How many days have you lost to snow or other inclement weather?

[qwertyuiop[]\]

Well the snow just started to come down in northern Virginia(again) and the fairfax county has locked us out of the school! im just wondering how other teams are dealing or have dealt with the increased amount of winter weather this year

[Vikesrock]

*Doesn't see 0 as an option*

Up here in Minnesota, and particularly in Woodbury, where my team is located its pretty hard to get a snow day.

[Koko Ed]

none.
Snow does not deter us.

[Alan Anderson]

Our shop is not on school property. Until last year, the team made good use of snow days, with some dedicated students spending the extra time working on the robot. Our facilities sponsor now considers that to be inappropriate -- if the weather is bad enough to close the school, they don't want anyone showing up at the shop either.

We do finesse the issue on occasion, keeping a scheduled afternoon or evening work session if the weather has improved since the morning decision to close the school. We also try not to cancel weekend sessions, though we won't count it against the students' attendance if they don't show up due to weather.

So far, we haven't lost any time to snow this year, but we're closely watching the situation for tomorrow.

[KC1AJT]

this is a normal occurance in the northeast, some extra cramming near ship is inevitable, so far we havnt seen a snow day this season (i probably just jinxed it) but we work through it by pulling kids out of class during school

[thefro526]

I'm not entirely sure if we've missed any days of build this season due to weather, I don't believe we have, but we were told by one of the custodians "If it's snowing on Saturday (Tomorrow) we will have a path plowed to our door so we come in an work".

Sometimes, having someone on the maintenance staff as a friend comes in handy.

[KC1AJT]

Originally Posted by thefro526

I'm not entirely sure if we've missed any days of build this season due to weather, I don't believe we have, but we were told by one of the custodians "If it's snowing on Saturday (Tomorrow) we will have a path plowed to our door so we come in an work".

Sometimes, having someone on the maintenance staff as a friend comes in handy.

i agree one of the parents on our team is the facilities administrator for the school

[Chath Maral]

We usually brave the snow, but the library got flooded with a loose water pipe that froze and broke... ^^; so robotics got canceled that day.

[1986titans]

We haven't missed any either, but the week before kickoff was really bad around here.

[Racer26]

Not only do we brave the snow days, and go in to work on our robot anyway (I guess our school board is not the norm, in allowing us to do so.), and not only do we rarely get them (its Canada, we get snow alot, every winter, we're used to it, so we need like 12" in one night before they'll close our schools), but this year, we havent even got more than about 5" of snow for the WHOLE SEASON so far. It's been REALLY mild, -1C outside today (thats about 28-30F). I'm half expecting to get slammed with 2-3 feet in March.

EDIT: A couple weeks ago we got RAIN, and the ski hills in the area had to close because it decimated their base.

[BrendanB]

None so far. The only times in which we close down shop are if there is no power (in 2007 we missed 2 days) and if the roads are really bad (several inches +ice). But whenever it snows or is icy it is left up to the students if they want to drive out in the weather if not, no big deal.

Good luck! Lets just hope that there is no snow during ship week!

[mac]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

none.
Snow does not deter us.

Hi Ed, Good to here from you. I met you at The"Battle O Baltimore"2008. You were listed to come last year. What happened? I like to follow your Team 191, from a distance. I'm very proud of their community involvement.

Will give some snow!
Mentor Mac
Thomas McCubbin
Mccubbin99@live.com

[Phreadumb]

None

Snow does not fall everywhere in the world where they have FIRST Teams. To allow the weather to impede our progress would certainly put us at a disadvantage. We have our meetings despite the weather.

However, safety is important, and therefore it is inappropriate to have a student show up to a meeting if conditions for them is too hazardous.

[dtengineering]

Sounds like you folks back east are getting the kind of snow we had here last Christmas. It's beautiful... but....

Ironically, this winter has been one of our warmest ever. We got great snow up in the mountains in the fall, but its been melting ever since. They are now using dump trucks and helicopters to load snow up Cypress Mountain for the Freestyle Skiing and Snowboard events for the Winter Olympics. (Whistler, two hours north of here and home to the Alpine and Cross country events is at a higher elevation and doing just fine.) If any of you would like to donate your excess snow to the Winter Olympics, they would much appreciate it, I think.

Global warming in action, perhaps? The slight warming trend IS predicted to bring not just warmer temperatures on average, but also unusual weather patterns to many parts of the world.

And as for the build extension... I hope affected teams can get a couple days... and I also hope that if unusual weather or other circumstances beyond a team's control were to affect a single team that FIRST would grant a similar extension to that one team. But if that doesn't happen, then careful use of the witholding allowance can help to extend the time that we have to work on software and sensors.

Jason

[gblake]

I wonder how many teams that aren't facing the worst snow that has occurred since records have been kept; might be able to volunteer to do something as simple (but still time consuming) as putting together bumpers or other simple robot elements for the teams that are literally snowed under?

I know that acting on this suggestion is more complicated that it appears on the surface, but who knows what some clever FIRST folks might accomplish if they put their minds to it.

Who out there has a little extra capacity and wants to adopt a team that is hurting? - "No robot [or team] left behind"

Blake