[Jared Russell]

I travel for work. Often.

For the past five years I have been fortunate in that I've been able to avoid lengthy business travel during build season. As it is looking right now, I will be out of town for 3-4 weeks in January/February of 2014.

We have had a number of similar issues with mentors (and key students) over the years. Travel that falls during a build season. Hectic situations at work requiring lots of overtime. Illnesses and deaths in the family that require undivided attention. Weather calamities. School strikes. Emergency situations at sponsors that delay making key parts. Critical components on back order.

When you only have 6 weeks of full robot access, losing a week or more because of any of these unfortunate, but very common, real-life situations is disastrous.

If you have unlimited robot access, you can lessen the hit or re-plan around your constraints. You can also continue to utilize the "6 week grind" model, if that is what works for you and your team. Nobody is taking that away from you! And I wouldn't worry about the "arms race" escalating too much to the point that a 6 week robot can't be competitive. Even here, on a forum that over-represents the top tier of FRC teams, I don't see mentors for former World Champions salivating over the thought of being able to pour even more time into their robot than they do currently. In the case of Miss Daisy, we are at our limit as it is.

Arguments that basically amount to, "I can't/don't want to balance my life if build season is longer than six weeks, therefore nobody should be allowed to" just do not make sense to me.