Weekly Schedule

[44ozpepsi]

I'm new to FRC and someone has probably posted this question before but I'm hoping for a quick answer rather than exhaustive search.

Roughly how much time do your teams average per week working on your teams robot?

By which week do you expect to have your robot built to be able to practice matches with your robot?

[dellagd]

I'm new to FRC and someone has probably posted this question before but I'm hoping for a quick answer rather than exhaustive search.

Roughly how much time do your teams average per week working on your teams robot?

By which week do you expect to have your robot built to be able to practice matches with your robot?

As a team, we are in all days but sunday (We may get a friday off depending on our progress). Though, not every person is in 6 days a week since monday may be for controls and mechanical and tuesday may be for electrical and controls... that kind of thing.

[Andy Brockway]

We meet everyday but Sunday.
1st week = 20 hours total
2nd week thru 5th week = 30 hours per week
6th week = 35 hours total
Monday/ Tuesday of ship week > 20 hours

We plan on having a running chassis with 80% total completion by the end of week 4. Total completion by the end of week 5. Refine and rebuild is during weeks 5 and 6.

[Madison]

The team meets about 15 hours per week. Some of us work for far more than that on our own.

We aim to have a prototype robot ready for testing by week 4.

[midway78224]

We put in roughly 20-25 hrs a week.

[BobbyVanNess]

Our team meets Monday-Thursday for around 2-3 hours, taking off Fridays (until crunchtime of course :p ), and about 6-7 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. We require all members to put in at least 40 hours during build season to travel to regionals or nationals. Typically, we aim to have it done by the end of week 5, but in the past few years it's dragged us into week 6, and even stop build day.. This is NOT a good thing. Its much better finishing earlier to allow time for driver practice and tuning the bot. Overlooking either of those things can bring down a good team. The robot is never going to be perfect on its first run. It can take weeks to work out the inevitable problems, and develop ways to overcome them, either by modifying the bot itself, or changing how it's driven. It's also important to know the true capabilities of the bot in order to develop a solid gameplay strategy beforehand.

[Jon Stratis]

Mon-Thu, 2 hours per day, Sat 7 hours per day, for a total of 15 hours per week.

We tend to ramp it up at the end to get everything done, but we aim to be "finished" 1 week before Stop Build day, so programming can test stuff out, drivers can get some experience, and we can fix anything that isn't working right.

Of course, none of that includes "homework" we give the students - to think about new mechanisms, to figure out how something is going to work on paper, or "do the math" behind something to make sure it'll meet our needs. Plus there's the obligatory 2+ hours per day spent on Chief Delphi, but that may just be me :p

[cgmv123]

Our current build season schedule is 10-3 or 4 on Saturdays, 10-4 on Sundays, 6:30-9 on Tuesdays (mandatory) and 6:30-9 on Wednesdays.

Extra hours may be added later in the season.

[dellagd]

I forgot to mention that like above the time put in by each individual student varies greatly.

[Gregor]

About 40 hours a week, work everyday but Sunday.

[thisOrrthat]

We work every Day
Monday - Thursday 3-9
Friday 3-11ish
Saturday 10am-11pm
Sunday 12-9ish
And our CAD guys are constantly on CAD, programmers are always programming away. our CNC is almost non stop, and Machinist are always on the Bridgeports. Either making practice bot parts, Competition Bot Parts, or Backup parts.
We don't stop working.
We don't require any student to be at the shop though. Most of our who to take on a trip decisions are based on hours and fundraising help, but all of us are extremely motivated to build those robots.

[MrTechCenter]

We meet every day except for Sundays and we give Thursdays off because Friday tends to be the day when teachers give tests/quizzes and have major assignments due, but the team's leaders tend to meet on Thursdays anyway, and by Week 5, everybody is. Our "official" meeting schedule is weekdays from 3:30pm-6:00pm and Saturdays from 9am-2pm. However, the time spent working goes up and up the farther we get into build season. The final Saturday before Stop Build Day was a 12-hour work day (for some of us) and the Monday before Stop Build Day Tuesday, the drive team was practicing until roughly 10pm (on a school night). We plan so that sort of thing doesn't happen, because we don't want anybody to fall behind in school because of the team, but sometimes it just happens. However, we did have very few members last season, and that number has doubled this season, so we may not have that problem. We did absolutely no work on Stop Build Day, and had the robot bagged and tagged the night before and managed to get testing/calibration done with driver practice as well.

[MysterE]

Monday through Friday: 4:30 PM - 8:00PM and Saturdays: 11:00AM - 7:00PM.

We work Saturday schedules on Martin Luther King Day as well as all three Mardi Gras Holidays. (Yes it pays to live in Louisiana. We never get snow days either.)

[DampRobot]

Are we the only team that works on Sundays?

We work 9-5 (or later) on weekends, and work 2:30 or so till 6 weekdays, except Thursdays, on which we work till 7 and have a meeting til 8:30. I CAD constantly, sometimes until 10 at night (or later), and sometimes get up at 6:30 to start again.

Our tenative (make that increasingly unlikely) goal for a practicing robot is the end of week 3. We had a fully functional robot (mechanically and electronically) by week 5 last year.

[midway78224]

Are we the only team that works on Sundays?

We work 9-5 (or later) on weekends, and work 2:30 or so till 6 weekdays, except Thursdays, on which we work till 7 and have a meeting til 8:30. I CAD constantly, sometimes until 10 at night (or later), and sometimes get up at 6:30 to start again.

Our tenative (make that increasingly unlikely) goal for a practicing robot is the end of week 3. We had a fully functional robot (mechanically and electronically) by week 5 last year.

Nope we also work Sundays 1-6pm

[2348humanplayer]

We usually meet every day on week 1, and Mon, Wed, Fri the rest of the weeks are mandatory, Tues and Thurs are optional, but the really dedicated ones are there every weekday.

[class1234567]

We practice monday through friday 6-8pm ,and on saturdays around 8-12 hours depending on when we leave. We may work on sundays when it gets down to the wire. Hope this helps.

[lorem3k]

We work 6 days a week.
Early season: Around 12pm - 5pm
MId season: 9am - 5pm weekdays, 12pm - 5pm Saturdays
Late season: 9am - 10pm or later (3:35pm - 10pm on school days)
When we start adding hours depends on our progress. Usually we do 2 weeks of 12-5, 3 weeks of 9-5, and one week of 9-10. Our district has most of January off for final exams, so there are no classes.

[dk5sm5luigi]

Looks like we are on the low end of time spent. Our team works 8 hours a week and then work our way up to 12 hours a week. Then we put in 20 hours the last weekend.

[SarahBeth]

We are also on the low hours of time spent.

We work Tues/Thurs from 6-9 and Saturdays 10-4 for a total of....18 hours, I think. The last weekend and Monday/Tuesday before stop build is always around the clock, we usually get kicked out at midnight because thats when they lock the gates to the school. Stop Build Day always falls during February vacation so we don't have to worry about the kids being exhausted in school Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday.

I think the goal this year is to have a pretty full robot for practice by week 5. I do believe last year we got zero practice before it went into the bag.

[nathan_hui]

2473 usually has a handful (3-5) students in the shop from 2-6 on weekdays and from 10-6 on Saturdays. This usually goes until the very end. The rest of the working team (10-20 others, depending on the year) come in from 3-6 on some/most weekdays. We've had students spend upwards of 60 hours total, and some students a paltry 2 hours total. In total, it's looking like 600-700 man-hours of work to complete the robot, not including time spent at home, lunch, brunch, and (against the advice of some mentors) classtime. And definitely not including overtime (we'd go to 7 or 8 on some days).

One thing we've seen each year is that usually a small group of really dedicated and motivated students will build the majority of the robot. This is a group of maybe 5-7 students who live, breathe, and speak FRC for three months at the beginning of each calendar year.

In 2012, we tried to get a working robot by Week 4, but ended up a week behind. Working being meeting all (read most) design requirements. Our robot probably functioned by Week 3, but wasn't good enough (mostly software issues) until the end of Week 5, and still wasn't good enough for our liking.

[z_beeblebrox]

Our team plans to meet for at least 3 hours per day Monday through Friday and 6 hours on Sunday. Our goal is to build a fairly sophisticated prototype/ practice robot by week 3-ish and our competition robot by week 5. We would spend the remaining week practicing, optimizing and fixing things that break.

[MattC9]

About 40 hours a week, work everyday but Sunday.

40 hours a week is a full time 9-5 Job so that is saying you spend on average 6.6 hours a day at robotics. How do you do this with school for ~8hrs put of a 24hr day leaving you 16hrs for sleep and other things so if you do robotics for around 7 hours a day that leaves you with 9 hours for sleep homework and a little breathing room. So how do you pull a 40 hour week with school and leaving time for other activities?

[Gregor]

40 hours a week is a full time 9-5 Job so that is saying you spend on average 6.6 hours a day at robotics. How do you do this with school for ~8hrs put of a 24hr day leaving you 16hrs for sleep and other things so if you do robotics for around 7 hours a day that leaves you with 9 hours for sleep homework and a little breathing room. So how do you pull a 40 hour week with school and leaving time for other activities?

Monday-Friday 3:30-10
Saturday 10-6

I do homework at every break I get, on the bus/subway to and from school and robotics. More homework when I get home, and the occasional day off to catchup. Other activities take the back burner.

[MechEng83]

I (somewhat) jokingly tell people we meet 8 days a week.... because that's how it can feel.

We meet M-F from 6:30-9pm with Thursdays mandatory.
Saturday is 9am-5pm
Sunday is 1pm-4pm

The reason we have such a long gap between when school gets out to our meeting start time during the week is because most of our mentors have day jobs and can't really make it to the school until 6:30.

Students have to make 70% of the scheduled time, but we often meet outside those hours too (especially in the last week)

[FPSRussia]

My teams schedule goes:
Monday - friday 3-8:30
Saturday 9am-9pm
We useally use week 6 as full practice and week 5 for testing

[JJackson]

My schedule last year was 3:10-9ish or so(usually not as late first week but often later weeks 4-6) Monday to Friday
9-4 on Saturdays
Sundays at home (typically CADing/ catching up on sleep)
CAD- from when I got home until 1 usually (weekdays)
In total just under 270hrs at build.
Our latest night at build was probably 12:30.... We got our competition bot in the bag with five minutes to spare... Then we had to cleanup

There are typically 2-4 other students like this and about 3 or 4 mentors

Something we tried out last year with great success was each person was assigned a night to bring in supper. This brought out more people until the food was gone and let everyone else work later as we weren't as hungry.

[JM033]

Erryday except Sunday
Monday-Friday:5:30-8:30
Saturday:8am-4pm..times are consistent within the season.
23hrs weekly

[klmx30302]

Our teams schedule looks something like this:

Mon-Thursday: 6 to 9
Friday: 6 to 9 or afterschool to 9 if its a BAE off Friday
Saturday: 9 to 6 (9 if its crunchtime)
Sunday: 12 to 6 (9 to 9 if its crunchtime)

So our minimum hours per week is 30, however the amount per student varies widely.

[yarden.saa]

my team's schedule:
Sunday - Thursday: 18:00-23:00
Friday: 14:00-18:00
Saturday: 12:00-23:00

[Brandon Zalinsky]

About 35-40 hours per week for our most dedicated members, which is most of the team. We aim to be done by the weekend of ship day, but for the past few years, we've had wrenches on the robot as it goes into the bag.

[Donut]

Are we the only team that works on Sundays?

Some schools won't allow Sunday meetings on school grounds. This was the policy of my old team's school, the few seasons we needed a Sunday to finish things up we had to take everything to a mentor's house and work in their garage. Many members can't make Sundays regardless for religious reasons.

Our schedule is 5-6 to 9 Tuesday and Thursday, 9-10 to 4 Saturday. We're meeting this first Sunday to help with strategy and will add a day or two extra in weeks 5 and 6 as needed to finish things up.

In high school I used to go 6 days a week for 25+ hours and 40+ the last week, doing homework before the meetings started. As a mentor now I can't do that schedule and can see why adults in FIRST get burned out from it.

[IndySam]

We meet Mon-Thur 6-9, we add Saturdays 9-3 week two or three and add Sunday afternoons week four of five.

We try to have the practice robot driving and almost complete by end of week four and start building the competition robot week five using what we learned constructing the practice bot to make improvements.

After ship it's practice practice practice.

[Siri]

January: 6-9 MWR, 10-6 Sat-Sun/holidays. February: 6-9 Mon-Fri, 10-9 Sat-Sun/holidays.

Our average students do ~10-20hrs/week (2-4 nights and at least 1/2 day weekend), picking up towards the end (20-25h). The more dedicated student leaders might do 30h sometimes. Lead mentors hit 400 hours in last build season (60+hr/wk*), with top programmers and CADers in between. In truth, I wish we could start weeknight meetings earlier -- 5-6hrs/night was much more useful, 3hr has some diminishing returns.


*We don't intend to do this again...

[wireties]

FIRST Team 1296 meets Mon-Fri for 4+ hours and Saturday for 10 hours - so 30 hours. We try to take Sunday off so people can catch up with family and homework. We add 2 full Monday workdays to that if school is out. If the schedule looks good we might skip a Friday evening or two.

The important thing is to front load your efforts, set miletones and meet them. Like many opinions in this thread we try to have a rolling base in week 2 and a fully assembled bot in week 4. Then weeks 5 and 6 are never ending iterations of practice, tweaking and autonomous mode work.

Good luck

[lpickett]

It does help that the parents and mentors help to provide meals and we have a kitchenette that allows the students to have food and drink available. They will eat together around 5, usually discussing issues that have come up. Then they have snacks available for later or for afterschool while they are working on homework. Homework has to be done before working on the robot. There has been some late nights in the past. We hope to keep this down, but doesn't always work. Everyone have a fun time in the weeks ahead and try to get some sleep in.

[Alan Anderson]

The TechnoKats season schedule evolved a few years ago into one that works well for us. We have 2-hour afternoon and evening work sessions on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays; a three-hour work session Friday evening; and a six-hour day on Saturdays (with lunch provided by parent volunteers). Our regular weekly team meeting is on Tuesdays, and that fits between between the work sessions during build season. Sundays and Mondays are typically days off, though we try to make sure the shop is open on the two Monday holidays during build.

Late nights and extra days often happen as the stop build deadline nears.

There's a bus immediately after school to take students to the workshop (it's a little more than a mile away) Tuesday through Thursday. We have two tables in the shop labeled specifically for homework. Grades take priority over robot work.

[DonRotolo]

You can see our detailed Calendar at www.team1676.com

The short version is 20 hours some weeks, 30 hours other weeks. This tends to increase in weeks 5 and 6.

We like to have out practice bot running in week 4. Doesn't always work out that way though.

[Mr. Van]

Wow! I'm amazed at some of these replies.

Many schools require a certified teacher to be at any and all events/activities where there are students present. As a Teacher/Coach, I can't possibly imagine adding 40 hours of additional time to my work week. How do teams work starting at 12:00 noon? Isn't that during school? Anyway, here is our schedule:

M, W, Th 2:20 - 6:00 PM (Robotics is the last class of the day, and we extend to after school.)

Sat 9 AM - 5 PM with an hour lunch break (that most of us work through).

Both stop times are somewhat flexible (we may add an hour or perhaps two on certain days). We also meet throughout the three-day weekend before "bag & tag". We do not meet on school holidays (like MLK day).

It is about 18 - 20 hours per week.


REMEMBER - there ARE things more important than robots...

Have a great Kickoff!

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

[Botwoon]

REMEMBER - there ARE things more important than robots...

false

[IndySam]

REMEMBER - there ARE things more important than robots...

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m137/Digital_Goats/tumblr_mbjpn5ymp01ri8wt6o1_250_zps45828a73.gif