[FRC Blog] 2017 Einsteins and More

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by asid61

I think that was the rule before, but because the globe got kickoff at the same time, Hawaii was able to get basically 20 hours of extra work time. It makes more sense to have it this way so that all teams stop at the same time.

To be clear here, Hawaii got 20 hours more than the teams in Sydney, AUS. Not 20 hours more than most of the US.

Up until recently, it was +/- a few hours for most teams. Hawaii got 6 more hours than the east coast teams, Israeli teams got 10 fewer hours, but the vast majority of teams are pretty close. With FRC expanding rapidly globally with Australia and now China hosting regionals, in addition to Israel expanding, it's only natural to make this change. Yes it may end at an inconvenient time for some teams. Kickoff is also at an inconvenient time for some teams. In the end, everyone gets the same amount of calendar time, which means everyone should have roughly the same amount of "reasonable time" working hours.

This is a good change.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

To be clear here, Hawaii got 20 hours more than the teams in Sydney, AUS. Not 20 hours more than most of the US.

Up until recently, it was +/- a few hours for most teams. Hawaii got 6 more hours than the east coast teams, Israeli teams got 10 fewer hours, but the vast majority of teams are pretty close. With FRC expanding rapidly globally with Australia and now China hosting regionals, in addition to Israel expanding, it's only natural to make this change. Yes it may end at an inconvenient time for some teams. Kickoff is also at an inconvenient time for some teams. In the end, everyone gets the same amount of calendar time, which means everyone should have roughly the same amount of "reasonable time" working hours.

This is a good change.

Actually it was 5 hours difference from the East Coast and 2 hours difference from you folks on the West Coast.
Its been awhile since we ever finished late on a Tuesday since during most seasons, our robot was being shipped out that day or the next. We do a lot of Week 1 events.

[AllenGregoryIV]

I feel like this was a made up problem. International teams traveling are already at an inconvenience having to ship out early and things like Glen just said (I know Hawaii isn't international). Most of the other teams are competing with people from their timezone or very near it anyway for their regionals and by championships a few hours probably doesn't matter anyway. I don't know of any team that uses every hour of build season, if you want an extra few hours, show up earlier or stay later through out the season. Many can't fully utilize the "extra" build time they did have since it was so early in the morning on kickoff anyway or will now be late at night/morning on bag day.

Teams that compete at more events have more time with their robot and teams with practice robots have more time as well. We are trying to make an unfair system appear more fair but with very little actual consequence. Why? Let's get rid of Stop Build already and actually start to see improvements.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

Hawaii got 6 more hours than the east coast teams, Israeli teams got 10 fewer hours, but the vast majority of teams are pretty close.

[emphasis mine] This was my initial reaction. I suspect that despite the wording of the blog, this change is more about giving Israeli district teams more time rather than addressing some kind of unfairness with Hawaii. International teams have enough extra struggles that time zones pale in comparison.

[Tyler Olds]

Originally Posted by Drakxii

Why not make it midnight Hawaii time instead? So Hawaii teams don't have to stop at 7pm?

Thank you FIRST for not extending Stop Build Time to 4AM CST so I can get some sleep for the first time in over 6 weeks.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

While I think the bag day change is a solution to a problem that doesn't need solving (drop the bag), it is an improvement none-the-less.

Ditto.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Siri

[emphasis mine] This was my initial reaction. I suspect that despite the wording of the blog, this change is more about giving Israeli district teams more time rather than addressing some kind of unfairness with Hawaii. International teams have enough extra struggles that time zones pale in comparison.

Midnight EST is 7AM the following morning in Israel So sure, they get an extra 7 hours... but do you really think many of them are going to be working during that time? I know if my team was given those extra 7 hours, they would be wasted, as the mentors, parents, and school administration would want the kids to get some sleep on a school night!

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

Can we not just define everything in UTC/Zulu? For a global competition, it seems to be the natural choice.

Please, Frank, read this and do it. Just say it's 05:00 Wednesday February 22, 2017 UTC. Define it against an unambiguous internationally defined time.

Also, isn't "midnight Tuesday" actually the first minute of Tuesday? I've always thought of Stop Build Day in terms of 11:59pm that day.

[GaryVoshol]

Bah. Under the "old" method, stop build was whatever time you managed to get FedEx to show up. Ehh, maybe a few minutes earlier than that, just so the robot was secured and the box shut up when the truck got there. And then you'd look and see what other team's crates were already in the truck.

As my daughter said, "We used to shut the robot up in a box and send it away from home. Now we just suffocate it."

Exiting curmudgeon mode (as much as possible for myself) ...

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Midnight EST is 7AM the following morning in Israel So sure, they get an extra 7 hours... but do you really think many of them are going to be working during that time? I know if my team was given those extra 7 hours, they would be wasted, as the mentors, parents, and school administration would want the kids to get some sleep on a school night!

I don't expect these extra or lesser hours to be used any more than late-night stop build hours are already used; I doubt that anyone does. That doesn't mean the rule itself is ill-suited.

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Actually it was 5 hours difference from the East Coast and 2 hours difference from you folks on the West Coast.
Its been awhile since we ever finished late on a Tuesday since during most seasons, our robot was being shipped out that day or the next. We do a lot of Week 1 events.

See I thought it was 2 hours, and then I Googled "time in Hawaii" and it's 3 hours behind us...and I forgot to factor in that you don't do the daylight savings time so it's shifted during build season.

[Foster]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

As my daughter said, "We used to shut the robot up in a box and send it away from home. Now we just suffocate it."

This is the best line in all the posts!!!

Oh yes, the race to build / assemble a crate as the robot team races to finish the robot. Many 11PM's of "is the paint dry Murph, can we put the crate together?"

I'd like to propose 5PM as the stop build time in your local timezone. With all the teams that then come in with entire robots as part of their allowance, I don't think it's a big deal +/- 12. But being a global person and understanding that parts supplies to a chunk of the world is hard, I'll propose:

Suffocate your robot at 5PM local time at yyy days after kickoff. Starting with EST as hour zero, adjust your time from there. Teams, east of the international date line, this would be the same day, teams west, this would be Wednesday.

Go teams!

[AlexanderLuke]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

While I think the bag day change is a solution to a problem that doesn't need solving (drop the bag), it is an improvement none-the-less.

I am looking forward to the extra sleep, being out in CA

-Mike

Agreed. Seems like us on the West Coast got a sweet spot with this timing

As already mentioned before me, dropping the bag is the solution to the bigger picture.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

We are trying to make an unfair system appear more fair but with very little actual consequence.

I agree that it tries to make an unfair system appear more fair, but in actuality, it makes it more unfair. Time on stop build day is much more valuable for the majority of teams, compared to any other time in build season. Under the old system, teams get more or less time on kickoff day, but the same amount of time on stop build day. Under the new system, teams that get more time on kickoff get less time on stop build day, which is not even close to an even trade.

[FrankJ]

Frank is messing with you. Bag and tag is being eliminated for 2017 in honor of the first water game.