Poll: Views on the 6 Week Build Season

[E Dawg]

There are numerous threads on this topic, so I thought it would be a good idea to take a poll on people's opinions. It would be great if you left a post explaining your vote.

Thank you!

[Ilovepineapples]

Keep it as it is. (6 weeks)

Many of my thoughts and opinions have been voiced by others in this thread http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=116658

[Pault]

You forgot unlimited.

Very few people are arguing to make the build season literally longer. They are just proposing that there is no bag and tag day; that you are allowed to work on your robot up until your first competition, then bring it home and keep working on it until your next competition, and never have to stop working on it.

[Lil' Lavery]

3 days

[Ed Law]

This poll is misleading. What is your definition of "build season"? There are people who wants 6 weeks of unlimited access to build and then have limited access each week after.

[Jon Stratis]

The poll seems a little lopsided... where's the option for less than 6 weeks?

[Andrew Schreiber]

6 weeks - Tolerable
7 weeks - Only small chance of becoming ill
8 weeks - Likely sick
9 weeks - Wait, do I still have a job?
10+ weeks - My this straight jacket is comfortable, wouldn't you agree?

Seriously, work expands to fill space allotted. Plus it's way cooler to tell people "students built this in 6 weeks".

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

6 weeks - Tolerable
7 weeks - Only small chance of becoming ill
8 weeks - Likely sick
9 weeks - Wait, do I still have a job?
10+ weeks - My this straight jacket is comfortable, wouldn't you agree?

Seriously, work expands to fill space allotted. Plus it's way cooler to tell people "students built this in 6 weeks".

If less is better, then why not 3 or 4 weeks?

[BrendanB]

If its not 6 then unlimited.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

If less is better, then why not 3 or 4 weeks?

There's a minimum here too, so, let's take a build season:

1 week of prototyping is good. And it lets teams iterate a few ideas.
1 week design
1 week waiting for parts/fabricating parts
1 week assembling
1 week testing
1 week iterating

Anything less than 6 and you are removing crucial parts of the design process (ok, waiting on parts isn't crucial but it's unavoidable).

[who716]

personally I think it's to long by about a week in a half, this is 100% biased though based on our teams goals.

[moogboy]

6 weeks is about as far as a good student can go before they completely break down and lose the ability to succeed in school. I know, I did it. Over the six week build season I tended to have a manageably small number of big assignments-papers, difficult tests, etc. There were plenty of options for the ACT/SAT that didn't interfere with the build season, and if school work suffered because of robotics, I could catch up. Every student is different, and so is every school, so YMMV, but that's why I like six week build seasons.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

3 days

Seconded

I can be fairly confident that anyone voting 7 weeks or more is not a mentor. A mentor with a family, job, life, bills, a house that needs maintenance, a car that also needs maintenance, and the other trappings of life as we know it.

6 weeks is already too long. We all know it can be done in 3 days, so that's my vote.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Seconded

I can be fairly confident that anyone voting 7 weeks or more is not a mentor. A mentor with a family, job, life, bills, a house that needs maintenance, a car that also needs maintenance, and the other trappings of life as we know it.

6 weeks is already too long. We all know it can be done in 3 days, so that's my vote.

I voted for 10+ and am a mentor with everything you mentioned minus a house that need maintenance.

Having a build season that doesn't have a stop build day would just represent what many top level teams area already doing with practice bots, extending the build season way past the 6 weeks. Saying that the current build season is 6 weeks is a lie and its time to update the build season schedule to match what teams are already doing. It will save teams money(not having to build a 2nd robot) and hopefully save teams sanity(take more time off during build to relax as teams are in less of a time crunch. Not all teams and everybody will take time off but there are plenty who will.)

[Siri]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

I voted for 10+ and am a mentor with everything you mentioned minus a house that need maintenance.

Having a build season that doesn't have a stop build day would just represent what many top level teams area already doing with practice bots, extending the build season way past the 6 weeks. Saying that the current build season is 6 weeks is a lie and its time to update the build season schedule to match what teams are already doing. It will save teams money(not having to build a 2nd robot) and hopefully save teams sanity(take more time off during build to relax as teams are in less of a time crunch. Not all teams and everybody will take time off but there are plenty who will.)

Same vote, same reason (well, minus dependents but with the addition of classes as well as a job). I run a 3-hour-one-way commute to my team every weekend in build, plus usually 6-hours-in-one-night at least one night a week. I wouldn't do that in a 10 week build if you paid me, and I'd be ecstatic about it. Perhaps an extreme case, but if you're willing to work to defy Parkinson's Law, 10+ (no stop build) has incredible upsides.