26 degrees?? Usually that is a heat wave for us in Connecticut this time of year. But this year has been really warm until this week. It has got down into single digits and we got our first measurable snow fall of the winter today. Good luck all. I am not sure but I think one year when the northeast got basted by snowstorms it seemd like every Wednesday and Friday one winter they extended the ship date, but I could be wrong.
I have to agree, even tho 26 degrees isn’t that cold, it is a big problem for southern climates, especially to citrus farmers and southern housing. I personally don’t even own a pair of shoes ( other than my work shoes ) so when it gets that cold I’m scrambling to keep my feet warm and my house warm. Also many houses especially here in florida don’t really have a heater. Its there but for the most part it hasn’t been turned on in a few years so when you do turn it on the dust and small animals burns up and fires start which is always fun.
However, coming originally from massachussetts I feel bad for your winter pains, and that it happens during build season. From a team that typically builds out doors/in an uninsulated garage that would totally suck if it got to the 20’s. This winter has been Uncharacteristically warm, I wish I could share it with you guys, occasionaly cold whether is a nice break. But for now I’ll just have to take the 70 degree weather with the slight breeze, heh.
HEY just all the more reason to come to Florida’s Super Regional next year!
Wow, only week 2 and already so many weather woes.
I remember 2003 when the schools were closed (and therefore the workspace) for 11 days of the build season. And then there was another blast of snow right before ship day. FIRST ended up extending the ship day for everyone by a couple of days, which helped a lot of teams, but there were still so many who still could not get to the robots.
Teams learned a lot of creative management of time.
Every year, there are teams severely affected by the weather. It’s hard when it is happening to YOU. And given there are about 4 weeks left, I think this thread will really grow.
Good luck to all!
The weather has been so bad in Tulsa, the ice storm brought everything to a standstill. I feel sorry for the street crews because they have been working around the clock for about a week and the main streets still are not completely clear and everything that melts just freezes at night. Garbage trucks finally came today, everyone on my street had just left their garbage out since Tuesday because the garbage trucks could not get down the residential streets which are still bad. I think they realized if they did not come now it would be a while longer before they could come again with the snow storm coming. The mail has not even come this week the streets are so bad. All the street crews have done on the road our school is on is put down sand, i drove down it the other day and it was one huge sheet of ice. I would not be surprised if all the pipes in the school burst. We are already so far behind, I do not see how we are going to build a working robot in time for competition and if this snow storm hits we will be even farther behind.
Fourtunately here in Ponca we have only been down about 3 days. Far less than in 02 when we were without power for 9 days (personally 14 at home).
We’ve had single digits the first part of the week and saw some good thawing yesterday. I would encourage everyone to view this as a challenge to be tackled and met - don’t let mother nature win. While I would love to have a couple of extra days (even though my body would hate it:) ) we will approach this as just another challenge to this year’s competition. Please keep the people in Eastern OK and I believe parts of Ark and MO in your thoughts and prayers as a lot of them are still without power. Hard to handle cold without power.
Stay safe and maybe - just maybe the powers that be will show us some grace.
Ken
No, people in general do agree that the earth is heating up (albeit by a half degree or less per year) - the majority of the debate is whether it’s caused by man or not.
But, without changing the subject too greatly, Austin Texas is finally recovering from our week-long battle with ice, snow, and the elements. Yeah, yeah, you people in northern states are saying temps in the upper and mid 20’s is nothing - and I agree for the most part - but at least those in northern states are set up to handle the situation. KarenH put it dead-on when she said it’s the infrastructure that heavily determines how much of a disaster something is, here in Austin all of our roads were shut down thanks to several inches of ice that we could not deal with. I mean, heck, there is a large native population in Austin who have never seen snow, but we saw it earlier this week! We are so short on equipment, guys were shoveling sand off of a flatbed pickup truck to sand the roads!
Whatever you do, be safe!
-Danny
Man the weather has been so bad here in Oklahoma! SOLID ICE ON ALL THE ROADS!!! AGHHHHHHHH!!! (ice storms=no robotics --) A whole week of no school and NO ROBOTICS!!! IM GOING CRAZY!!! But hopefully the weather will clear up soon (hopefully --) so we can get going on the robot ( we are ssooooo far behind im going to cry) C’mon 932 we have a big disadvantage…but WE WILL PULL THROUGH!!! (^_^)v
The bad weather has been devastating thus far with our team missing so many work days, but we were fortunate this past weekend (January 20, 21) by not receiving the snow that we had anticipated. It has been hard for our team to meet with constant unsafe road conditions, but I think it was a good decision by our teachers to consider the safety of the students. I think our team needs to do our best to meet the upcoming deadlines and hope that FIRST will make proper adjustments to accomodate the teams affected by bad weather.
The seven year El Neno cycle brought good fortune to Florida this year, we had no hurricanes during the season even though it was projected for us to have some. We know what its like to go a week without power, my prayers are with the families in these areas. When we lost water and power in my neighborhood a couple years ago, it was still warm and sunny.
I would like to take this opportunity to give some praise to team 476 in Ponca City Oklahoma. They made a trip to Bartlesville Oklahoma on Wednesday to help rookie team 2165 by attending a meeting with ConcoPhillips representatives for sponsorship. The amazing part of this story is that it was -3 degrees that day with ice on the roads. Also in attendance were the Tri County Tech team teachers and administration, my parents, and Senator John Ford. Thanks 476 for an outstanding effort in helping a rookie team!
Barry,
You are a wonderful example of Gracious Professionalism. We appreciate your thanks and continued support (from sunny California) and we hope that you will come and see us at the Lone Star Regional this year!
Barry, you know that you are an adopted member of team 476.
GO OKLAHOMA ROBOTICS TEAMS (12 and growing)
The snow this weekend was only 4-8 inches, and the temp has been above freezing, so not to bad now. Just wish we had the last 2 weeks back now.
Good luck to everyone building 'bots.
Hey I just got a call from or Brazilian sister Team, the weather is just fine but, they still havn’t gotten their kits yet. We all should be happy with what we have, at least we have somthing to work with. Let it snow
Team #75 Mentor
sigh…while you guys get held up by bad weather, we get hold up with parts being shipped to us! lol …we’ve got pretty cold weather but being in Canada, we’re use to it!
Good Luck to everyone!
Melissa W [Team 912]
The weather in Oklahoma has been pretty bad, we have not been able to work or anything because of it, hopefully we wont be penalized to bad for it.
We lost days in Washington from ice as many other teams around the country.
My hopes are that if FIRST decides to extend the build season they LET US KNOW SOON!
Getting 3 extra days 2 days before shipping are not that useful. OK it allows some more driver practice but if you were already planning on the 20th of Feb then the robot is done and you most likely rushed something to get it ready.
Being told in week three that you get 3 more days…well that makes sense then. you can add three days to design and build and get the same scheduled driver practice
We had an ice storm, but we were still determined to work on our robot. Despite the conditions.
Well, from team 1742 in Norman and Moore Oklahoma many of us were worried about losing the week and half that we were out of school. Many of us couldn’t even get out of our houses to make a meeting. it was like an ice rink on the roads. Lucky for us though we were already ahead and and arent to far behind. i have faith in our team and teacher to know that we will compete to the best of our ability down in houston.
GO OKLAHOMA TEAMS!!! 
Laura
I love the positive attitudes that I am reading from all of you!
It will take a lot of hard work and positive attitude to make up our time losses here.
Keep working hard, and keep your chin up.
I’m sure that FIRST will understand that many of us are in a similar situation with other states that have had a natural disasters.
GO TEAMS!
The impossible just happened here: Bedford closed their schools. Anyone who knows someone from here can tell you that it has to be pretty drastic for us to close the schools. Apparently we had a blizzard, there’s ice under the streets everywhere, snow-plows aren’t very effective, and it’s currently 18 degrees outside.
But at least we had agreed to add Friday meetings last week, so I guess it was good timing.
My team is from Michigan and cool temperatures are nothing out of the ordinary.The other day on the way home from robotics it was 4 degrees outside!!But needless to say us we have gotten used to it. Hope you work out your weather issues and good luck on building your robot!!:o
It just snowed today, but its basically just been cold. We havent had to many problems with the weather though. hope all other teams can work threw all bad weather their having. Good Luck