EXAMS

[burkey_turkey]

I was just wondering, do any other schools have exams during build season? ours are this coming week and we dont have meetings at all during exams to promote ;studying' for them. this is pretty annoying because it gives us 5 weeks instead of 6.

also, because its during the winter, do any of you teams up north have problems with winter weather preventing you from getting to the shop or whatever to work on the robot?

[AndyB]

we had our exams this past week. Basically we just kept meeting at normal times, we just encouraged kids to study and that it isnt necessary to come to every meeting, but we also encouraged them to keep in contact and contribute when they could.

Being from the north, I'd have to say we really haven't had much problem with snow and ice. We have left an hour early due to ice storms but other than that, no biggy. We even met on a snowday last year I believe. Our city does a pretty good job of keep the roads plowed and salted, and most people have cars that can take it. (the winter)

[burkey_turkey]

We are in virginia, so its in that geographic area where the first snow of the season, although its an inch thick max, takes all the bread and milk off the shelves and closes the schools. Obviously the roads are okay to go to school for robotics meetings, but i doubt the school would let us in. One other issue our team has is that we are a magnite school. There are a group of 3 guys from powhatan county, a good 45min to 1hr drive from school in richmond, so they have trouple coordinating being at meetings and such. Because we have other rural counties represented as well, snow could become a real problem for us if we actually got any.

[Dan Zollman]

We have midterms from Tuesday to Friday this week, in the mornings. There is no school in the afternoons for the same reason, and school activities are technically not supposed to meet during those afternoons. Last year we met after exams anyway, until late afternoon.

[JamesByrne]

ya our are coming up in 2 weeks the 29, 30, and 31 of January. We do not have meetings the weekend before, to promote studying. But we do meet till about 5 or so on the week days still. Seems to work for us here.

[flamefixed]

More than likely if you live up north, snow/ice is a very normal, "no biggie" occurance. (If the roads aren't closed due to a state of emergency, travel is never a problem)

[rachal]

Heh, we have finals during the first week of build, which is always quite stressful because (a) we're worrying about finals all during kickoff and (b) thinking about robotics all during finals.

[Sayrah]

We have always been fortunate enough for our semester exams to be before the holiday break. We have a new state law that takes effect the 2007-2008 school year that prohibits schools from starting before 14 days prior to Labor Day which means that 1st semester exams will be January 15-17 for Orange County Schools -- 10 days after kickoff. BUT, following exams we will have a 4-day weekend.

[Imprudent]

All of the Canadian teams in Ontario are faced with this dilemma - and our exams are a week and a half, so we only get 4.5 weeks of build time, which makes it quite stressful, on top of the stress from the actual exams

[K.Porter]

We just had exams over the last week. (half day every day)

We didn't get much of a turnout through the beginning of the week, but our meetings on Friday and today had great turnout of students, as we all don't have any real school work over this weekend!

[Pavan Dave]

Our district, to accommodate the new law passed in Texas, that school can not start before the fourth Monday in August, will be having finals 3 weeks after the new year next year. Which means the first week after holidays we have nothing, than the second week after the Kickoff, we have our exams. But the good think about that is we also have half days and if you are in certain classes, you do not have to even show up for your exams, but since you guys do not have Robotics during that time, I wonder what will happen to us? Maybe start early and finish early because we all get off early?


Pavan.

[Ben Englert]

Originally Posted by rachal

Heh, we have finals during the first week of build, which is always quite stressful because (a) we're worrying about finals all during kickoff and (b) thinking about robotics all during finals.

Word to that... although I sort of know that we would still end up in the same kind of time crunches we do now even if we DID have that extra week.

[Goldeye]

Our finals are this coming week. We're taking Sunday and Monday off because just about everyone has a final that day. Aside from that, meetings just about every day.

As for snow. It did snow lightly yesterday but we all ignored it on the ground today.
Even when it does snow badly, we still have meetings.

[synth3tk]

We had our finals this past Wed-Fri, with Friday being a half day, so we ended up gaining four build hours yesterday. Also, school was out for MLK day on Monday, so we just moved it to last Tuesday. And then we're closed for in-service day this Monday, so we gain another 8 1/2 hours. Pretty much, we actually got more done during exam week.

Originally Posted by Goldeneye

[...]As for snow. It did snow lightly yesterday but we all ignored it on the ground today.
Even when it does snow badly, we still have meetings.

Same here. We had blizzards during the last two meetings, but it didn't bother us one bit.

[RobotPirate]

Yah but its cool i only have like two anyway theyre uber easy to web page design and english.