Mythical Six Week Build Season

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by aryker

I'm surprised more people haven't brought this point up already. I always viewed stop build day as beneficial because of the experience it gives to the students--namely, the experience of a hard deadline that everyone would prefer to be just a little bit further away.

As CEO of an engineering consulting company, I see these at work all the time, and every time I do I'm grateful for the experience I had on my high school FRC team that prepared me for it. It's valuable for these kids to learn that no one is going to wait on you in the real world, and that whenever you see a deadline on a calendar you should treat it as immovable and plan accordingly. I know my clients appreciate this approach, and I can't think of a single situation in life where this mindset would steer anyone wrong. If stop build day teaches this effectively, then it's invaluable(especially when so many high schools these days have a "no zeroes" policy, but that's a rant for another day...).

The problem is that it's not really a deadline anymore because teams are working around it. And if we opened up build season then the deadline would be by your competitions basically.

Not saying I agree with opening up build season, just stating those points.