What would you do if build were longer?

[Brandon Holley]

This year we more or less had a 10 week build season. We built 2 robots, so we shipped one, and then spent another month or so finishing, coding and testing the practice robot. Let me tell you it is the last time we will ever work like that again.

6 weeks is a breaking point in my eyes for how much people can be around each other EVERY day, and for how long someone can work EVERY day.

[JesseK]

This is the wrong time of the year to ask this question ... most of the mentors I know are relieved to be able to relax. Think about it:

New Year's --> Build Season --> Valentine's Day (somehow...) --> All nighter's --> Ship Day --> Work Catchup --> Regionals --> Championship --> Summer Kickoff & birthday celebration weekend --> Relaxing by the beach, pool, mountain cliff, etc

Why mess with perfection?

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

6 weeks is a breaking point in my eyes for how much people can be around each other EVERY day, and for how long someone can work EVERY day.

Good point Brandon, and I think that's one reason we didn't withhold anything this year--we knew that we had run out of robot building magic, whatever it is that kept us going to the meetings every day and putting off the rest of life.

[Nica F.]

If build season were longer, students would turn into zombies (think of how they are now, and multiply that by the newest rookie team number).

But honestly, I think with a longer build would come higher expectations. With more time for you to work on your robot, the more potential you have to fix the bugs, tweak what can be tweaked, and practice until perfected. The words "finished robot", will not be used during build season if you are doing it right. I'd expect teams to challenge themselves more but at the same time manage their time wisely and get more sleep and study.

edit:
[ For the record, not saying I believe it should or shouldn't be longer than it is now.]

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JesseK

It's already stressful enough having to juggle work, robotics, and a social life that dwindles into near non-existence by the end of 6.5 weeks. When I add 2 regionals and a championship trip to that, I am quite glad that Dean and Woodie love us enough to end it when they do.

I agree with this, 6.5 week build season during school term is stressful. Tack on 4 events plus Championship? Build season is already plenty long enough for me.

If we had more time I would make sure NOT to tell the mechanical people until the robot was in the programmers' hands.

[FRC4ME]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

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.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Every year, almost every robot design we see in competition was suggested by someone on our team at the beginning of build season. The hard part is deciding which of the wild ideas you think will work best, because you really don't have the time to test more than one or two of them.

For example, in 2007 we referred to suction devices as "audible inhalers" until seeing how some of the best robots used them effectively.

[Stu Bloom]

It's calld Parkinson's Law:

"Work expands to fill the time available for its completion"

As others have said, I would probably be getting divorced ... and likely also be unemployed, homeless, and in prison ...

Many already consider me "certifiable". An additional 6.5 weeks of external insanity each year is all I can handle ...

[Wayne TenBrink]

Six weeks is just about right - especially since it's the same for all teams.

If we had more time, we would only use it to test and refine whatever general design approach we had committed to earlier in the process. We probably wouldn't start any major redesign in week 6, in the hope that we would be unstoppable by week 8 or 10 or whatever.

Most teams don't know if their basic design approach (i.e: hurdler vs. thrower in 2008 or shooter vs. dumper in 2009) was on the right or wrong track until after the competitions begin. Adding time to the build season won't change that.

If you really want to mess up grades, marriages, etc., then try this: 1) Set up a Michigan-style format with at least 2 district events all around the country. 2) Have all teams play at least one event. 3) Have a 3-4 week "rebuild" season, so everybody could go back to the drawing board for another round of build season stress while they try to adopt & improve on the most effective designs. 4) Play the second half of the competition season. 5)If you are a member of Team 33, don't change a thing - just continue with business as usual.

[PlatyPi Gunner]

well, for starters I would've changed the gear ratio our belt system, fixed up our center pnuematic puncher, painted the entire robot purple, built a real cart, built a playing field, had a three day payload specialist tryout, had a week long drivers tryout, built 5 other dummy practice robots, marketed, let the sparkies work longer, not let the sparkies try and build a CIM, switched from chains to belts, gotten traction control, read the rules, ordered a mascot costume, and drank enough mountain dew to become a diabetic

[JaneYoung]

With a longer build season, it would be interesting to see how many teams continued to panic, procrastinate, waste time, expend time that they can not account for, fail to become more organized and efficient, and give the programmers yet the same amount of time (very little) that they had in the 6 weeks build - and somehow justify that there just wasn't enough time.

If it were to go longer, I would think that sensible teams would work in shifts and have a reasonable closing time at night. (I believe I have read posts this season that address this within some teams now, born out of necessity.) Shifts would be something to look at regarding saving marriages, helping salvage/maintain grades, encouraging communication and sharing of knowledge, and developing better time management within the team.

It's an interesting topic/discussion. - -

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

With a longer build season, it would be interesting to see how many teams continued to panic, procrastinate, waste time, expend time that they can not account for, fail to become more organized and efficient, and give the programmers yet the same amount of time (very little) that they had in the 6 weeks build - and somehow justify that there just wasn't enough time.

The project will always expand to fill up whatever time is available, I don't think making it longer would help anyone.

I've experienced other competitions with longer seasons, and see teams show up equally unprepared at events.

[IndySam]

I would build coffins and an alibi.

[Alan Anderson]

If the build season were extended by another week or more, I would cut back my involvement with the team. I might even quit FRC outright. I'm already stretching the tolerance of my day job and family obligations as it is.

[Eric O]

I would build a second chassis and super structure, taking time to make sure it was rock solid and make all the improvements learned after making the first one. Then I would take the mechanism from the first chassis and transfer that to the second one.

Oh wait....we did that this year! There was no limit to the build season this year. The constraint this year was that the robot you fielded had to be made of anything you put in the crate, any unassembled COTS you wanted and 40lbs of custom parts you brought to the regional. We went to a week 5 regional, so we met once or twice a week after ship to finish this new chassis. The extra time was very low stress because we knew exactly what we were building and how well it would work.

Although I enjoyed the extra time allowed us to have a more reliable robot, I would rather just have the 6 weeks. It takes a bit more experience with the competition and the design process, but there are some amazing creations built in 6 weeks, I don't think we need any longer than that.

[Petra Hartman]

I think our robot did pretty well for build season. My only wish was having more time for programming atleast at the Regional or Atlanta to get our code working better in auto period. Since we had a camera that was suppose to track and then score in that period. In DC it worked well, and scored a few times after playing with callibrations. Atlanta, it never got well into tracking mode because of difference in lighting and the stadium seat colors. So, not quite an extension to build season, unless i were to somehow get the lighting of those to events into our lab...