Team Update #13
 

Team Update #13 is out and available here. This should hopefully fully explain the limits and opportunities of the revised withholding allowance, and let some folks calm down a bit.




.

Re: Team Update #13
 

I think the GDC is being fairly clear here. They do not want the 65 lb withholding allowance to be an entire robot. By them adding the provision in, that if teams wish to bring in a "robot" it must be in multiple unfinished sections sends a very clear message to me of what they want teams to be doing.

Re: Team Update #13
 

Nicely stated (imho). The whole rule but the example above in particular. I believe this is an excellent example of how to diffuses potentially problematic rulings.

First of all, most folks have no idea about the various constraints that FIRST is under with regard to rules, ship dates, etc.

I love that FIRST helps to educate the masses to the larger picture.

Second, I think the explanation above is great not because it explains everything, it doesn't, but because it hints at larger issues that FIRST has to consider, acknowledges that the solution is less than ideal and then asks for forbearance.

Nice. I think more rulings of this flavor and tone will go a long way to help us understand the way things work and (perhaps) accept the less than perfect world we all inhabit.

Joe J.

Re: Team Update #13
 

I'm always surprised how, when the gate appears to open, so many rush through - creating chaos and blocking the open channel. Or, when things change, so many get up in arms. Or, when help/relief is offered, minds narrow instead of expanding. The larger issues are always there and have always been there. I agree that this helps all of us remember that those exist and when trying to help/add a little relief, those still have to be respected and worked with. (I include myself in forgetting to remember the bigger picture at times and for that, I am sorry.)

Jane

Re: Team Update #13
 

I am not sure I agree with you, exactly. It seems to me that they don't LIKE it, they never INTENDED it, but they will ALLOW it (assuming you take the bother to disassemble it into at least two FABRICATED ITEMS before carrying it in* ).

I will not criticize a team that follows this rule to the letter any more than I will criticize a team that is .001" under the size limit or .01 lb under the weight limit. We go up to the line, we don't cross.

Callin' 'em as I see 'em.

Joe J.

*which, by they way, I can tell you truly, I am pretty sure every robot I've ever put in the shipping container would have been able to limbo under that bar ;-)

Re: Team Update #13
 

Yeah... what Joe says. Thank you, GDC for the explanation.

Jason

Re: Team Update #13
 

I find this slightly funny because it appears that the GDC has created a loophole (teams must transport their robot in two pieces) to get around their own set of "restrictions".

Re: Team Update #13
 

It's unfortunate that this couldn't have been made clear a week ago, when the first question of "can we bring in a whole, lightweight robot?" was answered in Q&A. I understand that it is possible that the details were not finalized then. But all in all this has been a frustrating situation for some teams and the GDC.

Re: Team Update #13
 

It would seem FIRST has its own set of lawyers. But I agree this is a good ruling.

Re: Team Update #13
 

I believe you misunderstood me Joe. I should have been more clear with my post. The point of my post was to say that it's clear to me FIRST does not want teams to bring in entire robots. The reason I feel it's clear is because of the fact that they want teams to take apart functioning systems and reassemble them at the competition. That seems like a goofy idea (ie: battery cables last year) but it's goofy because they do not want teams doing it

Re: Team Update #13
 

I am just glad this update was published before before we shipped our robot.

Re: Team Update #13
 

Even if you didn't, you're still fine. As I replied to a Facebook post about it:

Re: Team Update #13
 

I would not be surprised to learn that the major clue to the assembly ruling is to be found in the GDC's comment about union rules at (some of?) the various venues. Stage hands and electricians have worked hard to preserve their work environments. The venues involved with FIRST tournaments make use of that labor under very specific conditions, almost certainly not the same at every location. Perhaps there is a rule about the handling of event equipment at one or more of them that requires the robots to enter the venue in pieces. We might be looking at the "least common denominator" of venue rules for machinery. That is, everyone must split up the robot because one or more events requires it.

Re: Team Update #13
 

As far as I know 1511 & 8 other robots were driven to drayage BEFORE this was published. Fortunately, I think all were shipping "ROBOTS"... but I still see this Update as very Muddy... as a regional director I could read that and say, "oh a team CANT bring a Robot in"... as the GDC didnt say "take one fabricated item off your robot and its no longer a "Robot"". I forsee a handful of arguments with volunteers...

Im hoping that all the regionals get a clear email blast that gives an undeniably straightforward answer to this rule, or I still feel we may have a handful of upset teams that think they cant play on the first day on our hands... The volunteers checking people in often dont follow every Q&A or every update, so they will only do as told... hopefully they are clearly told what is and isnt allowed.

Lucky number 13....

Re: Team Update #13
 

Really? It seems about as clear as it can be to me. I've seen GDC mud before... ...this ain't it ;-)

Provide a case or scenario and I believe that you can make a ruling based upon the text. I don't think you will have any difficulty making a ruling.

Actually this is what they said:

"For all events (both traditional and bag & tag events), for those few cases where the complete ROBOT weighs less than 65 pounds, teams may bring up to 65 pounds of separate FABRICATED ITEMS which can be assembled into the final assembly of the full ROBOT once you are on-site. But they must be brought to the competition venue as a collection of two or more separate FABRICATED ITEMS in a less-than-complete state of assembly."

So... I don't want to put words into the GDC's mouths (especially since I am on record as liking what they said and how they said it) but, in effect, they didn't say "no robots." They said "no completely assembled robots."

It may not be the rule that you, or I or the volunteers like but it is a very clear rule (imho).

On a personal note, given that my team was snowed out and unable to even get access to our robot for almost 2 weeks while the school was locked down, I think the GDC did a good thing in increasing the withholding limit to 65lbs.

I know that it is not the ideal situation, but we do not live in an ideal world. The GDC had to play the hand they were dealt and I think they did about as good of a job as can be expected.

If the worst thing that happens is a few teams get an "unfair" advantage by keeping their whole (under 65lbs) robot until their 1st competition, I can live with it. I hope that you can as well.


Joe J.

Re: Team Update #13
 

I just hope teams use common sense here. If it looks like a robot when you're carrying it in, i'm going to call it a robot, even if you've taken off a bracket and technically have two "fabricated parts". If you open up your crate and pull out no robot parts - only bumpers, batteries and tools - then you carried in a robot, even if it was in multiple pieces. Gracious professionalism doesn't include lawyering the rules to beat the intent.

Re: Team Update #13
 

It seems this whole issue is the result of introducing the withholding allowance concept in the first place. Last year its rationale was to help deal with the new control system, and yet this year it is still there, and has even been increased to the point of creating the "whole robot" issue. If they have introduced technology that they feel cannot be dealt with in 6 weeks even in its second year, then they should increase the build season accordingly. The whole "withhold part of your robot" concept has become somewhat of a can of worms. There will always be new stuff in the KOP to get familiar with. There will always be some geographic areas that have winter weather during a winter build season. Perhaps we should just get back to having a robot build deadline as we used to. It was unambiguous.

Re: Team Update #13
 

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

-dave

p.s. Joe - don't sweat it. Some people, no matter what you do, will always work overtime trying to find fault with just about anything. There will always be those that constantly argue "the sky is yellow" even when it obviously isn't and you have explained multiple times that it isn't. Just ignore them and move on.

Re: Team Update #13
 

I like the way you think Dave. I hope it's a sign of things to come.

Re: Team Update #13
 

I'd like to point out a few things that might help keep the "keeping your robot" and "witholding limits" issues in perspective.

Firstly, it has been quite common for teams to build two robots. One to ship, and one to practice on. It is a strategic game and engineering decision in which a team uses resources during build time in order to gain extra opportunities to work on code and driving... and even to manufacture the occasional spare, upgrade or replacement part.

With the new control system the cost of doing this increased significantly over the cost of the IFI system. Not a problem for teams with the deepest pockets, perhaps, but most teams would prefer to not purchase a second control system if they didn't have to. The witholding limit has helped our team, at least, to have the benefits of having a practice robot while still directing as much money as possible towards kids, rather than controls. For that, I am quite grateful for the introduction of the witholding limit. It not only makes our robot better, but far more importantly it makes our team better by giving the students more "hands on" time with the robot in the lead up to our event.

I am also not particularly concerned about teams who withold sufficient components and mechanisms such that they may quickly assemble those components and mechanisms into a robot when they arrive at the competition. They are sacrificing a lot of mass and potential pushing force, particularly when the limit is set to 40 pounds. Its less of a sacrifice, perhaps, at 65 pounds, but I can assure you that 110-120 pound robots will have a huge advantage over 65 pound robots when it comes to establishing position.

I also want to comment on the fact that the question of "how will the rule be enforced" isn't really that big of an issue. I am comfortable in the knowledge that the vast, vast majority of teams, and certainly -- from my experience -- ALL of the top calibre teams, will follow the rules to the best of their ability and understanding regardless of the enforcement mechanism. I am grateful that I get to take part in a competition with such classy competitors.

Finally, I want to reiterate my appreciation to the GDC for giving us some insight into the challenges they face when establishing and interpreting the rules. Often we are quick to criticize when something doesn't "make sense" from our perspective, but then our perspective as team members and leaders does not encompass the big picture of 1800 teams and events at over 40 venues in several countries around the world.

Jason

Re: Team Update #13
 

I like this idea, as it simplifies a whole mess of issues and can drastically cut back on costs for teams (so long as you have a pickup truck/SUV/minivan/trailer) and for FIRST, and also allows more leeway for teams who lose a week or two due to snow or other issues.

Being able to keep your competition robot right up until your competition events would also eliminate the need for practice robots. Teams wouldn't need a practice robot to continue training drivers or testing code or refining ideas for new mechanisms for their weight allowance when you have the actual competition robot right in front of you.

This would have the effect of giving every team a "practice robot", in that the powerhouse teams who already have a practice robot would be unaffected by the change, whereas the middle of the pack and lower teams would now have the added bonus of having a lot more time to dial in their mechanisms without shelling out the $$$ for a practice robot. This would raise the competitiveness of the bottom half of the teams quite noticeably, and would lead to many less "all-they-did-was-build-a-kitbot" robots on the field and a lot more competitive robots, which would surely make the competitions a lot more exciting for everyone involved.

Re: Team Update #13
 

As a mentor, on one hand, I like where this is going.

On the other hand, I liked it when build 'ended' on ship day. There was a certain finality to it. It used to be a 'hard' deadline. I enjoyed things like sleeping again. And spouses were happier. :)

Now with the WITHHOLDING it seems that build doesn't end on ship day. Or at all. Instead we just have less to build with.

But I agree with the premise. The WITHHOLDING allowance (theoretically) provides teams with a better chance of showing up at their first event with a functional robot. It's no fun being down for matches, especially if you only go to one event!

Unfortunately, the WITHHOLDING may also have an unintended effect and encourage teams to show up with half of their machine in the WITHHOLDING that now has to be mated on practice day to whatever was put in the crate (the "ROBOT"). But I suppose they would not be doing themselves any favors by doing this (or the inspectors!).

Re: Team Update #13
 

As a VEX mentor I like the VEX system of bring your robot and compete with it. We do four events a year. After the first event 75% of the robots get completely disassembled and rebuilt. After the second event about 50% of the robots start from scratch. So across the season, the robots get better. The later competitions (like the Mid-Atlantic this weekend and the Eastern PA regional in March) see some very competitive robots that have been reworked (and re-reworked). At $75 an event and having 6 to pick from an hour drive from home makes this possible.

On the other hand I love the FRC ship by 5PM Tuesday or don't play. It's a real deadline. It has real meaning. It's kind of like the real world, it's got to ship so make it work. And at $6K an event it's hard to go to many of them a year. So it makes the playing field somewhat level. Our team goes to two events. We do an early event (Hello FLR!) and learn a lot. We revamp, fix, change and bring parts to make our robot better at the second event (Yo Philly!). We would do that even if limited to 5LBS of parts.

I applaud the GDC on the 65LB rule for 2010 to help the snowbound. I applaud the GDC for the "hey, don't bring assembled robots it annoys the following people ..." transparency. I applaud those of you who will follow the spirit that it was done in, after all at the end of the day, it's only a game.

So keep the withholding, next year drop it back to 40LBS or so, getting a chance at Rev2 helps. Bag and Tag sounds like a possible second solution if FIRST can get the OK to bring fully assembled robots. But the hassle of 60 teams AND 60 robots makes my head hurt.

And I'll follow Dave's suggestion on the ignore button for the others. ('cause I'm sure I'm on many ignore lists)

Re: Team Update #13
 

VEX & Lego League are completely different beasts! The parts are limited. There is no real fabrication, the robots are easy to carry, move and store. More importantly, THE GAMES ARE ANNOUNCED MONTHS BEFORE COMPETITIONS! For a Vex robot, it doesn't matter much if you've got 4 months or 5 months to work on a robot. It makes a HUGE difference on the scale of FRC if you've got an additional month (or even a week) to work.

(Now, if FRC took a page from the Vex playbook and introduced the 2011 game at the 2010 Championship, that would be different.)

Extending the FRC build season from Kickoff in January to Championships in April will serve to make the gulf between the "have" and "have not" teams even worse (it comes down to mentor availability). A 4 month build is vastly different from a 1.5 month build.

Give us a year-round competition, OR give us a hard "ship-the-robot-put down-your-tools-get-some-sleep-go-back-to-doing-some-homework-remember-that-you-have-a-spouse-and-take-care-of-your-health date".

-Mr. Van
Robodox

Re: Team Update #13
 

I completely agree with this - I liked the hard deadline. I liked being able to finally put the robot in the crate freshman year and say "it's done, it's done, it's done!" (I'm not as much of a fan of FiM, with the bagging and such, but that's a completely different apple) If we did not have the withholding allowance, I might have time to work on getting a team consensus for the nominees for the new award - we wouldn't have any robot-related items to work on until the team's chosen unbag time on Saturday. Right now, we have half of our robot out of the bag, and it's being assembled on the prototype chassis - we might be able to drive again tomorrow if everything gets wired up quickly. My team is small, and this is really putting a strain on our capabilities. Trying to write a total of 8000ish words with a robot sitting safely in the bag is easy, but it's significantly harder when you're constantly asked to be in the shop working on an unfinished practice robot.

Re: Team Update #13
 

I think you have some great points Jason, and hope you don't mind my snip of those, but I want challenge your assertion that it has become common for teams to build a practice robot. A fair number of teams active on these forums build practice robots, but the teams active here are a small subset of all FRC teams. I'd be interested if someone at each regional could go around to ALL teams there and figure out if they build a practice bot. A good secondary data point is how many built just a secondary chassis. I'm just not confident that a practice bot is anywhere near common.

Wetzel

Re: Team Update #13
 

To everyone who would miss the "finality" of the ship date... wouldn't the arrival of the Regional yield the same finality" to robot build time? It's a different finality, but still a finality.

Unlike some previous posters, I completely disagree that this would lead to a greater gulf between "have" and "have not" teams, but rather believe the opposite would occur. The "have" teams already have full practice fields, practice robots, and a dynamic partnership between their mentors, students, teachers, and sponsors. No matter how long the build season is, they will still crank out amazing robots.

But for the middle of the road teams, just another week could make the difference between a robot that barely works to one which works quite well, and with a bit of driver experience. For these teams, time is their most limiting resource. Give these teams more time, and they have more man-hours of robot design, fabrication, and testing time.

But there comes a point where increasing the number of man-hours leads to decreasing return-on-investment. A gut intuition guess would be that many of the powerhouse teams are nearing this peak, and that an extra week might only help them improve their robot efficiency in its operation by maybe 10%. On the other hand, a middle of the road or rookie team with much less resources and man-hours spent on their robot might see a 50% boost in performance from the same additional week of the build season.

Since such an eliminate-ship-date-rule would not in anyway set a glass ceiling limiting how high the "have" teams can reach, while still providing an immeasurable benefit to the middle of the road and rookie teams, as well as drastically increase the competitiveness and excitement of competitions (much to the delight of the audience), this is something I whole-heartedly support.

Re: Team Update #13
 

I like the hard deadline, but I like a less claustrophobic build time more.

It sure would make the season thousands and thousands of dollars cheaper, for everyone.

I'd vote for it, if my vote counted.

-Nick

Re: Team Update #13
 

While I think this seems true now, I think for middle of the road and lower teams, the time needed to do the work would simply expand to fill the time allotted. Teams would likely still be as behind as they are now, just with less leeway.

Re: Team Update #13
 

Parkinson's Law -- "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Even if they gave us 12 weeks, I'm quite sure the final week would be claustrophobic.

I have yet to be on a team that did not run up against this law. (In my FLL days, probably 40% of the work was done in the week prior to the competition, and we had 3.5 months!)

Re: Team Update #13
 

Hard deadlines are good for mentors. Burnout is probably one of the biggest reasons that mentors are lost. I have a loving and caring wife who says go and enjoy yourself. I do make sure to take an evening or two during build to take her to dinner. If the season was much longer I believe that things might change at home as hints start coming by the end of week 5.

Re: Team Update #13
 

I am glad to see this discussion on going here. However, it is disappointing that we have to have this type of a discussion.

I believe in the true spirit of GP, this should not be a questions, teams should understand that this was to allow teams additional development time of systems not keeping the entire robot back to spend more time improving it as a whole regardless of weight. I hope that we do not resort to such a competitive state in FIRST where we are no longer keeping in mind the true philosophy of FIRST - which is to "Inspire and Recognize"... The rest is all sweet candy.

Having gone through this as a student, a volunteer and now a mentor its difficult to see how quickly FIRST is changing and maybe sometimes not for the better.

Its as Dean said in the kickoff speech, we dont want to become like the other college or pro sports out there where it all becomes about winning and loosing.

I hope that we dont have to go to a regional questioning whether a team is bringing the appropriate amount or type of fabricated items or such.

see ya guys on the field.

Re: Team Update #13
 

I have a real love/hate relationship with the ship date. I love the sense of accomplishment when a working robot ships. I love people's response when they learn that you did "all that" in six weeks. But I hate having to skip lessons on how stuff works, or why we're doing things certain ways due to the pressure of the ship date. (This year we had just two adult mentors... so we're running a bit shorthanded). And I really hate shipping off a robot that isn't ready to play the game. I don't mind shipping one that isn't ready to win the game... but we owe it to ourselves and our alliance partners to be able to make a meaningful contribution to the game.

But for all that, I do support the idea of a firm and fixed shipping/bagging date.

But I really, really, really like the witholding limit, too. Tonight I was able to sit down with a half dozen students in a fairly relaxed setting (with the Canada-Russia game streaming over the internet, of course... ) and grease up the gearboxes that got delayed for ten days by Canada customs, and show them how planetary gearboxes work, and do a bit of experimenting to get our "ball magnet" roller up and running.

On the "to do" list is to finalize our kicker design (we've had the rough dimensions worked out since the second or third week of build) and attach some IR rangefinders to help the driver find the ball.

As we're in a later regional this year, we'll have a chance to do this at a much more comfortable, relaxed, and enjoyable pace than we would during build.

So I don't think "fixed build date" and "witholding limit" are mutually incompatible. I think they work together to give a pretty good compromise.

I also have to say that while I love the year-long competition for our five VEX teams because it lets them redesign and re-build between competitions (we compete at five different VEX tournaments, each roughly a month apart here in the BC/WA area), a VEX robot rebuild is much less demanding of my time than an FRC rebuild would be.

And, with respect to some earlier posts in this thread, my experience with FRC over seven years has been that it continues to evolve. And thank goodness for that... stagnation would be far worse than a change that some people didn't like. There are many possible ways to extend the build period without burning out... we could start with a three week "design period" during which no tools could be used, and no parts could be machined. Or we could have a longer build period, but require teams to log their time and limit it to 10 hours per week of total meeting and shop time. I KNOW we could get more mentors involved if they only had to make a committment twice each week and could still play a meaningful role in the design.

Jason

Re: Team Update #13
 

I like having a ship date. I'd hate to put as much time in as I do during six weeks for a 14 week period, from kickoff-championships.

Re: Team Update #13
 

If build season was longer than 6 weeks, I would not be associated with FIRST Robotics.
My wife and kid would see to that.

Re: Team Update #13
 

There's a simple enough solution to people who for personal or family reasons cannot devote more than six weeks worth of time to FRC if there was no ship date: just don't have any meetings until six weeks before your regional. Since all engineering projects expand or contract to fit the allocated time, and since finishing early is nearly impossible, just restrict your start date.

Re: Team Update #13
 

If there were no hard deadlines/no ship date - the bookkeeping side of things could become very interesting. At some point, I could see some teams pointing to the robots created during the year and play a counting/elimination game regarding which one/ones should stay or go. The organizational management and business management would shift and change.

Having the hard deadline as it has been, allows for planning for mentors and also, for students who juggle insane schedules filled with academic demands, extra curriculars, and somewhere in there I would hope they are developing social lives. Well-balanced social and academic development is important to the well-being of the individual students and their teams.

The GDC would be sending out updates like newsletters.

It could benefit teams who build/work on their sponsors sites but teams who build/work/depend on their schools premises - would have a difficult time. It would take - more - organization, planning, and time management to figure out their schedules.

I'm not saying it is bad, I'm saying it would require more work spread out over the time allowed, in the organizational end of things.

Jane

Re: Team Update #13
 

Puts those shipping to an International location at a disadvantage. Cannot carry 65lbs as carry on.

Re: Team Update #13
 

Jason, you are echo'ing a ton of thoughts that have been going through my head recently as well. I have only been a mentor for 3 years (2 rookie teams and one 2nd year for the first team I mentored). I find it interesting to see how many "veteran" teams appear to struggle nearly as much as the rookie teams - I was originally thinking this was a rookie phenomenon (and maybe it is more of an issue still). The rookie team I am helping this year had absolutely ZERO resources by the time kick-off occured. The team is completely supported by grants - which the money for those did not come in until basically the week before kickoff. We had no material supplies, no tools, and only 2 of us 3 mentors had any experience with FIRST at all. The team has literally been together for 6 weeks (maybe 7 total). I expect there are other teams that are in the same boat.

Additionally, we are Week1 competition team. While the withholding allowance certainly helps - it's not going to be nearly as beneficial to our team as to most. I see that some teams also meet quite often and spend tons and tons of hours building, designing, marketing, etc. We did not have that option. So, in the end, we had probably 3 weeks or so to really do anything more useful than some brainstorming sessions and watching other teams videos on prototypes we were thinking about (and even that was a struggle since the school does not allow for surfing the web). Teaching and mentoring the students on most things has been very limited (basic on the job training) and I have been seriously concerned about how much the kids are really getting out of the program and how much desire they are building to even want to come back next year. There are only so many pep talks you can give and promises of how cool it will be at the competition (let alone the encouragement to work longer, harder, faster, and more efficiently).

Schools really seem to struggle with the idea of diving into this program - and I can see why. Making it a viable long term program for a school is of utmost priority to them - yet it's so difficult and nebulous on how to do just that. Having a larger build season, or some of the other ideas you mentioned may be the ticket. I'm not sure what needs to be done but hopefully some changes will come soon that will make it easier for everyone involved.

Anyway - I could go on and on - so I'll just stop here. At least I am able to vent. :)

Re: Team Update #13
 

I agree there has to be a limit of some kind on the amount of time that goes in to building a robot.

The six-week build period limit has worked for FRC for years, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is the optimal solution.

For instance I have had several people interested in being involved as mentors with our team and ask what kind of committment is required. When I tell them that it is pretty much a minimum of four hours per day, 4-6 days per week for six weeks straight they tend to shy away. The committment is just too intense.

We've tried having mentors come in twice per week during build, which seems to be a committment that people are willing to make, but that generally results in an unfulfilling experience as it is very difficult to play a meaningful role in the design and prototyping stage on a part-time basis.

So if there were a way to reduce the intensity of build by spreading it out over a longer period of time, I could see several benefits. Yes, there would be challenges, but a longer, less intense build would make build period disruptions such as school exam periods, unusual weather events, shipping and customs delays, and even unique events like having the Olympics smack-dab in the middle of build easier to accomodate (many schools around Vancouver, for instance, have been shut down for the past two weeks... had ours done so, too, we may have had to pull out of FRC this year). <edit 3: Andymark, Banebots, VexPro and other common FRC vendors might appreciate having their business spread out over a longer period, too.>

I think as FRC increases its international presence we also need to keep in mind that not all school systems around the world are in session in January and February. Admittedly the majority of the teams are in North America... but wouldn't it be great to have the sort of international involvement that VEX and FLL have? We probably won't get that if we schedule build exclusively for their summer holidays, or New Year's week.

I don't presume to know the thoughts of the FIRST executive, but I don't think we need to fear changes that they might propose for the build season. A six week build is one solution to constraining demands on mentor's time, and team resources but it is certainly not the only one, and possibly isn't the optimal one.

Maybe its time to try something different...

Jason

<edit 1: Bryan... you aren't alone. I think even those who love the intensity of build season can relate.

edit 2: Maybe this is morphing into something that should be a new thread on it's own right... >

Re: Team Update #13
 

As much as I know that it probably isn't, I feel like the scheduling comment is hitting right at me (anyone who follows me on Twitter or is friends on Facebook can attest that I have had numerous "I have so much work to do...oh, it's 2am already?" statuses over the course of the year). I'm not too sure about my social life right now, actually, or my sanity, for that matter. If we hadn't had a hard (or in the case of MI teams, "slightly squishy") deadline with the bagging, I might still be in the shop until 11pm most nights. As much as I love robotics, I've become completely burned out this year.

FIRST is demanding of the students and mentors alike. 6 weeks of robot-building is enough to drive all of us crazy (in both a good and bad way). Work will expand to fill the time allotted - that's why deadlines exist.

I think that everyone's views on this are on a team-by-team basis. Teams who are behind on their robots will generally love more time to work on it, but teams who are totally done by week 5 won't be as concerned about it, because it's normally just extra practice and tweaking time.

Re: Team Update #13
 

Ditto