Lost 1/6th of build season...

[nighterfighter]

Weather sucks!

Down here in Georgia, we have recently been having huge snowstorms/ice storms. Unlike up north, Georgia is completely unprepared for winter weather. Because of this, all school (and after school activities) have been closed since Sunday...

Lame.

How do other teams work around this? Just work extra hard? =/

[Tom Line]

Speaking from an up-north standpoint, we have at least a couple days a season where the weather is too treachorous to come in. However, we do not work at the school and everyone on the team knows that rain or shine, snow or ice, unless they get a call for a mentor we're building robots - even when school is cancelled.

Early in the season though, it shouldn't be all that difficult to do some phone conferencing and brainstorm concepts that way. We have to do it on a regular basis where I work since a lot of our suppliers are out of the country (China, Italy, India, South Africa).

[Jon Stratis]

Fortunately, this happened early! Spend the time brain storming, talking with people on the phone or online, and figuring out how your going to play the game. You can come up with detailed drawings of what you want to build, detailed lists of all the parts you'll need (Tip: Just because school is closed doesn't mean FedEx is too... get parts orders in as soon as you know what you'll need!) and in general just spend all this time focusing on the fundamentals of your design. If you come in with a strong design and game plan when the school opens, you'll find that things move a lot faster!

[Dustin Shadbolt]

Coming from Northern Indiana, bad weather is something we plan on having. Even if school is canceled, we still meet and build. They only time we don't meet is if one of the mentors calls us. Much like Tom, we still work no matter what.

[JesseK]

In all honesty, I'd rather have a blizzard in week 1 than 1/4" of snow in week 5 or 6. They close schools around here in Northern Virginia for a single flake it seems sometimes.

We met as mentors last night since the students weren't allowed to (even outside the school since it's an 'after school activity' ... wierd). Doing that allowed all of the mentors to have a couple of hours to get on the same page in terms of project management. We put our team values and pre-planning into the context of the game, and determined what the next steps would be. We also did some discussions on CAD sketches our students made, and picked 2 overall team prototypes to go forward with.

The really cool thing was, from Day 1 the students and mentors were mostly in agreement about the whats and hows for this game. Last night was all about finding the common design and iterating it to accomodate the multiple prototypes that will come in the next couple of weeks. This Week 1 snow day was a blessing in disguise.

[nighterfighter]

Thanks guys.

We've been (trying) to do that. (Some of our new members seem to not read emails/Facebook messages. )

What we were really hoping to get done this week, was have our new members build a kitbot and install the new light sensors. Alas, our KOP sits lonely.

[lil'est lavery]

We know how you feel. Last season we also lost 2 weeks of build. Knowing that a storm was coming, we got as much as we could from the school but it was still very hard. We met at houses and worked as much as we could. We ended up finishing a lot of our robot at the competition. The snow also slowed our parts orders which was not helpful. I would just recommend meeting as much as you can, but keep the road conditions in mind and keep people safe. Like people said before, online discussions can be very helpful. Encourage students to design on their own and keep coming up with build plans. Good luck with your season.

[Brandon Holley]

We feel for you, its tough dealing with weather because its such an unknown. Just make the best of it. Plenty of good suggestions already in this thread so theres stuff that can get done. I'm assuming most of your team has access to the team website/email/forum whatever it may be. See if you can start organizing some ideas without being in the same room!

We're right around the 20" mark here in Boston and it is still coming down strong!

-Brando

[Grim Tuesday]

Here in Ithaca, they canceled after school activities for snow. Six inches of snow. For whatever reason, we are classified in the list of activities canceled, and even after begging the administration, we are still out a day.

Time to go study for that math test


In all reality, il be using the extra time to work on a cad representation of a part im working on.

[alectronic]

49/50 states had snow yesterday. Darn Florida. Granted some not as bad as others, but hey, that's quite a record!

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by techalex

49/50 states had snow yesterday. Darn Florida. Granted some not as bad as others, but hey, that's quite a record!

Why do you think we have the best teams?

/I wish.

[Prontopwnage]

We in Seattle have had similar issues in years past( not much of one tho). We all just got here. Simple as that. Walk, car, Bus, Train, Spaceship, you name it. We just made it, and that made the fact that everybody had worked so much harder to get their that we all were much more about our work. So yeah my advise is just to get their, do it, it will feel so much more rewarding at the end of the day.

[Andrew Y.]

keep one thing in mind, if school is canceled and a extra curricular activity continues to meet, could result in people getting fired and teams being shut down...just a thought

but yall up north are MUCH more prepared...our 6 snow plows in GA cant keep up!

[angelawence11]

haha were having the same problem.... huge storms. and yeah just try to work by emailing or phone... you know, try to get as much done individually as you can!!! And good luck!!!!!
soo.... whos getting jealous of the hawaii teams?

[Whateveryousay]

Hi Team 1771,

I am the captain of Team 1683, We are in JohnsCreek, Fulton County, GA. We have been missing works day as well, i really hope we will have school on friday so we can get started.