What would you do if build were longer?

[Katie_UPS]

Imagine that instead of six weeks, FIRST gave us two months. Or three months. Or a year.

Now, the actual amount of time given isn't what matters though, its what you would do with it.

Would you spent more time designing or prototyping? What about building? Or debugging code? Or more driver practice?

What would you do with more time to build?

(I'm not pro longer-build-season, I'm just wondering)

[EricLeifermann]

It would allow us to get more advanced machining done, do prototyping on a whole different level, and get some really good driver practice.

The big thing that the longer build season would do for us is we would be able to explore more of the "wilder" ideas that come up during brainstorming that we don't think wouldn't work, but sure enough we see a similar idea working on a robot during a competition.

[smurfgirl]

I would sleep. (: Just kidding... no one sleeps during build season. I would probably put a little bit more time into every part of the process- they are all very important to a final outcome. I would say the thing that always gets pushed aside for too long is the code, so a longer build season would make sure that gets the attention that it deserves. More driver practice would also be great. And yeah... now that I think about it, sleeping sounds great.

I like the fact that there are only six weeks, though. It forces us to be creative and to use our time wisely. It also mirrors "real-world" engineering projects where deadlines are very important.

[MrForbes]

I think there would be more students flunking out of school, mentor divorces, etc....

Having an impossible schedule is a benefit, it drives teams to work hard!

[ttldomination]

I would use 6 weeks to build the robot. Then after that my team would work on a time machine.

[gorrilla]

(for 2009's game)we would have probobly built our robot, then we would have made it better ......

[Chris is me]

More prototyping, testing, and drive practice.

Specifically this year, if we had 2 more weeks we'd be building a crab drive chassis instead of our 4 wheel chassis.

[R.C.]

Everything on our bot would be machined (even more than it is now). But in all honesty, more driver practice and more performance tweaking. Also, I wouldn't be doing two months of hw right now

[EricH]

If it were longer, I'd be redesigning, raiding ideas, etc...

However, there is a reason it's only 6 weeks. Woodie was once asked "Why do we only get 6 weeks?" at Kickoff. (This when they had a Q&A session instead of the game show...) His response? "We wanted to make it easier for the rookies." Or something to that effect. The reasoning given was: Rookie team gets the game and kit. They build a robot in 3 weeks. They see another robot that looks better, redesign, and spend the next 3 weeks rebuilding. Repeat the cycle until you run out of time. You cut it at 6 weeks, they aren't stuck in the cycle more than once.

[Uberbots]

A lot more prototyping, a lot more care put into manufacturing parts, probably sending off CAD files to get some parts milled, and more homework.

[afowl]

We would probably finish and drive our robot BEFORE it's shipped.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by squirrel

I think there would be more students flunking out of school, mentor divorces, etc....

This. When I was waking up at 6:00 AM in order to get to work at 8:00 to let me get out in time to make 1618's meetings, then working until 8:00 or 9:00 with 2815, I was living on the edge. A couple more weeks of that and my work would've suffered for it. When a significant part of my work involves driving three-ton automobiles worth multiples of my annual salary, sometimes on public roads, you see the issue.

[Alex_Miller]

Originally Posted by afowl

We would probably finish and drive our robot BEFORE it's shipped.

+1

We haven't done this for the last two years, but I'm sure it'll happen again sometime.



We wont spend 48 hours in a row (just about) finishing it before shipping.

[Herodotus]

Originally Posted by Billfred

This. When I was waking up at 6:00 AM in order to get to work at 8:00 to let me get out in time to make 1618's meetings, then working until 8:00 or 9:00 with 2815, I was living on the edge. A couple more weeks of that and my work would've suffered for it. When a significant part of my work involves driving three-ton automobiles worth multiples of my annual salary, sometimes on public roads, you see the issue.

Though you could attempt to shorten the meetings. Like if you went from 6 to 8 each day. Of course, you'd fail because you can't spend only two hours at robots but it's just a thought.

I would hope our team would probably mostly make use of extra time programming, though I fear we might use it mostly for building.

[Schnabel]

I would probably use more of the time to do my homework. Procrastination is good for now though, I'll get caught up later.