Missing valuable work days!

[Sunshine]

I'm bummed!

We've had one snow day (no school) and now school was canceled today because of extreme cold weather. We may have school canceled again tomorrow. Our district policy is if we have no school you can not meet with students. We are behind of schedule. Anyone else having the same problems?

[KathieK]

Unfortunately this seems to happen somewhere in the country during Build season every year. We've had several school closures in the past couple of weeks here in CT.

[Uberbots]

Thats the danger of living in snowy regions my friend!

What the Uberbots used to do was meet in a secondary meeting location and do things that were non-robot related, though for obvious reasons if we were behind on the build this didnt help much.

[MrForbes]

We're suffering from excessive warmth and sunshine....it's hard to get motivated when it's so nice out

(sorry!)

[Jared Russell]

I certainly sympathize!

I do remember (I think it was 2003?) FIRST once postponing the ship date because of inclement weather. I spent two days (and the night in between) snowed into our shop, frantically finishing our robot.

It was awesome.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by Abwehr

I certainly sympathize!

I do remember (I think it was 2003?) FIRST once postponing the ship date because of inclement weather. I spent two days (and the night in between) snowed into our shop, frantically finishing our robot.

It was awesome.

I think that actually happened 2 years in a row. 2002 & 2003 if I'm not mistaken?
It's rare, & we kind of were looking forward to it happening again the nest year, but alas, it was not to be.
Oh wells.

Something you can do to make up some time in the first couple of weeks during a missed night is to have an online meetng, or teleconference, or just meet "unofficially" somewhere other than your school. There is nothing wrong with meeting with friends after school at someone's house.
Keep safety in mind though, & if it's a blizzard or frigid cold out, use common sense & your best judgement.
Building a robot is not more important than risking your life or anyone elses to get to a meeting.
The robot may be lonely for a night without you, but it will wait.

[paragon571]

we have that problem to but we cant work at our schools they hate us

[Jon Stratis]

What, you guys don't own snowmobiles down south?

We occasionally have similar problems here - school is almost never canceled, but when there are bad conditions out we go out of our way to either cancel the meeting our caution students, parents, and mentors to use their best judgment (or let their parents drive). Yeah, missing a day of work hurts the build season. Missing a student for the rest of the build season and competition hurts more.

[Engineer]

Some of the school districts in Western Minnesota are closed also. I'm a mentor and I have not heard from any of the teachers if we are meeting today. I'll have to assume not.

It was -25F and dropping when I left my house this morning.

[Jon236]

Originally Posted by Engineer

Some of the school districts in Western Minnesota are closed also. I'm a mentor and I have not heard from any of the teachers if we are meeting today. I'll have to assume not.

It was -25F and dropping when I left my house this morning.

So you use your driveway as a playing field?

[Engineer]

Originally Posted by Jon236

So you use your driveway as a playing field?

Driveways, parking lots, roads and highways can all be used as a playing field if you have a working robot. Everything is frozen. Any colder and we might be able to have a "super conductor motor" in the robot.

It's fun to take a pot of hot water and throw the water in the air. No water (or ice) reaches the ground, it all floats away in cloud when it's this cold.

BTW the snowmobile but but you have to dodge all those cars and truck sliding into the ditches while trying to get to work.

[ebarker]

One of the huge benefits of being in Atlanta is the weather is lousy enough to keep you inside, but almost always good enough that you can get around, so the calendar works out great.

We have probably one snow day every 5 years.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by ebarker

One of the huge benefits of being in Atlanta is the weather is lousy enough to keep you inside, but almost always good enough that you can get around, so the calendar works out great.
We have probably one snow day every 5 years.

Did you have a Tornado/Flood day last year though, or was that outside of the build period? I forgot when that happened - I just remember seeing some damage in April still (Plywood on the Westin & Omni hotels, etc.)

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Did you have a Tornado/Flood day last year though, or was that outside of the build period? I forgot when that happened - I just remember seeing some damage in April still (Plywood on the Westin & Omni hotels, etc.)

It was after the build. During the Peachtree Regional, literally a tornado was in the area, and it was hailing, and lightning hit the building a few minutes before the finals on Saturday and killed the field control equipment.

After about a 3.5 hour delay the heros on the site lashed together some manual control boxes to do the disable/auto mode and the UL Safety people were programmed to be the disable/enable/auto mode operators so we could have the matches and finish the regional.

RE snowflakes. We don't do snow. The stuff we have that we call snow is a lot more icy than they have up nawth. It doesn't have the same driveability as that stuff in Minnesota plus we don't have the gear to deal with it so we cancel school if there is a snowflake spotted by our hyperventilating news anchors.

[RMiller]

Originally Posted by ebarker

We have probably one snow day every 5 years.

That one day is more snow days than I had in the 13 years I went to school in Minnesota (K-8, college four years). I only had one day completely canceled in those 13 years. The governor canceled school state-wide because of the cold.