[FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

8/26/16 FRC Blog Post

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Can everyone here please, please, please make an effort in February to ensure every team in their state actually knows what time stop build is for them? 11PM Central, 10 Mountain, 9 Pacific... I would hate to be an LRI in California that has to tell a team "No, you worked for an extra 3 hours past stop build..." at an event!

And also please be gentle with your LRI's if you attend an event in a different timezone than you build in! I can only imagine the confusion at events with teams from two timezones (or more!) as the inspectors try to figure out if everyone bagged up on time!

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Can we not just define everything in UTC/Zulu? For a global competition, it seems to be the natural choice.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

While I think the bag day change is a solution to a problem that doesn't need solving (drop the bag), it is an improvement none-the-less.

I am looking forward to the extra sleep, being out in CA :)

-Mike

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

This change does make things a little more fair. A little more confusing, as well, but I think we'll be able to handle it. Just be sure the time and time zone are included in any mention of Stop Build Day in the manual, press releases, etc; combined with other reminders, and we'll be fine.

I guess this also means Stop Build Day is confirmed for 2017, but that's not really a surprise :/

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Frank has been on a raft of good and useful posts as of late.

I feel the timezone change *really* should have been a while ago. However, it's going to be hectic at events that teams from different timezones attend. Best of luck to the volunteers! :P

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Why not make it midnight Hawaii time instead? So Hawaii teams don't have to stop at 7pm?

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Not sure the best way to get the feedback to FIRST, but if they weren't already, would be a good thing to call out specifically in the kickoff video... as well as a nice bold box where appropriate in the rules.

We'll make sure to mention it to the teams at the kickoff we run though.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

FIRST HQ is in EST, so that seems the logical choice. Also, EST probably has the most amount of teams (with GA, NE, MAR, NC, Ontario, MI, etc. there). Makes it easier on a larger amount of teams. Also, instead of Hawaii teams working only until 7 pm, the other solution would be to have East Coast teams working until 5 am.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

I think that was the rule before, but because the globe got kickoff at the same time, Hawaii was able to get basically 20 hours of extra work time. It makes more sense to have it this way so that all teams stop at the same time.

This should make a lot of people's lives easier. Stopping at 9:00 in CA will be a welcome change for many.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

What does it matter? FIRST is now a global competition. You're going to have inconvenient times no matter which timezone you choose.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Yeah seriously, if I were in the West Coast right now, I would just be thankful I got to go to bed at a reasonable hour on Stop Build Day.

Stop Build ending at midnight EST makes sense, because Start Build is more or less noon EST.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Three words:

Thank you FIRST!

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

This is the end of 359 dominating the competition they go to. Australia is finally going to beat Hawaii.

[/sarcasm]

Seems like a positive change. Not a big deal for us in the east coast but I'm happy to see our friends down south gaining some more work time.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

This will make the UP of Michigan events fun: there are 5 Michigan teams in the Central Time Zone.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

To be clear here, Hawaii got 20 hours more than the teams in Sydney, AUS. Not 20 hours more than most of the US.

Up until recently, it was +/- a few hours for most teams. Hawaii got 6 more hours than the east coast teams, Israeli teams got 10 fewer hours, but the vast majority of teams are pretty close. With FRC expanding rapidly globally with Australia and now China hosting regionals, in addition to Israel expanding, it's only natural to make this change. Yes it may end at an inconvenient time for some teams. Kickoff is also at an inconvenient time for some teams. In the end, everyone gets the same amount of calendar time, which means everyone should have roughly the same amount of "reasonable time" working hours.

This is a good change.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Actually it was 5 hours difference from the East Coast and 2 hours difference from you folks on the West Coast.:)
Its been awhile since we ever finished late on a Tuesday since during most seasons, our robot was being shipped out that day or the next. We do a lot of Week 1 events.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

I feel like this was a made up problem. International teams traveling are already at an inconvenience having to ship out early and things like Glen just said (I know Hawaii isn't international). Most of the other teams are competing with people from their timezone or very near it anyway for their regionals and by championships a few hours probably doesn't matter anyway. I don't know of any team that uses every hour of build season, if you want an extra few hours, show up earlier or stay later through out the season. Many can't fully utilize the "extra" build time they did have since it was so early in the morning on kickoff anyway or will now be late at night/morning on bag day.

Teams that compete at more events have more time with their robot and teams with practice robots have more time as well. We are trying to make an unfair system appear more fair but with very little actual consequence. Why? Let's get rid of Stop Build already and actually start to see improvements.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

[emphasis mine] This was my initial reaction. I suspect that despite the wording of the blog, this change is more about giving Israeli district teams more time rather than addressing some kind of unfairness with Hawaii. International teams have enough extra struggles that time zones pale in comparison.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Thank you FIRST for not extending Stop Build Time to 4AM CST so I can get some sleep for the first time in over 6 weeks.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Ditto.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Midnight EST is 7AM the following morning in Israel So sure, they get an extra 7 hours... but do you really think many of them are going to be working during that time? I know if my team was given those extra 7 hours, they would be wasted, as the mentors, parents, and school administration would want the kids to get some sleep on a school night!

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Please, Frank, read this and do it. Just say it's 05:00 Wednesday February 22, 2017 UTC. Define it against an unambiguous internationally defined time.

Also, isn't "midnight Tuesday" actually the first minute of Tuesday? I've always thought of Stop Build Day in terms of 11:59pm that day.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Bah. Under the "old" method, stop build was whatever time you managed to get FedEx to show up. Ehh, maybe a few minutes earlier than that, just so the robot was secured and the box shut up when the truck got there. And then you'd look and see what other team's crates were already in the truck.

As my daughter said, "We used to shut the robot up in a box and send it away from home. Now we just suffocate it."

Exiting curmudgeon mode (as much as possible for myself) ...

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

I don't expect these extra or lesser hours to be used any more than late-night stop build hours are already used; I doubt that anyone does. That doesn't mean the rule itself is ill-suited.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

See I thought it was 2 hours, and then I Googled "time in Hawaii" and it's 3 hours behind us...and I forgot to factor in that you don't do the daylight savings time so it's shifted during build season.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

This is the best line in all the posts!!!

Oh yes, the race to build / assemble a crate as the robot team races to finish the robot. Many 11PM's of "is the paint dry Murph, can we put the crate together?"

I'd like to propose 5PM as the stop build time in your local timezone. With all the teams that then come in with entire robots as part of their allowance, I don't think it's a big deal +/- 12. But being a global person and understanding that parts supplies to a chunk of the world is hard, I'll propose:

Suffocate your robot at 5PM local time at yyy days after kickoff. Starting with EST as hour zero, adjust your time from there. Teams, east of the international date line, this would be the same day, teams west, this would be Wednesday.

Go teams!

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Agreed. Seems like us on the West Coast got a sweet spot with this timing ;)

As already mentioned before me, dropping the bag is the solution to the bigger picture.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

I agree that it tries to make an unfair system appear more fair, but in actuality, it makes it more unfair. Time on stop build day is much more valuable for the majority of teams, compared to any other time in build season. Under the old system, teams get more or less time on kickoff day, but the same amount of time on stop build day. Under the new system, teams that get more time on kickoff get less time on stop build day, which is not even close to an even trade.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Frank is messing with you. Bag and tag is being eliminated for 2017 in honor of the first water game.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Shh!!! Don't say things like that. It makes the natives restless in these woods.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

WHAT!?!?! I heard that it was mandatory, with a watertight seal on the bag, grounds of needing to keep most of the robot dry!




:p

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

In this thread: Non-International Teams saying a rule designed to help International Teams is "a solution to a non-problem".

Put it any way you want, but this is of huge help. As a member of teams from Australia (UTC+8, Perth, WA), these extra 12 hours mean a lot to us.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Are you talking about Hawaii and/or the difference between LA and NYC? Because this most drastically affects non-CONUS teams who live the other direction and get thus more time. Currently it's:
5AM in Honolulu
8AM in Los Angeles
11AM at FIRST HQ
12PM in Brasilia
4PM in London
5PM in Amsterdam
6PM in Tel Aviv and Istanbul
8:30PM in New Delhi
11PM in Beijing and Taipei
12AM in Tokyo (next day)
1AM in Canberra (next day)
Note this isn't accounting for daylight savings.

I love Hawaii too, but again I think this change is mostly looking east rather than west. West coast teams take a 3hr hit (5 for Hawaii) while international teams that already have enough challenges get multiple times that difference added on.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Heres a handy link to calculate when it will be in your time zone, due to the fact that we are in Daylight Savings right now it is an hour off, but when it matters we will not be, so that why its like that.

http://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/...ard%20Time) &

I guess if you want to see it with EDT heres that link too

http://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/...ght%20Time) &

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More
 

Wow, it looks like they took my (and I assume others') suggestion.