Why Six Weeks?

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by pras870

I believe that 5 weeks seems to be the stress point for a lot of teams. It seems like no matter who you are, after 5 weeks, you start argueing and stressing with everyone on your team. It's innevitable.

But, do you think that it is a time factor, or just because that in the 5th week, we are almost done, but not quite there and that usually is the beginning of tweaking and you really just want it to work perfectly, but the little things just seem to set you back for days or hours which are unwanted?

Do you think if we had 5 weeks that the 4th week would lead to the same thing?

[Hinkel Y.]

I find that 7 weeks' good enough for me. With over 12 hrs at school, it can be really stressful at some times. Also, having only 5 - 6 hours every day for 5 weeks' will push a lot of people to the breaking point. We've spent around two days trying to decide what we could and taking off weight on the robot (I would like to see them extend the weight limit though!). Our IR may not work just yet, and autonomous mode does not look to be perfected until our second regional like last year's...

[Steve W]

As in the real world, the people up top make the decisions. One of the hardest things about working is a deadline. Usually totally unrealistic and impossible to accomplish. Guess what, we still seem to make then. Managing priorities, working together and proper time management comes with experience. I think that this is a great learning tool for the future. Challenging yourself and your team to accomplish what they thought they couldn't.

I am not on a rookie team but last year was my first time building with a team. After a couple of weeks of talking and planning I realized we only had 4 weeks left. Things began to get done but by week 5 we had no transmission. Kick into overdrive and spend a few all nighters. Boy it's tough to go to work with an hours sleep knowing that tomorrow will be the same. We did get it done but no practice time. This year has been much better even though we are still not moving. Transmission built and tested and almost installed. We might even get some practice time.

As a mentor I am burnt out. Even 2 extra days seems like eternity. My family has not seen me for more than 20 minutes except for the 2 times I took my wife out for lunch (no time for supper). There is a great demand on time and I for 1 am glad for the end to approach. Going to 4 regionals and championship basically wipes out 3 1/2 months of the year.

Do I regret any time spent? NO !!!!! This is the greatest program ever and I feel privileged to be part of it. An OLD say is " You can't get enough of a good thing." I don't believe this to be true. If we all get burnt out then we will just quit and move on. When April comes I feel that I wouldn't want to work on a robot again and by September 1 I am chomping at the bit to get going. It is good to keep the desire burning and I believe that FIRST has come up with a good compromise. All I ask is that they don't make build time shorter.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by OZ_341

An angry mentor walked up to the Microphone during the 2000 Kick-off Q&A session and said, "How come you don't give us more time?! Why only six weeks?!" To which Dean simply replied, "Because we like you!"

Thank God again!

[Rich Wong]

Originally Posted by Gabriel

A mentor on my team asked this question today and I couldn't answer them. Why do we only have six weeks to build the robot? The first regional isn't until 3/4, but we have to ship on 2/24. Wouldn't it make more sense to give us more time in the future? I know that part of the challenge is the time limit, but wouldn't we be able to accomplish a lot more with more time? Especially rookies who have to learn everything as we go. I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious what FIRST's rationale is because I've never seen it explained.

Besides the alignment of the moon, sun, and Mars…
I believe the formula is quite complicated. Like Ken mentioned, it has to do with the holidays, the college breaks, the football season, the baseball season, availability and cost of stadium facilities, college finals, spring break, volunteers, vacation period, seasonal travel cost etc. You name it!

When it comes to engineering, most experienced engineers will tell you, “more time means more opportunity for more complexity and more problems.” One of the goals of the FIRST competition is to put the students in a real life engineering situation- a project is given with a fixed due date. Customer requires a finished product and delivered on time or else this affects your company’s (the team) bottomline (ability to compete).

Rookies obviously have the hardest time with the short building period, that’s why there are awards specifically for rookies only. So don't depend on a robot to represent your team only, show the judges your efforts doing the whole building process and what you have learned from the experience.
(The journey is the reward- the FIRST regionals are just a celebration of your achievements)
All this has been documented in the past by FIRST. It’s just a matter of finding it.

[generalbrando]

This is a slight reitteration, but I'd ask the person who asked you this:

If we had 8 weeks, would you be asking that question with 8 instead of 6?

I don't think any amount of time would ever make me feel like I could create a multifunctioning robot that performs so many tasks in such a complicated way within such dimesions and weight. If you sum up what you do in 6 weeks to someone, no matter how much of a geek they are - they will be impressed.

Best of luck to all....especially rookies!