[GreyingJay]

I would be in favour of a slightly longer build season. 8 weeks maybe?

A few posts back someone said that a team that doesn't have its act together will produce the same so-so robot in 12 weeks as it would have in 6 weeks. That sounds like a derogatory comment, but it's probably true, and I would take the viewpoint of "well in that case, why not?" If not for a better quality robot then for better mental sanity for all the students and mentors and parents involved. A longer build season would be a little bit less stress and that might actually mean the difference between giving up at the 11th hour and just slapping it together, or having the ability to say "ok, let's take a break, rest, and look at it again tomorrow".

I have worked on software projects that "required" a lot of overtime due to overly aggressive schedules, and everyone who has been in this position knows that the work you produce at 11pm on a Sunday night is not the same quality as the work you produce during the regular weekday.

Having a slightly longer build season would also be a little more forgiving for those teams that don't "have their act together". The team I was on last year had a good pedigree but was hobbled because of (a) some design churn and (b) one of their manufacturing sponsors promised to make some parts and were two weeks late getting them. That resulted in everything "sliding to the right". It happens to the best of us. I like that there IS a stop build day, though, because you do need to deal with this in the real world.