What to do on a Snow Day?
 

Today is the second day in a row that our meeting has been cancelled and the third day since kickoff, what does your team do on snow days to keep working on the Robot?

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

to keep working on robotics in general I find a a team mate and we meet somewhere to work on robotics stuff. usually at the local community center.
hope this helps!:)

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

Code can be done from anywhere, as can CAD. You can get together remotely over Skype or Google Hangout or whatever in order to work on design and planning, which can make the meetings you do have way more productive. You can work on all the other stuff that isn't the robot (Chairman's, designing your team shirt, design notebook, pit materials for judges, etc).

Or you can call everyone up and have an unofficial team bonding exercise (except ours was official, and yesterday was beautiful here, until about 8PM when everyone had to start driving home on ice...):

https://twitter.com/therobettes/status/821161879175360512

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

Homework ;)

(but seriously, I used snow days in HS to get ahead on homework, chores, and prep-work for robotics so my time in the shop was more productive and less intrusive on my other obligations)


There is tons of robotics work that doesn't need to be done in meetings and you can use this time to make meetings more productive: CAD, award submissions, reading the rules, getting your code structure set up, planning upcoming meetings, writing rules tests, researching parts and subsystems, ordering parts, finding hotels/transportation, reading the rules, designing shirts, setting up your scouting system, coming up with an itemized list of tasks that need to be done so no one can say "I have nothing to do" at your next meeting...

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

Sleep. You won't get much opportunity over the next six weeks.

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

What is this sleep you speak of?

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

I'm not sure, I think I've heard of this before. It sometimes occurs after staying up until 4 am CADing a part that you realize doesn't even work :ahh: (Me Sunday Night)

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

Talk about snow!! we are stuck out near Portland Oregon and we have been in school for one day since kick-off. They even cancelled school at noon on kickoff day so we have had 4 hours at school. AND WE ARE A ROOKIE TEAM.:(

But the Library has been good, Google hangouts can be crazy but productive. McMinimums restaurants gave us a meeting room yesterday for 4 hours for free !
But for a rookie team we have a tough road ahead.... as they canceled school again today.

Mr.Krafty - Mentor, team 6443 Falcons

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

Our team meets in our school so when there's a snow day, there's no robotics.

However, If you are in the phase of your build season where CAD is taking place, It's not a bad idea to have a small amount of people go to someones house or maybe a town library and crank some stuff out.

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

Our workspace is at our school, so a snow day means no access. So if we're reasonably sure it's going to be a snow day the next day, we pack as much stuff as we can into cars and bring it to mentor/coach houses the night before, then the next day (if it is in fact a snow day) once the roads are safe and everyone makes it out of their driveways, we meet there and keep working :)

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

Snow days during this time of the season in my opinion are amazing. It's a perfect opportunity to get cad done, do award submissions, get part orders submitted and lay out the next 4-5 weeks. Oh and program. Too bad it seems to only want to snow on weekends here. That is of course until we get to week 6.

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

We're just north of Portland, so we've been being hit by the snow storm as well. Thankfully, we're using an old classroom at our school so we have the key to get in even when it snows. Only problem is the fact some of us (me) have to drive 3 miles downhill in order to get there.

If you have a snow day, program, strategize, and learn the rules. Find a scouting app you think works better than the one you have, find problems in the rules you didn't see before, figure out how the heck you're supposed to fit a 3' tall robot under a 2'1" tall hopper (hint: make a 2' tall robot). There is always something to do. I'd suggest sleep, but my insomnia keeps me awake all hours. It makes me a better programmer.

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

We have the same issue in Beaverton. Part of the problem is that state and cities have to rely on a real city (Seattle) for the heavy equipment. Another problem is our refusal to use salt. Perhaps the new mayor of Portland will take his salt experiment to the whole state (when he inevitably runs for Governor).

I feel the pain even worse as a college student, as I attend Portland State University in downtown Portland, which has cancelled class yet again. We've only had three days of school this term. I hate to sound cliche, but what am I paying for?

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

My team always scheduled optional full-day meetings whenever there was a snow day. We got a lot of work done that way. The only time we actually ever canceled a meeting was if the weather was REALLY bad, which I think over the course of the last 10 years only happened maybe 2 or 3 times.

Re: What to do on a Snow Day?
 

For a lot of school based teams, mine included, this isn't possible. Security and/or Custodians must be in the building for us to attend.