Hard to Meet Upcoming Deadlines!!!

[Cyberphil]

With the three days already missed from snow days and the two more expected tomorrow and Wednesday, we have missed a lot of time from the already week less schedule of animation. At this rate, we are still going to get done, but much closer to the due date then expected. I have heard from around CD that teams have lost up to 10 days . With this huge chunk of time gone, I was wondering if the GDC and Autodesk would allow an extension to the already week shorter time period. I'm sure that this would help many, many teams meet their deadlines, especially on the East Coast. I believe that it would be unfair to just allow these teams that have been working for the five weeks to just loose all of their work because of nature. If you agree, please respond and we can try to post this on the Q and A.

[rjbman]

I'm not saying this to be rude or offensive, but this year, isn't the software provided to each student? So wouldn't you have it on laptops or home computers?

Or do you work at school?

[imp]

why is the time a week shorter? and I agree with rjbman. do you not have the software on alternative computers?

[Chuck Glick]

Rendering takes lots of time when you do quality animations like the Cybersonics. It is not also realistic or plausible to attempt to render the final cut on their personal laptops as they are not built to handle such loads. Most *good* animation teams have a dedicated power-horse workstation or several to handle the heavy stuff like rendering. Having seen 103's facilities, I know that all of their heavy duty rendering machines are located at their school, which because of the recent storms in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas, are not accessible.

So don't be so quick to judge someone based off a post, think about all the possibilities and reasons for such a post.

[DonRotolo]

Well said, Chuck.

In my opinion, no such additional time should be awarded or considered. Sometimes, in real life, things happen that are completely beyond your control, but you are still responsible and accountable to deliver on time. Learning how to recover from such a hardship is part of the educational experience you're getting from FIRST.

In life, IT Happens. And when it does, professionals get to work to make IT Happen on time.

[JaneYoung]

Every year there are teams who struggle to meet the deadlines for one reason or another. It is built into challenge. Even if every single person involved in FRC could completely clear their calendars from Kick Off through Ship Date, and focus on nothing but the competition - challenges within the challenge would arise, of that I am certain. They are simply built in as part of what teams must grapple with, face, and overcome. I also think that those folks at FIRST who set the wheels in motion each year, monitor and keep a watch out for problem areas and issues. We see that reflected in our updates. We also see that in decisions that are made during the build season. It's not something we should take for granted.

When pressures mount, patience wanes, and stress is strong - CD is a great place to turn to for inspiration. The current threads are awesome and hold lots of humor, thought, advice, and inspiration. (118's latest video comes to mind.) The older threads also hold wisdom, thought, advice, and inspiration. One of the threads that I always look for sometime during build season that always makes me smile and realize the measure of a team, is a good one that provokes thoughts and soothes the soul. This post in the thread is one of my very favorites and I'm grateful to Heidi for the beginning of the story and to Dave for the rest of the story. (Heidi's post is included as a quote in Dave's post.)While searching for this post, I came across some threads that were concerned with schools closing, snow, shipping problems, etc. Those challenges are part of our history in FRC.

Try not to waste your energy and time thinking of alternative solutions to avoid the deadline. Instead, dig deep and meet it. You can do it.

Jane

[rsisk]

If rendering on the schools computers, is there no way to Remote Desktop into them to do the rendering remotely?

[nikeairmancurry]

Depending on the school, No... At my highschool, I can't even get to Chiefdelphi... and trying to ask for that is a pain in the butt... Asknig for remote acess to the school, is out of the question for most highschools.. Until I came to U of Michigan.. I never knew of remote acess...

[Cyberphil]

Thank you for your input everyone. I'm not as worried about our team as I am about other teams. We can remote access our computers at school (which we do), and we can put the program on our home computers (although that would be a complete waste of time in my opinion). I do now understand that FIRST intended it to be this way, which is an idea that I have never thought of before, and now that I think of it, I'm sure that FIRST intended it to be this way. This thread has somehow given me a new appreciation for FIRST.

Thank you all very much.

[Cyberphil]

If anyone is unaware, this deadline was extended to wednesday, Febuary 17th. I guess Autodesk made an exception this year...

[rjbman]

Chuck, I wasn't trying to be offensive; I was just curious. We don't really have any powerhouses (third year animation, and first year with more than two people); so for us we can do our rendering on whatever we have on hand with the software. Good luck to Cybersonics!