NEWS FLASH: GDC changes Fix-It Window Times

I don’t expect a question of mine to get two replies on the Q&A forum, so this one was a bit surprising:

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?p=1770#post1770

If I understand this correctly, we don’t have to wait until Saturday at 4:00 PM anymore to start using a Fix-It Window. Does that seem right?

I admit that I haven’t paid too much attention to questions about the Fix-It Window because, frankly, I’m tired and not really interested in working more on our robot.

This reads to me as if teams competing in events later on in the season will have anywhere from two to five or so additional weeks to work on their robot. Is that a correct interpretation?

If so, that’s pretty lousy.

Sort of. I’ll use 1293 as an example. We’re going to Palmetto, week five. We will have two five-hour Fix-It Windows available starting at 8:30 AM on March 2, 9, 16, and 23. (Teams going to Atlanta would also have another two windows starting on March 30.) Each of those dates at 8:30 AM local time, the number of windows available becomes two, regardless of however many windows we had available to us at 8:29 AM.

This is, of course, assuming that I read it right. Can someone check my math?

Assuming that part of the rule didn’t change (it didn’t), you are correct. If you have 1.5 available Fix-It Windows at 8:29 AM on March 16, at 8:30, you will have two windows for the rest of the week, not 3.5 or one or (insert random number other than two here).

How could someone have half a Fix-It Window?

How about starting work at 6:00 that morning when you have a window open? Actually, I just put that number in as an example. You have to use the whole window, or you lose the rest of it.