[Jon Stratis]

Just my two cents as well... Since this event is school sponsored, for students, it should be done during the school year. Additionally, it isn't reliant on good weather (like football teams are), so you don't really need to do it during the summer. You want to avoid the typical holiday (family) times as best you can - Thanksgiving and the last half of December (and all of summer). Finally, with 6 weeks of build, 5 weeks of regionals, and 1 week of national competition, you have (roughly) a 3-month season of activity.

If you started it around the first day of school for most kids (school districts vary), that would generally be around the beginning of September, which sticks the end of the season right around Thanksgiving. So most of the fall is pretty much shot because of the holidays.

If you go for a January start, then the regional competitions fall in March - a lot of schools have spring break during March. It can certainly make a lot of sense to attend a regional during your schools spring break. The kids don't miss class, which is good (although i think i can hear the groans from students from here!).

If you pushed the start of the season back much more, you might get spring break during the build season, which could be good or bad, depending on how many people want to get out of town. But pushing it back also means pushing back the regionals and the national competition, which puts them much, much closer to the end of the school year and finals. How many parents will let their kids take a trip to Atlanta the weekend before finals? How many schools will let the kids go on a school trip to Atlanta the week of finals?

So in short, i guess I'm saying there are problems with the season regardless of when you have it. Logistically, i think starting it in January makes the most sense, but you do occasionally run into weather delays. Making up time on the delays you hit, however, is a rather important ability to have in the "real world", as no project can finish without hitting a few snags or delays.