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Re: Snow days are killing us
Snow days are tough. It's something our team deals with every year living in New England. You must try to get work done on days where you are unable to meet. Whether it's finishing design work, creating drawings, constructing BOMs, ordering materials, working on awards submissions, etc. This year has been tough on us as well (~60" of snow on the winter thus far, ~50" of which during build season), so we are definitely a little behind.
All we can do is work as hard as possible to make up the time, and if FIRST throws us a bone great, but we cannot count on that happening. -Bando |
Re: Snow days are killing us
I agree, but last year, FIRST allowed us to keep up to 50% of our weight from Ship Date, and we just brought it with us to BAE, where we attached it to the Robot, and then it was crated up at the end as usual.
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Re: Snow days are killing us
work on non robot things... Chairmans, WFA, strategy, inventor, Reading Chief Delphi, rereading the rules,
There are so many things to do that don't involve the robot and don't involve physically being at the school. when life gives you lemons make lemonade |
Re: Snow days are killing us
I don't understand why this is such an issue every year. 1075 is based in Whitby, ON (Golden Horseshoe, just outside of Toronto). In the now 8 seasons I've been involved in FRC, I can remember I think 2 snow days. Our area can often receive anywhere from 4-12" in a given night.
Now, I can understand when a freak storm hits an unprepared southern state like Texas, or Florida. They don't normally see snow and so obviously people dont have snow tires on their vehicles, the city and state don't have the snowplows to clear the roads, or the salt trucks to make them safe to traverse. When northeastern states like Maine and Pennsylvania are closing schools over less than 12" of snow? Its ridiculous. These are areas that get LOTS of snow, EVERY winter, and they're still woefully underprepared. Why does this KEEP happening? Maybe FRC teams should be appealing to their state officials to change the culture, and improve the snow removal programs, because it is ADVERSELY AFFECTING THEIR EDUCATION. The future of our youth depends on their education today, and its suffering because of their poor snow removal practices. That being said, even when our school board DID call a snow day, we were in the shop, at the school working. I understand that some school boards won't allow their teams to do this (which I think is silly, however, I understand that sometimes school boards make rules which are inconvenient to their FRC teams, we've had a few issues ourselves). However, what is to stop these teams for whom this is a perennial issue from getting a sponsor to support them with a build space which won't close due to snow (when was the last time you heard of major industrial companies shutting their factory for a snowstorm?), or even go so far as to build at a mentor or student's home. |
Re: Snow days are killing us
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There are ways around snow days - but they're a lot easier to get around in the CAD stage than in the machining or practice stage. |
Re: Snow days are killing us
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I recently moved from Upstate NY to Western VA. Their attitude towards snow is completely different. We got 3 inches in VA the other day and the Area colleges got a day off. In upstate NY we got 12 inches one night and classes were only delayed by an hour so they could clear the walkways. Having the investment in infrastructure to handle snow is key. I thought it was crazy that places here closed with so little snow but then on my drive to work it became apparent why, there were cars off the road everywhere. Cars off the road in western VA does not have a huge effect on traffic. However a similar problem in a city like Philly (with ~5x the population density of Toronto) would be devastating). The obvious solution to this is to buy more snow/ice removal equipment. That just isn’t possible for most of these cities. They are already having trouble with finances, cutting sports and other school programs, taking more money away from other programs to help pay for snow removal is just not an option. As far as missing build time because school is closed goes, all of the schools I have worked with (6 schools in 3 states inculding public and private) prohibit any meetings of school groups, even off school grounds during snow days. It is a lot to ask a teacher who mentors a team to permit the students to meet when if word got back to the school about it that teacher could face disciplinary measures. |
Re: Snow days are killing us
Seems to me that those policies are somewhat flexible. If the teams calmly, cohesively, and respectfully approach their school board, they can usually get the board to make concessions given the time-restricted nature of the competitions. I know that originally back in 2003 when 1075 was a rookie, and had the opportunity to go to CMP in Houston, TX following the Canadian Regional where we were regional finalists (thanks 188, 306) we didn't end up going because the school board would not let our students cross the USA/Canada border on a school trip. We have subsequently gotten the school board to change this policy, and have been actively participating in Offseasons in Flint, MI (Kettering Kickoff) and North Brunswick, NJ (Brunswick Eruption) as well as attending 2010 CMP in Atlanta.
School board policies CAN be changed, if the school board is approached correctly. Whining and stomping feet will get you nowhere, however. |
Re: Snow days are killing us
Many school districts policy - No school no after school activities. Period. Bending the rules may cause a team to be suspended. Just have to deal. If you think it's bad now look at the latest computer model runs for mid next week. Looks like a repeat.
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Re: Snow days are killing us
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Increased population density, and reduced area should make snow removal easier, NOT harder. There's less area, and therefore less snow to move. You also mentioned that Philly gets roughly half the snow Toronto does. Toronto is also home to the North Americas widest and busiest highway (Our 401 is 16 lanes wide at its widest point through Toronto, and handles an average annual daily traffic of 425,000 cars (2004 numbers)) and the Downtown core's density is so high, that there is nowhere for them to put the snow they plow off the roads. There is no doubt that both cities would come to a screeching halt in the face of a abnormally large snowfall. However, when I hear this same issue every year coming from teams north of the Carolinas, I have to wonder how "abnormal" this really is. This is besides the point I was trying to make however, and that most people live within a 30-60 minute walk of their school no matter what the conditions are. Whether its safe to drive a motor vehicle to get to school or not, you CAN get there, and so its reasonable to appeal to the school board to allow your team to continue work, even when classes have been cancelled. Perhaps reminding them that your team's sponsors have put up LARGE dollars for your students to have the learning experience that participation in FRC affords them, but that they're unable to take advantage of it due to the school board's policies. My understanding of why school boards call snow days is an issue of safety. They don't want the kids getting hurt in accidents on the way to school. Show them how you can be safe, and they might change their tune. |
Re: Snow days are killing us
Your best bet when encountering any of these administrative roadblocks is to sit down and ask yourself: Does this rule protect my best interests... 90% of the time you will realize that it does not. My suggestion is to remove yourself from that situation and find a detour if you will. My favorite tatic is the Non-school sanctioned event. Back in the day my team was given an oppertunity to attend the championship however, we were unable to get any staff to chaperone us. The solution was to get all the parents of interested students together and have a meeting. Three parents volunteered to chaperone the trip to the states. Since there was of course no time to conduct background checks etc. We ran it as an out of school trip. All of the parents wrote letters of authorization in case any red tape were to pop up. This entirely removed any liability from the school and there was nothing left to stop us. The robot had already been shipped down so the worst they could have done was accuse us of "borrowing" the robot without authorization- of course they were thrilled we were able to go regardless of their restrictive policies. All in all it was a great trip and nobody got their panties in a knot.
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Re: Snow days are killing us
In California, there are "fire days" instead of snow days. Must say I rather take snow days over fire days when the skies are red and ashes "snow".
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Re: Snow days are killing us
There is a reason why we named our team "The Arctic Warriors". Being near Syracuse (where the real snow in NY hits, don't ever think Buffalo or Rochester has it worse. I did live in Rochester too.) is always a pain, but we always plan for the snow days.
It's actually the mentor "break" days that are worse for us then snow days, but hey you need to give the mentors at least one day a week off from working their tails off. |
Re: Snow days are killing us
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As to the serious point regarding safety. I have lived in upstate NY, just across Lake Ontario from Toronto, and the snow removal was fast and efficient, due to the shear volume of snow every year. I now live in Southern Maryland where some years we get almost no snow, and other years (like last year) we got several feet of snow during three major storms. We lost 17 days last year because of this. We, too, asked to be allowed in the building and we were rejected by the board each time. Our board is very supportive of our team, but safety is number one. Tragically, this was illustrated a couple of weeks ago. A student at one of our high schools in the county was on her way home, and we started to get a mixture of sleet and freezing rain, and since the county can not quickly treat the surfaces, and she killed in an accident. No amount of asking nicely will ever convince the board to change that policy, no life is worth a couple of extra days in our build season. Here is how we handled last year's Snowmeggedon - we developed a cooperative program between several teams to set up assistance teams at the Chesapeake Regional - which we called "Operation Snowmeggon". By the end of Friday we had every robot built and running they way they should. If weather continues to impact your area, I would recommend contacting the regional director and work with your regional committee to set up the needed resources at the regional. I have the documentation and the forms we built to allow teams to request assistance. We were referred to as match.com for robots at the regional! PM me if you would like for me to send you that info. You can also go to www.robobees.org and find that info on our website. Stay safe! Steve |
Re: Snow days are killing us
Historically, if our team was anticipating a snow day, we would bring everything we need to continue progress to a student's house. Mentors would not really be able to meat with us, but work was still accomplished.
We have not had any troubles in the past 2 years, thankfullly, but the 2009 season came with a week off school and many trips to a student's house. |
Re: Snow days are killing us
Best way to prepare, is to keep a keen ear to the weather reports and have an off site, away from the school, where you can regroup if you need to. Our team has a small factory space, from one of our sponsors, which we use for storage and prototyping. we also utilize a very small machine shop, one of our mentors has, next to his home, about 8 miles away from the school, which also allows us the opportunity to do some work. Plus being from Wisconsin, we're used to the heavier snowfalls.
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