Quote:
Originally Posted by Nemo
If that's true, then those same teams are already "forced" to build a practice robot and continue working on their 30 lbs of parts. It changes nothing.
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Which is why you see nearly all the "pro-6-week" posts including "remove the withholding allowance". Because you're correct: we already ARE forced to work for 4 months straight to stay competitive. I for one would like to be able to be competitive WITHOUT having to work for 4 months straight. This year, other commitments forced me to not be able to work past mid-february. I felt like I was abandoning my team, even though I had been there most weekday meetings throughout build season.
2012 was the same way: we met at nearly the same tempo between mid-february and mid-march, because the shooter needed tuning/lightening and the aiming code needed changing.
2011 was the same way, but even more intense because we qualified for championships and were doing a "big year": mid-feb to mid-april was minibot revisions, claw revisions, gearbox revisions, code revisions, vision system revisions.
In each year, the revisions that we did between "end of build" and competitions made pretty enormous upgrades in our robot's capabilities and kept us competitive. If we hadn't, we would have done much worse.
The people saying "make it 4 months officially, it'll make it easier" are ignoring a truth: it already is 4 months. It has already burned me (and I'm sure, others) right out. Allowing MORE access to the robot would make it even worse. We have seen the 4 month build beast, and it is awful.