Way back in Jan 1999 I think it was, I flew out to wonderful Manchester NH in a snowstorm. I finally got there 12 hours late after having four flights I was rescheduled on in route cancelled.

As a result I only clearly remember one thing about the event I was there for. (You've figured out what that was right?) That was during the question and answer session after the game was presented. Woodie got up and the first question was "Why don't you give us 8 or 10 weeks to build the robots?" His reply was "We wanted to have mercy!"

He went on to say that they felt that was the minimum time it could take to do a reasonable job, and that it was the maximum time they felt anybody could reasonably be expected to survive the rigorous schedule that resulted without severe damage to health and relationships, at least for the adults. I heartily agree with them. If build season was longer, we'd just work hard at it longer, so lengthening it would just extend the pain.

Engineering is the practice of exercising judgement. One of the things you need to judge is how much you can accomplish with your available resources, including time.

Just my $.02
ChrisH