in bounds.

FRC relies on the honor system already.

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

If this were to be the case, we could keep the playing field level for teams who have to ship their robots to competitions by allowing them to displace their unbag hours from the weeks their robot will be shipping to earlier (or later) weeks in the season.

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

No fourth option "Increase build season from 6 weeks to 8 weeks"?

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

That isn't an option. You cannot shift the competition season to the right 2 weeks and you cannot shift kickoff to the left 2 weeks.

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

If build season doesnt move back to Winter Break in December, then your suggestion might as well be part of the getting rid of the 6 week build season.
According to the schedule, Week 1/2 and Week 1 events would be playing already.

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

Sure, but it creates a huge gray area.

Is CAD part of "tools down"? Is it illegal to design a COTS mechanism to bring to an event to assemble there?

What about driver practice? I think it's reasonable to assume that practicing driving base with an old robot is okay, but what about modifying your 2008 mechanism to practice operating your 2014 robot?

Unless you deincentivize winning (#2Champz), teams are going to toe the line as closely as they can, which would be against the spirit of creating a rule like this.


Aside from the gray area, this also removes what I think is one of the best teaching opportunities for teams (which, John, I'm sure you'll agree with). Practice robots and unbag are one of the best times to learn from your mistakes and iterate.

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

Move both ways. A week back into December and delay the competitions by 1 week.

Is there some reason we can't delay the competitions at all?

Re: POLL: Six Week Build Season
 

Neither of those proposals is a good solution.

FIRST has openly stated they will not expand into May, because AP testing (and finals for some schools).

They are never going to move left into December, because absolutely nothing gets done the last 1-2 weeks of December in the professional world. Tons of suppliers are closed. People are on vacation. If they're not on vacation, they want to be with their families. This is a total nonstarter.