Midwest Weather?
 

Whether the weather? In beautiful downtown Gilbert, Arizona we will have a high of 65' with a few light showers. What is happeninig back east?

Ken

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Bleh. Don't talk to me about the flippin weather! :rolleyes: We got a blizzard headed our way, and Bedford still has school, go figure.

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Ohio? I grew up in Columbus, Ohio (Go Bucks). The weather helped me decide to move to Arizona.

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Due for 12" in parts of MA tomorrow... We'll see what happens.

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We're getting a foot by tomorrow AM. We had to cancel our unveiling for tonight. I'm supposed to go to college tomorrow but I commute 30 minutes and I most likely won't go if the roads are bad (it's in the country out here so we regularly see 3ft drifts).

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I took the calipers outside about a half hour ago and we had 5.0145 inches of snow. It's now coming down as sleet/freezing rain and expected to change back to snow afternoon for another possible 4 or so inches.

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Kokomo had several inches at 8am, and is expected to get a foot or more by the time the day is over. Schools in the county are closed. Adjacent counties have declared snow emergencies.

And I know there are people at the shop working on the robot as I type this.

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In New England, we are bracing for over a foot of snow tomarrow. Which means that we will probaly lose a build day that we need.

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Mother Nature hereby decreed that 1529 will not be taking President's Day off.

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Still snowing and blowing here in Chicago. It took me more than twice as long to get to work, about 1.25 hours.

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Rains over! Sun is out! I'm dreaming of a................

Ken

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

We have seen just a couple of days of sunshine since early December.
Yesterday the sun appeared around 4 p.m. and we had clear skies last night.
This morning, it was gray and very windy. I think someone up north must have sneezed and in doing so, blew some of your air down this way...brrrr.


Edit: oh wow, sun came back out. Still windy.

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

That's good because we can come to your place for testing!

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

A foot of snow or so expected to hit Northeast Ohio late tonight and continue into tomorrow. Should be fun driving home from working in the shop this evening.... We'll meet in the shop on Wednesday whether it's buried or not.

*EDIT* - Shop is buried. School will be closed. We'll still be here......earlier than usual. WOOOOO.

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Our school is closing early today... so unfortunately we cannot work on the robot... and we needed the time. Life shall be interesting.

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Oh it was a joy walking to class today at Purdue...

Not a whole lot of snow yet, just a lot of it blowing in your face.

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This might be a good time to put in a pitch for the Arizona Regional. Great Competition and GREAT Weather in the same place at the same time. Start your fund raising for next year right after you ship your robot.

Ken

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School's closed at UD. Despite our presence in the great state of Ohio, we have the snow patroll quality of Richmond, VA. :rolleyes: :p ;)

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This is not good news. When last I looked (late Saturday) we had a chassis and we had an arm, but the two had not been properly introduced. Looks like they are in for a whirlwind courtship when the weather improves.

No joy in frozen St. Louis. :(

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Class canceled at Purdue for the next 24 hours - hasn't happen in a long time, I'm happy :)

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Last time it happened was in 1999 - they canceled school the night before, expecting temperatures in the -teens; turns out the meteorologists were wrong that time and we spent a balmy 30* day on Slayter Hill.
I'm sure you've figured out by now that they don't so much clear the sidewalks as they polish them.

IndySam - come on over, and if you want, you can bring your bot too. Got this big ol' rack and nobody to play with.

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

[quote=Richard;577407]This is not good news. When last I looked (late Saturday) we had a chassis and we had an arm, but the two had not been properly introduced. Looks like they are in for a whirlwind courtship when the weather improves.

Richard,

Kinda makes you yearn for the good old days when you would finished the robot in two weeks, drive the robot for a week, tweak the robot for two weeks, then drive for another week.....Yea like that actually happened. you may be ahead of us and we can't blame the weather.

Ken

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so far we've lost SEVERAL build days due to the weather and the roads being TERRIBLE. we're trying to make up the time whenever we can at the moment.

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Pontiac Northern Has a 50% chance of no school tomorrow. And its a Count Day, so its gonna be a pain. WOOHOO Michigan weather..and were supposed to have an early spring? We had a late winter, how does that happen.

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We will be working all weekend. It would be fun to come over for a pre-ship scrimmage. How far along are you guys?

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

In Houghton, we're at 101 inches of snow for the season and we have 36 inches on the ground right now ... lucky for us, only one school day has been canceled. The good (and bad) thing about living where it snows a lot is school is hardly ever canceled. Of course, that doesn't mean getting around is easy! :eek:

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Slight lake effect snow is starting in mid to western NY state. The storm from the midwest should be nicely recharged once it crosses Lake Erie/Ontario and hits the frigid air coming from Canada.

We're expecting 1-1.5 ft starting tonight till tomorrow night/Thursday AM.

Our plan is to get the robot out of the school when we leave tonight, and safely in a Jeep for transport to our sponsor's plant if necessary for tomorrow night's work. The plant won't close even if the forecast calls for "blizzards, freezing rain, tsunamis, deadly lava flows, and precision-guided ball lightning. And radiation-enlarged swarms of killer bees." (Thanks Dilbert)

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

I agree, when we went to Arizona in 2005 we had a great time, and the weather was really really nice. We came out of a big snow storm in NJ to nice, warm sunny AZ. It was a fun trip.

As for right now? I'm in Pittsburgh hiding out in the University Center trying to avoid the cold and the snow.

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Assuming all the fabricated parts come in tomorrow and we are in school the rest of the week, we should be fully assembled by Friday. We're anxious to play with (and fully program) Lollipop.
I understand 234 is very close as well; I haven't heard from any of the other Indy teams (868, 1018, 1024, 1741, 2277). How about you?

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

You're sending it off to us! Thanks.:ahh:

Looks like we're going to miss 2 build days: today and tomorrow because of early dismissal followed by a snow day. And our schools are in the middle of state testing! Help!!!

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

We are fully assembled (sans ramp and bumpers) and programming got the major functions working last night. Now comes the task of making them work well. We have found some design flaws in the arm but nothing we can't fix (parts on order.)

I think it would be great to have some eyes that know the game well take a look at Randy (the bots name.) Eyes that aren’t invested in the design and build can spot things that we may miss. Would you guys be interested in looking at Randy? We would reciprocate.

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

I like how this topic went from the weather to robots...

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

1018 has the chassis done (other than some essential flair), and the arm itself is done. We just need to finish the parts that connect the arm to the frame and the gripper. Programming is ready for the arm and the OI is almost done.

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Ain't FIRST grand? :D

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Back to weather....

Here @ Purdue (West Lafayette, IN) the weather is crazy. It's snowing, blowing, and drifting really bad. Purdue cancelled classes for the first time in a long time and i don't have to go back till Thursday. The county just declared a snow emergency and most of the stores around town are closed.

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

With what seems to be half the country snowbound, I wouldn't be surprised to see a new record for number of people logged on to CD today.

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Lol, yeah. Good ole' Ohio weather, it never fails! Unfortunately, we really need all the time we can get, but obviously the whole Mid-West is expecting some pretty rough weather again. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next week. It's crunch time for us! Everyday, hour, minute is crucial to us. We don't even have our tower/arm done! :ahh:

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Yeah, we will be getting about 5-8 inches here in Armada, MI so we might not have school, but we will still have a build day because we don't meet at school we meet at a Ford Plant so its all good!:D

Hope everyone still gets their bots done. Good Luck:cool:

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Since the county sheriff would have arrested me if I drove home after 1pm today, we decided to stop working on the robot at 12:30. If school is closed tomorrow, but the roads are drivable, then we should get alot of work done.

Andy B.

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Right now in Richmond we are at 34F and raining, but the temperature is falling. If it gets low enough tonight, things are going to get real nasty by morning.

Wetzel

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The schools here will be closed tommorrow too. Some people are working at the shop tonight though.
Eric

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

We're close to being done... 2 snow days definitely set us back. (we) programmers will be suffering more than usual... call it a smaller closet and less time.

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up in here in the rochester area we are going to see 16-24" of snow from late tonight through tomorrow, as of right now no schools are closed but that could change tomorrow BUT whether we have school or not our team will still be meeting :D

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My school closed tonight for tomorrow already....

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

It is absolutely disgusting in Chicago... Due to my height I got the joy of having snow up past my ankles that penetrated my shoes and left me with a 2 hour commute home (it usually takes about an hour). School got cancelled at 5pm after I finished TAing my class and attending my classes. I guess school might be closed tomorrow, but you never know. To all of you working in old buildings, make sure snow isn't coming in through the windows onto the robot equiptment (we had to tape our windows shut). Snow + robots = bad news

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Well Dublin Schools just announced they are closing for Wednesday as well. I think most of central and northern Ohio is going to end up being off school tomorrow. Roads here are terrible right now. Half a foot of snow with sleet/freezing rain on top of that. (Here in Columbus you know it's bad when Ohio State cancels, which they did today.) The mix is just nasty. The plows been down the streets frequently here in the city, but 10 minutes later there is another sheen of ice on the roads. I was out shoveling an hour ago and I saw salt crystals from the road actually encased in the ice. Things here are starting to be like they were in Oklahoma and Texas at the start of the build cycle.

Unfortunately we are not allowed to have extra-curricular meetings if school is cancelled. Which means two days last week, today and probably tomorrow are shot. Looks like a long weekend ahead of us. Reminds of the season a few years ago when all of the bad weather hit before ship date. Just going to have to pile it on this weekend. If all of the needed parts arrived today (or arrive tomorrow) we ought to be able to get everything done. We might not be able to make some of the replacement parts we had planned on, but what can you do?

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

in independence, mo, we've got about 6 inches of snow on top of about 1/2 inch of ice on top of 3 feet of mud. yea, not fun for cars. but hey, this means team 1996 can meet from 8 am till 4 pm!

umm, maybe it's because we're a rookie team, but even before the kickoff we pretty much knew we'd be spending the night working on the bot over prez day...

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Well, in Corry we have an interesting situation. If the school cancels all afterschool activities (like they did today), then we are not allowed to stay and work. However, if school is delayed or cancelled, we can work. Go figure. So, since we missed tonight, I'm hoping for a cancellation tomorrow. Better be, 'cause it needs to be ready for powder coat tomorrow afternoon! (And snow does not count as powder-coat...)

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Yeah here in good ole Cleveland,Ohio we have about 15 inches where I live (about as close to lake erie as you can get) . The school cancelled all after school activities and they are closed tomorrow which makes it the fourth or fifth day we have lost plus today. So we pretty much had five weeks to build a robot and we are pretty behind.:ahh:

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Schools were closed here in Milwaukee for two days last week due to cold (no work done though, since students aren't allowed in our building if school is closed...something about if its not safe enough to come to school, its not safe enough to build a robot....:ahh: ), but so far, the snow, while coming down all day, hasn't piled up much. Its rather fluffy actually. Very windy though. I don't believe we'll be seeing any canceled classes this week, but to all those who will, may you make the best of them!

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

OK, maybe a little joy after all. :)

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well here in rochester this morning depending on where your location is..many places have anywhere from 6-about 10 inches of snow already with it still falling...and all schools are closed here >.<

(glad we made a plan to meet yesterday!)

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Erie, PA... Right off the beautiful coast of lake Erie (that has yet to freeze and is still giving snow). High Temp: 15 degrees F (Feels like -2 F with windchill)

To put it in perspective, they canceled school today and the Erie School District has only canceled twice now three times my whole life... thats how bad it is here now.

Lets hope it clears up for our meeting tonight :rolleyes:

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Ypsilanti, MI

My Calc 2 Washtenaw Community College course was cancelled as I arrived there :D (no quiz on trig integration, yay!)... so yesterday evening I ran a few errands and got home at about 6:30 because traffic was being horrible.

High School is closed now, so I am quite pleased. :)

Snow here is mainly drifting, or it either just looks bad or it really is that deep, I have yet to hear of an official measurement. Nonetheless, we got hit quite nicely.

:cool:
-Joe

PS: time to shovel...

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Somehow Lansing got away with only 3 or so inches last night and although the university is just now scraping it all away, we're still good to go for school and robotics (which means I have to go take my functions test in an hour... ewwwwwwwwwww)

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Wednesday Arizona Update!

Partly cloudy with a high near 70'. A Columbus friend called at 3:00AM to let me know they were having a snow day. We don't get many of them here in AZ.

Ken

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Some of us Ohioans aren't that fortunate. We're closed right now, and looking at the weather we can hopefully start again tomorrow. Probably would've been a good idea for us to meet more days from the start. Almost makes me feel some teams are at more of a disadvantage than the ones who can still meet at a factory or machine shop, but it just means that we have to work 10 times harder in less time.

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Rockville, CT
17 deg right now (wind chill is 0 deg.); wintry mix of sleet, snow, freezing rain for today. Less snow fell than they had predicted, but the ice is worse; the college I work for closed today! :)
Am sitting by the window watching the squirrels and songbirds at the feeder (beautiful to see cardinals and blue jays on a background of white snow) and working on updating the NEMO website with a hot cup of tea and heart-shaped blueberry pancakes (thank you hubby!)...

I learned today that sleet is frozen precipitation that falls from the sky whereas freezing rain is raindrops that freeze upon contact with the frozen ground.

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Excellent... I just got a stack of chocolate chip pancakes, link sausage, and some hot chocolate after snow-blowing* and shoveling out the driveway. We got about 8-10 inches here in Kokomo. The radio is saying that there is a "snow emergency" still until noon.

I bet that people are in the shop working on the robot. This is one good thing about not having a shop at the high school... the team can get in anytime we wish, as long as mentors are present. I plan on going in at noon or shortly after.

* - while snow-blowing this morning, I realized where the HOT team (67) got their inspiration for a ball shooter last year. It looks much like the aiming mechanism of a snow blower.

Andy B.

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Woohooo!

Purdue is closed again on Wednesday! We're making history because I doubt this will ever happen again! :ahh:

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Closed Wednesday too Clark? Wow. We were closed till 11am here (including all day yesterday). Very nice to get a break.

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Is it only Ohio teams that are feeling the pressure to work three times as hard and four times as long in order to make up for lost days?

I like a challenge, but we are teetering on a state of emergency in Cleveland. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started air lifting supplies in soon. Streets are closed, the snow is getting deeper and deeper, and we are falling farther behind every day the schools are closed. So far this build season the Cleveland schools have been shut down 5 days—it’s really hurting us to lose almost a week.

Yet, we will ship on time and hope for the best. I just hope FIRST takes into consideration the difficulties all of us are facing and tries to figure out a way to ease the pain and make it fair for all the teams!

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I'll second that, I just hope we have a meeting tonight. Two nights in a row of no robotics is really going to hurt us...

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So far we've lost two days of build time; school was closed early yesterday and cancelled for today. The school doesnt let us stay when it closes early. Animation is really in a bind seeing as the deadline is approaching really fast, and yes there is school Monday for us now which means we lost that entire day of work... best of luck to all

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we just had 14 inches of snow and sleet mixed + 6 inches of powder which we already had, and its blowing like crazy. Cant wait to get to Scottsdale over spring break!

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The weather is real bad up here that the schools was even closed!

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Are team is trying are best to finish on time but the schools have shut down and do to the weather some members are unable to leave out to to get to are work site so we are falling back. Good luck teams hope you all make dead line!

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Here in Southwest Michigan we are really hurting.:( We have lost eight days due to school closing so far and they are predicting more for tomorrow.
Last night we got some work in but the snow was blowing sideways and the roads horrible. This is unbelievable. It seems so unfair to the students. They are working so hard. I am not sure we can finish before Tuesday pickup. In all my four years I have never seen weather like this during build season. I know one year they delayed ship by two days. Michigan and New York are getting hit hard. Michigan has more teams than any state (over 100) but California and with the Govenors grants this year we had even more. I wish there was a way to let FIRST know the difficulties we are having just getting to school. We do not have a nice large sponsor (outside of school) where we can go to work on snow days. We rely on our school. Any helpful ideas on how we can finish? :confused: We are not allowed to stay overnight either.:(

Carolyn Hinckley - Teacher

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

I feel your pain...we have students that take over an hour to get to robotics on good days...and that is by public buses since we don't bus students. We have lost 5 days already and it looks like another one coming up. The students have been busting their butts to finish what they can, but when you can only work so many hours only on weekdays, what can you do?

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Well, it is Thursday and another sunny day here in paradise. Back in 1979 there was a blizzard in the midwest. A friend and I put snow skis and snow shovels on a rack on my 1974 MGB. The car was so light we appeared to ride on top of the snow rather than thru the snow. We became the delivery service for the neighborhood assisting those who could not help themselves. This just goes to prove there was life before FIRST (but it wasn't as much fun!)

Ken

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=GLARE= *Whispers to everyone in the snow* Who else is shooting lazerbeams at him with their eyes after he turns around?

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

Ah, The winter of '78/'79. I spent a great deal of that season clearing snow out of the 10 meter dish in the back of the station. That dish was our downlink video feeds from the network. PBS later looked at our plight and came up with funding to put dish heaters in. Can you imagine someone thinking Chicago wouldn't need dish heaters?

Re: Midwest Weather?
 

How did you know what it's like in Southern California?:D

Oh, and SoCal's main bad weather is rain that shouldn't be called rain compared to the rest of the country (during the winter only), the occaisional tiny hail (every two to three years), and the occasional big earthquake or mudslide.