Just curious if anyone knows the FiM protocol for snow days declared at the hosting schools. Does everything just get moved back to the next day, or is the schedule truncated somehow? I tried searching for an answer but wasn’t successful. Any insight is greatly appreciated.
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I’ve heard repeatedly that FiM takes a hell-or-high-water stance, but I’d reach out to them directly for an official stance.
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They once considered delaying the final day at States in the midst of an ice storm. It made for an interesting load out after the event concluded.
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Yea I believe it was in 2018. They did the awards on Friday night if I remember right and many people left that night.
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I think I might have been at a competition that was having an afternoon snow day. Didn’t make any difference to the event.
2018 MSC was quite the 2-day drive home Sunday and Monday.
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What many schools will do for their events is try not to close down evening activities if they close school that day, so I’m not sure if that plays into any decision made by FiM. It also may be made by the event coordinator if it is a district event, but I don’t know.
You aren’t kidding. That was wild. We had kids helping load the official field that was going back to Kettering, and we literally almost had a few kids fly away with the larger panels.
Standing in the doorway of the loadout bay and getting nailed in the face with ice pellets. That made me glad I still had on my safety glasses. lol
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In Gibraltar a couple years back there was a snowstorm on Thursday night. Gibraltar (and many other schools) cancelled school on Friday, but the competition rolled on.
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2 days before load-in for Week 1 FiM events - and 700 schools in SE Mich are closed for snow. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either. Hopefully the robots are “done”.
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I was at both the show day at the Gibraltar event and the blizzard at states.
Gibraltar was cleared with the school system a little before hand. We were notified ahead of time that the event would go on no matter what and I’ll admit there was quite a bit of snow. Load in on Thursday night was the worst because that’s when the snow fell the most. By Friday morning it was slow driving, but not as bad. By friday afternoon most everything was clear. I think only one or two schools couldn’t make it because their district wouldn’t allow them.
The blizzard at states was a whole diffrent story. That started after the event started and many teams did in fact leave early. My team actually stayed an extra night, but we ran into a problem with a couple of students who hadn’t brought enough medicine because they didn’t expect to stay and one mentor with a really good suv and special permission from their parents brought them home. (Lesson learned, always bring extra)
I’m sure most event coordinators are already in contact with the schools and have a game plan in place. And the snow is supposed to stop tonight so it’s not likely to affect friday or Saturday. Thursday may depend on the policy of the school but I doubt it will be affected either.
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I wonder how many teams won’t be allowed in their schools to pack up? Sure, the host schools might make exceptions, but the teams might not be able to get their stuff out. It does seem like it should be cleared off pretty well by tomorrow afternoon, though.
I remember that day. We had our truck that pulled our trailer break down so we had to switch to someone else’s truck. The hitch had a locking hitch pin that was completely frozen over and wasn’t able to open. We tried everything. We had to grind it off
The trailer locks were the same way. The doors were mildly frozen shut.
Honestly, it was infuriating at the time but once it’s all said and done, it was a pretty fun time
I think awards were Saturday
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It was 2018. I remember that they delayed final matches because they were not sure wether it would be safe to send people home. That year there was a possibility of them making everyone stay there overnight i think. I just mainly remember not watching finals (they were also dragging it out so it was boring and hot in the stands) and helping take apart the other fields.
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I believe I heard from Gail (though possibly second-hand) a few years back that FiM events do NOT get canceled due to weather. Some accommodations might be made (like a schedule change) but even that would be highly unusual.
I could perhaps see a scenario where an event gets pushed into Sunday, but it would be hard to make a last-minute change like that due to team and venue schedules. A FiM event probably wouldn’t ever move to a different weekend, simply because there are only so many fields available.
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Not a reliable source just a speculation…
I assume there’s some type of contract between FiM and the school that accounts for school closings and the events continuing on with the set dates. AKA opening the school for competitions.
The struggle is getting your robot there. Best of luck to all teams that may have to deal with Michigan’s crazy unpredictable weather and even more luck to those that may have to deal with their school’s administration for access privileges.
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Hell is definitely in Michigan.
So is high water.
We will play robots anyway. Unless there’s a blizzard, or a pandemic. 
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I think in general it’s less formal than a “contract”, more of an “understanding” that ECs typically come to with the school. I’m fairly sure that’s what we do in Midland anyways, and we work with the school to make sure the driveways are plowed and such.
That said, it probably varies from event to event.
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Hell is much closer to Detroit.
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