There are a lot of things I like about the FIRST build season. I get to program, I get do design things, and I get to build things. But I personally am no great fan of administrative stuff, and try to avoid it. So last week when I learned of our travel plans to the PNW regional in Portland I was in for quite a surprise…
We live in Alaska. The flight to Seattle is about 3-4 hours if I remember correctly. The flight from Seattle to portland has to be another hour or so. So when I heard we were leaving at 1 in the morning I was like “great!”. That gives us a whole day to sit around a hotel and recover from our night of travel. Then I was corrected. We are leaving at 1 AM Thursday morning… Does that strike anyone else as crazy?
Thursdays at competition are practice days. Most teams uses thursdays to tweak their bots and get it ready to go through the next two days of beating that it’s going to take. So if your robot is working and if it doesn’t need any work, then its fine. But it’s always good to get there on time, so you get to know other teams and also start scouting. Scouting is a very important part of the competition.
And therein lies the problem. We had a space about ten feet wide and twenty long to test drive our robot, which we did for about a minute or two before shipping the bot. It has this elaborate system for sort of popping open, and we only ever tested it twice! And plus we need all the time we can get on Thursday to mount the camera and write code for it! Oh yeah, we never weighed the bot either. I would be its about 121 pounds :).
Russell, I’m sorry to hear about your adminadstratives woes. My team is very lucky to have an adminastrative GODDESS named Amanda. She takes very good care the disorganized bunch that is my team. Only one problem, this is her senior your. So next year my team could be right where you are now.
We had to take the red-eye flight to Atlanta on Wednesday night last year. That was a nightmare. Our team looked like a bunch of zombies during the practice rounds on Thursday. But with a good night’s sleep (and a lot of caffine) we were ready for competition the next day. My advice would be to get a lot of sleep thursday night so you can be on the top of your game for the qualification matches. (Halo can wait till Friday :p)
I guess its too late now but next year you should explain to your administration the value of getting to the competitions early. They don’t know any better so really its not fair to blame your administration. Your school is working to help you and you have to keep that in mind. What I did this year is I personally planned the trips so nothing weird would happen and it seems to be working. You might wanna try assigning the task of planning to someone on your team or ask your advisor to do it. Good luck at the regioanls!!!
It actually isn’t that nuts. Like they said, it’ll save you a hotel night.
(Back at Irmo, ROTC used to do this all the time on the spring trips. We’d leave around midnight and arrive in Florida or whereever in the morning. Just hope that the flight is smooth and that your team packed their toothbrushes carry-on.)
As crazy as this sounds…it’s actually not that bad.
This year, with my team going to Annapolis, we had to vote between leaving after school on Wednesday, arriving at almost midnight or later, and then sleeping in a hotel for around 6 hours, and then going to the competition Thursday or leaving around midnight, and arriving between 6 and 7 AM to compete Thursday. Leaving right after school won out, so there’s no saving hotel money, but it’s what the team wanted.
In years past, going to SBPLI Regional (long island) and NJ regional, we left at 2 or 3 in the morning, drove sleepily (coach bus, we didn’t drive) to the regional Thursday morning. One way or another everyone is going to be sleepy Thursday, but as long as drive and pit are awake, everything will be fine. The adrenaline alone will keep you awake…
Russel,
You’re not a rookie anymore. Remember there is lot’s of help at regionals but you need to ask for it. You may get there and find everything is OK and you just need to work on the camera. Keep it cool and don’t sweat the small stuff. I know it’s a long flight but it is after dark, so get some sleep.
This is why you should get A LOT of sleep the week prior to the tourney, so it doesn’t interfere with the 96 hour sleepless party known as a FIRST Regional.
What time do you expect to arrive in Portland? If your flight to from ANC to SEA departs at 1 am, and it’s a four hour flight, you’ll arrive in SEA at 6 AM. Presumably, you’ll then board a HorizonAir shuttle flight to PDX?
It seems like you’ll be arriving in the late morning or early afternoon. If there’s anything you need done before you arrive, my team would be happy to see if we can help. We’ll be there bright and early on Thursday morning, having driven down the night before.
PM me to let me know.
Also, it’s not crazy. I take red-eye flights to New York anytime I go home. Sleeping on the plane is nice.
That does NOT seem crazy to me at all… that’s because we left 8pm wednesday night to get from Michigan to Conneticut. Well, we cut through Canada but we got stuck at the border for 2 hours because a foreign exhange student didn’t have her pass port. We got to the competition a little bit late and had A LOT of work to do
Alrighty I got an update. Apparently we are not going to be stopping in Seattle at all on the way there, and when you figure in the hour gain from the flight we will be arriving a few minutes after 5 in the morning. Then the hotel (I forget which one, but its the one only a few blocks from the Coliseum that almost none of the other teams stayed at last year) is going to send a shuttle or something for us. So we should have plenty of time to grab a case of Mountain Dew, and eat breakfast before arriving at the event. So yeah we should be ok. Thanks for all your responses, it has definetly eased my mind somewhat.
