[FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

They haven't been through inspection at their first district event, which allows them no more than 4-5 hours on day zero and two to three hours on day one to get inspected. It's really easy to find this information out but you seem to have trouble seeking it, so here you go:

Week 1 CHS District - Northern Virginia Event Schedule (2016)
Week 6 Chesapeake District Championship Schedule (2016)
Minnesota North Star Regional Schedule (2016)

Before you get snarky, you might want to realize that I was replying to the content of your post, which was about DCMP, not district events in general. I've been around long enough to know how they work and what their schedules are like.

You'll notice that, while districts have 4-5 hours on day 0, regionals don't. There's a couple hours for load-in, but that's just drop and go, no work or pit setup. Sure, that could change. You could increase the hours and allow teams to stay. But in my experience, you only get about 2/3 of the team loaded in the night before at regionals. All the other teams are still traveling to the event - district events are supposed to be as local as possible for teams, while regionals are hit or miss. Some teams have to travel, and getting to the regional by 5PM the day before instead of the following morning would mean different plans and possibly an additional day off school. Remember, regional teams are already missing an additional day per event compared to districts!

My point is, there are a lot of logistical concerns to consider when you talk about changing times, and those concerns are likely different for different events, based on the demographics of each event. This isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, as FIRST events are not currently one-size-fits-all.