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Originally Posted by waialua359
I wouldnt participate in a sept-april program primarily because that would mean all of the pre-planning would take place during the summer. My guess is that you would lose a lot of teachers who arent willing to do that.
While many such as ourselves come in during the summers to prepare many of the same things, we do it at our own relaxed pace vs. an intensified one.
Many schools do not start at the same time. There would be a huge disparity/advantage for some teams and not others. We started our school year the week after IRI. I know of many schools who dont start school until after Labor Day weekend.
The biggest hurdle would be student preparation. Do we really want to throw a kid into build season right when school starts, especially new students?
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Do you really anticipate that a Sept-April program would be the same intensity as our January-April program? What about a 365 day a year program? Can planning, preparation, and training of students still not happen in the same fall time period, even if there's a game announced? If anything, I'd echo some of the earlier posts hypothesizing it may actually be good for younger students to be able to get their hands dirty on a competition robot in a more relaxed pace. It's far less crippling if a new student makes a mistake and you have 4 months left to fix it rather than 4 weeks. It would also allow for more teams to get their fabrication and prototyping students up to speed while still having time to design a robot before they start cutting metal.
I think it's obvious that our current structure results in a very high demand, sometimes burnout inducing, pace for the 6 weeks of build season. For some teams, that can spill over into competition season. Adjusting stop build date opens the potential for that burnout to adjust up or down for many teams, but ultimately building a 120lb machine in either 6 weeks or 8 weeks or 10 weeks is still going to be a high stress, high intensity task. If we're serious about giving teams more access to their machines, but also don't want to burn people out, exploring the possibility of moving the start of the season to the left (either by adjusting kickoff date or relaxing "don't touch" requirements) may actually create the possibility of a season with less burnout. Removing bag day likely doesn't create a low stress pace by itself, but perhaps adding another 12 or 16 weeks on the front end might.
You do bring up some good points regarding teacher perspectives. We've seen similar splits among teachers regarding stop build day. Since you're also involved in VRC, how do you feel about the 365 day schedule of that competition and its interactions with your profession?
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Originally Posted by NShep98
I'm not quite clear on what "eliminating" Kickoff entails, unless it is supposed to mean moving it earlier in the year.
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The "eliminating" verbage was designed to parallel the verbage being used in stop bag day discussions. Practically, we're discussing both the potential movement of the Kickoff date (up until perhaps the point a 365 day schedule, in which the next game is revealed at championship), as well as the relaxation and adjustment of the rules governing what can be done before kickoff.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NShep98
I may very well be misunderstanding your point here, but isn't it that, in the current state of things, any team has the same opportunity to experiment with non-kitbot drive trains because they'd all have to start over after Kickoff?
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As it stands currently, teams are not allowed to use components fabricated prior to kickoff. I'm suggested we consider relaxing those rules. In a situation where those rules were relaxed to the point teams could fabricate their kitbot chassis prior to kickoff, I think that would benefit low-to-mildly successful teams more than it would high performing teams. Top tier competitive teams would be unlikely to invest substantially in designing and fabricating a chassis (or other system) for a game they do not yet know, as they want an optimized solution for the challenge. Lower performing teams often already employ sub-optimal solutions, so effectively allowing them a head start would allow them to focus more on optimization and game piece manipulation after the game is revealed. I'm also sure that high performing teams would find ways the relaxed rules could help their design and fabrication process (such as moving menial fabrication jobs on items like wheels or gussets ahead of the game reveal).
Quote:
Originally Posted by NShep98
Is it integral? I would say so. If we're going to dub FRC "the sport for the mind", I would hope there is a fair bit of intensity to it. While we do have to caution ourselves against burning out, I believe intensity is part of the challenge, and for some, part of the fun.
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Does the intensity have to come in the form of a 6 or 13 week sprint? Could it come in terms of final rushes up to competition dates or other deadlines? Could it come at competition itself?
I'm not dismissing your viewpoint, as it's definitely a valid one. Some people relish the burn of competition season. However, there are others that are kept away because of it, and I think it's worth examining if we're at the ideal point.