More Build Time?

[dlavery]

To avoid even the appearance of west-coast-bias, as well as the real potential for west coast teams to avoid having a four-hour advantage during the entire build season, FIRST has undertaken certain measures to compensate for the differences in game-release-vs-ship-deadline schedules. FIRST has worked with InnovationFIRST to add some special code into the default software that every team will be required to use. The code includes a special "geographic detection and compensation" (GDC) algorithm that will determine the time zone of the team, and the difference between the team time zone and MST (Manchester Standard Time). At apparently random times during the last week of the build season, the IFI controller will automatically shut down and disable itself for 30-minute periods. These periods will actually be carefully selected to be at the most inconvenient and frustrating moments, such as during a critical testing period or operator training. These random blackout periods will continue until the total disabled time equals the time difference caused by the team location. Once the GDC algorithm has determined that the team no longer has any possibility of preferential timing due to their location, the code shuts down and automatically removes itself from the system.

Note that due to one minor bug in the software that has not yet been resolved, locations of teams in the southern hemisphere are not properly identified. Due to an unfortunate sign-inversion error that has not been tracked down, the software calculates that these teams actually ship their robots before the kick-off. To compensate for this, the GDC software actually generates a small singularity, and the associated team is sucked through the resulting black hole back in time a number of hours equivalent to the time zone differences. IFI is trying to fix this before the kick-off, but there are no guarantees...

-dave

ACK! He brings the confusion and headaches again.....
Woot! more time!

[Smrtman5]

I just wanted to say this before anyone else did: Dave is giving us a hint about next year!

[Adam Richards]

Originally Posted by Smrtman5

I just wanted to say this before anyone else did: Dave is giving us a hint about next year!

One that we all fear might actually be true...

[mechanicalbrain]

Originally Posted by Smrtman5

I just wanted to say this before anyone else did: Dave is giving us a hint about next year!

Dang it! hey i wonder if we can capitalize on the singularity affect and use it to power the robots. Actually the nice thing about being an east coaster is that.... well.... we have Lavery? Well actually their is proximity to kickoff.

[Greg Needel]

I knew this looked familiar...

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...st+coast+extra

[John Gutmann]

In the real world are you going to go complain to your boss about something this small? Life just isn't fair, if your tools break during build season you dint get any more time then teams with working tools do. So you just gotta learn how to play with the hand your dealt. If you think 3-4 hours really matter that much look at tit in a positive way, the teams who have less time are just that much better for doing it in less time.

Also what about the Israeli team, do that have to ship earlier or later then east coast teams?

Hope every one has brushed up on special relativity, the matches will be so short that your robot will have to move fast enough to dialate time and accomplish the task.

I know I have.

what if you make a ship to travel as close to the speed of like as you can get so you can build forever. Or if you travel AT the speed of light you will never have to ship but you robot will be infinitely small. But if you never have to ship why are you building a robot. This kinda reminds me of the grandfather paradox.

According to the equation E=MC^2 your robot would also go wayy over weight in this scenario. So you have positives and negatives everywhere.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

Actually the nice thing about being an east coaster is that.... well.... we have Lavery? Well actually their is proximity to kickoff.

The great thing about being a north-easterner is being able attend the Manchester Kickoff every year without going through a major hassle. Well, except for the snow every year.

But more realistically, during the build season you have about 1,085 hours to build your robot. Does three hours really make that much of a difference?

You can overcome those three hours by working on your robot an extra 4 minutes per day during the build season.

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

You can overcome those three hours by working on your robot an extra 4 minutes per day during the build season.

Hmm, I will have to consider extending our meetings until 8:04.

[Cory]

Unless anyone is planning on working 24/7 for 6 weeks, the extra three hours are utterly worthless.

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by Smrtman5

I just wanted to say this before anyone else did: Dave is giving us a hint about next year!

Hope every one has brushed up on special relativity, the matches will be so short that your robot will have to move fast enough to dialate time and accomplish the task.

[Jay H 237]

Originally Posted by 114ManualLabor

ACK! He brings the confusion and headaches again.....

Normally I don't have to open the bottle of Advil until the six weeks!

So the ultimate answer would be to attend a remote kick-off in England and then head back to the US and ship your robot from California. Doesn't really matter where you build it!

[sdexp]

I'm quite sure that the time spent by the Wast-coasters to even interpret what Mr. Lavery has said is the compensation to East-coasters for their 4 hours less time.