[DampRobot]

While a lot of good points in this discussion were brought up, I'd like to remind everyone that possibly none of the suggestions here will be acted on. FIRST moves slow, and tends not to change the things that work well, albeit it not perfectly. A "6" week build season is not going to change. Withholding allowances might, and I could believe unlock periods before regionals as they do at district events. But I very seriously doubt there will be any form of open build season in the near future.

Yes, I know, six weeks burns people out (it burnt out me too). But I don't really believe that the problem is that build season is too short, or that bag day is too soon, or 30 lbs is too much. Allowing people to work longer will make many of them work longer; I'm convinced of that. Those that want to stay competitive at all costs will work every second that is provided and more, and those that just want to have fun will only meet a few times a week. Most will find some happy medium, as they do in the current system.

Also, 6 weeks is just one of those things that makes modern FRC what it is, just like 120 lbs, 60" tall (to start), 27' by 54" fields and 3v3 alliances. It's so much a part of the FRC system that it isn't going to change. And certainly not with the level of disagreement in the community that is expressed on this thread.

So what can Manchester do to, reasonably? One is make the withholding allowance smaller or larger. They might actually do this, but I still think 30 is a good number. It lets you iterate a subsystem, but not really change your robots overall function (what we did at SVR is an exception). Competition would feel a lot more futile if there was no withholding allowance. If you got something wrong, like a gear ratio for example, there would be no recovery. And that would make competitions and FRC in general a lot less fun and inspirational.

They also might allow everyone in FRC a certain amount of in-shop unbag time. I'd actually support this. It would essentially do what the first half of Thursday at competition is, but allow teams to utilize the time a lot more effectively. I don't really think it would change the nature of the game too much either. Maybe 6 hours or so, as it has been proposed in this thread, and as they do it at districts?

Overall, I'm not expecting much to change next year. But I've been wrong before. Mentors and students alike will always find ways to push themselves beyond their limits given the current scale of FRC (a build season longer than a week and shorter than six months). Ultimately, the decision about how much and how long to work is for an individual to decide.