Build Season Habits [Archive]

CadetGizmo

05-01-2016, 09:39

Last build season (which was my first), I found that I couldn't function unless I came in every day with at least 2 large coffees. Later on, I found that I was doing coffee runs for a bunch of members of my team. As the shadow of Kickoff looms over us, some people will be picking up unique quirks and habits like coffee obsessions or subgroup rituals (our electrical portion of the team listens to What is Love pretty much religiously when we do work) that only come around during build season. Does anyone have any habits that they know they will be returning to as an individual or even a team?

GreyingJay

05-01-2016, 09:44

We meet on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, so I'll head over to the build site after work. This necessitates grabbing a quick bite somewhere along the way, which means fast food. I didn't want to overdose on Big Macs last year so I made it a habit/challenge to buy dinner from a different place each time (and breakfast for Saturdays). I think I'll be doing that again.

Sperkowsky

05-01-2016, 10:51

I tend to eat a lot of chips and salsa. I'm currently working on getting our team sponsored by Tostitos.

The_ShamWOW88

05-01-2016, 11:03

I have this bad habit of missing something called sleep....have you ever heard of it?

mwmac

05-01-2016, 11:05

Fat Boy ice cream sandwiches for those that work past midnight...

catacon

05-01-2016, 11:06

Several of the younger mentors and I would end up going out to eat after work nights at the shop. Gets to be a little expensive, but it's a good way to vent/relax and a long work day.

We also have a popcorn machine at our shop that the kids tend to run continuously throughout the season.

Kyle Heaton

05-01-2016, 11:54

My sophomore year on the team, I would have Let it Go from Frozen constantly playing while I was working in the software area.

People tend to either join in immediately or question if the lack of sleep is getting to you.

Sad thing is, this tradition is still following me around.

Eric Scheuing

05-01-2016, 12:04

Dilly Bars from DQ.

JesseK

05-01-2016, 12:24

Saturday, 0600: Wake up. Ok, make that 0610, wake up. Crap, just woke up again at 0620, going to be late. Man, it's flippin' cold outside.
Saturday, 0700: Mentor and Student Lead meeting to assess the week's progress, plan for the weekend and talk about logistics. Still sleepy. Vice: coffee, dark roast, no cream, sugar or other flavored crap.
Saturday, 0830: Breakfast usually provided by a parent. Shop machine tools are usually humming along. Vice: Bagels, or scrambled egg casserole (usually). More coffee! Will probably start bringing my own steel-cut oat oatmeal from home in 2016 since there's a microwave nearby.
Saturday, 1100: Hungry again since breakfast was mostly carbs. Stale bagels it is. Vice: MOAR COFFEE!1!! That'll solve it...
Saturday, 1300: Blood sugar low from all of the thinking about rules, prototypes and strategies. Time for lunch. Usually pizza. Started bringing veggies from home in 2015 - good habit btw. Vice: mellow out with some coca cola or mountain dew.
Saturday, 1600: CAD CAD CAD CAD CAD CAD CAD CAD CAD. Vice: anything with sugar. Just keep the brain happy...
Saturday, 1800: Phew, time to go relax on the couch at home! Just bring the laptop to CAD, check CD, run Excel scenarios, purchase things we forgot to purchase before the end of the day, etc. Wife wants to watch "say yes to the dress" or other such shows. Ok, np. We usually chat during commercials. Vice: Really nice headphones, usually Lindsey Stirling, Trifonic, or other meditative no-word symphonic digital music.
Saturday, 2300: Crap. Can't get to sleep. Didn't mean to stay up this late to begin with, and now I wonder if we've overlooked something. Are we doing too much? What if we did something crazy, like mandate 30 pounds be saved for X subsystem since it seems more important than we've determined - how would that change our vision for the design of subsystem Y? What if Y doesn't work out, how do we maximize subsystem X for highest probable utility and value? Vice: comfy bed.

EDesbiens

05-01-2016, 12:41

There are a few things I get to do each year...

Forget to sleep;
Forget to eat or eat wayyyy to much while working;
Have a car accident around the bagging day (hitting a deer or stuff);
Complaining about the cold in the workshop;
Listening to the same 40 song playlist over and over and over again;
Spending too much time discussing with people from other teams or reading on CD;
Not doing homeworks.

Thats pretty much all I can think about...

courtney.john28

05-01-2016, 14:06

My team listened to the same yodel continuously during ariel assist. I also lose all my money to breakfast at Chick Fil A every season

Zebra_Fact_Man

05-01-2016, 16:38

Collin Stiers

05-01-2016, 18:30

We generally don't start build until 3:30 or so, and our classes end at 2:15 so the group of us that carpools to FRC will stop and get coffee and chill for 45 minuets good way to socialize.

also I have the disturbing habits of finishing homework at 3 am during build season

GeeTwo

05-01-2016, 19:08

I always wind up going to the hardware store more and the grocery store less than the other ten months of the year.

PayneTrain

05-01-2016, 20:36

Vice: coffee, dark roast, no cream, sugar or other flavored crap.

I drink black coffee on early robotics days as a metaphorical reminder of the bitter reality I have subscribed to.

I also have a nasty habit of cracking through Rockstar Sugarfree energy drinks during the midday at a rate that no doctor would recommend.

I would say that my number 1 habit is shifting from vocal communication to manual comnmunication as a build season progresses because the part of my brain in charge of completing sentences is stuck putting out fires somewhere else.

JoshWilson

05-01-2016, 20:57

I personally tend to get almost no sleep, get no homework done, and constantly wonder how I'm still a twig after eating at least twice as much as I do during Cross Country and Track season.

EDesbiens

05-01-2016, 20:59

I also have a nasty habit of cracking through Rockstar Sugarfree energy drinks during the midday at a rate that no doctor would recommend.

Let me rephrase that for you :

I also have a nasty habit of cracking through Rockstar Sugarfree energy drinks during the midday, something that no doctor would ever recommend.

PayneTrain

05-01-2016, 21:03

Let me rephrase that for you :

I mean I'm pretty sure it only gets bad when you go over a ratio of 1/hr right?

Chris Endres

05-01-2016, 21:06

Aldi brand Mt. Dew, Mt. Frost. The worst caffeinated drink out there; with only being roughly $1 for 12 cans, making it very affordable for us poor high school students. This garbage has been holy water for the mechanical and CAD sub teams, as it acts as a wake-me-up and makeshift aluminum cutting juice.

EDesbiens

05-01-2016, 21:08

I mean I'm pretty sure it only gets bad when you go over a ratio of 1/hr right?

Wikipedia says 2/hr is the limit...

Briansmithtown

05-01-2016, 21:13

I tend to crack jokes so cheesy, people usually use it to make chicken parm.

JoshWilson

05-01-2016, 22:10

I tend to crack jokes so cheesy, people usually use it to make chicken parm.
That joke would go great with my lasagna...

sdangelo

05-01-2016, 22:37

Here's a non-food-related one: I draw the knockout (one-color) version of the FIRST logo all over the place. And I don't just mean at our build site, I draw them on school papers, on my hand, in MS Paint on my computer. I had one on a chalkboard in the engineering room of my local high school (which does not have a FIRST team) for months on end--every time it was erased, I just put it back up.

sawhneyjalaj

06-01-2016, 12:28

Well, where my team works, there is a vending machine. The machine has iced tea and every build season, all I do is drink iced tea...

CadetGizmo

07-01-2016, 13:21

I think it's worth mentioning that I haven't gone to a single meeting without wearing a hat, usually a super warm, super stretched beanie.

waialua359

07-01-2016, 13:39

This is easy! Gain 15lbs in 6 weeks from all the snacks, meals, and drinks we all are required to bring in during build season.:eek:

Abhishek R

07-01-2016, 13:52

2AM breakfast at Denny's on certain late nights. The waiters/waitresses pretty much know who we are just on the fact that we come there almost every week during build season.

GreyingJay

07-01-2016, 14:35

2AM breakfast at Denny's on certain late nights. The waiters/waitresses pretty much know who we are just on the fact that we come there almost every week during build season.

Oh, this reminds me of another one... yelling "robot!" as a stand-in for "excuse me" anywhere the team happens to be. Shopping, restaurant, school event...

Shrub

07-01-2016, 15:18

It's kind of obvious these habits are bad for both physical and mental health. Build season took a huge toll on me physically and mentally, especially my senior year of high school. I went through a nasty caffeine withdrawal and was generally depressed and irritable the rest of the summer due to competition season being so stressful for me.

I think instead of bragging about how unhealthy we eat, or how many energy drinks we drink, we should be thinking about why we normalize that, or boast about that. There's a certain kind of ableism (http://www.stopableism.org/what.asp) that comes with those statements - a kind of warning to others who may not have the mental or physical energy to participate in build season that they won't be able to make it. Even apart from ableism, it shows to others when people only focus on the negative habits that build season may not be worth participating in.

My team's build season was high impact, 6 weeks 6 days a week for as long as we needed. Of course, it wasn't required to go every day, but I think it was you had to go to 60% of meetings. Reflecting on build season with a friend of mine who was chronically ill, we noticed that this was not healthy for either of us.

Not to derail, but does anyone have any healthy habits that arise from build season? I never procrastinate during build, and I really learned a lot more about self care. Build season shouldn't be a period of time to develop obsessive and unhealthy habits, much less to boast about them.

tl;dr: any good habits? or just a lot of mtn dew?

GreyingJay

07-01-2016, 15:53

Not to derail, but does anyone have any healthy habits that arise from build season? I never procrastinate during build, and I really learned a lot more about self care. Build season shouldn't be a period of time to develop obsessive and unhealthy habits, much less to boast about them.

tl;dr: any good habits? or just a lot of mtn dew?

A good point. A lot of this was probably skewed perspective because the thread posters seem to be posting in jest, and a lot of it will be simply because, frankly, high school students + big projects = coffee and energy drinks and pizza.

My habit of "no repeated fast food meals" was intended as a compromise and a way to stay conscious of my food habits. I know I'm going to get junk food each build night. I know that's bad. But this forced me to think about where I'm going to go each night and what I'm going to order, rather than just mindlessly order the same junky junk over and over.

Another healthy build season habit my previous team adopted (and new team will likely do the same) - when it got really intense we asked parents to rotate around a schedule and provide meals for the team. Instead of ordering pizza for every night we had a variety of tasty home-cooked meals.

InspectorGadget1073

07-01-2016, 20:16

I usually eat crap for breakfast
...More crap for lunch...
...And a burrito for dinner...
(All during midst robotics season and hockey season, and now I'm wondering why I don't throw-up every time I do physical activity)

JoshWilson

07-01-2016, 20:49

Does anyone have any healthy habits that arise from build season? I never procrastinate during build, and I really learned a lot more about self care. Build season shouldn't be a period of time to develop obsessive and unhealthy habits, much less to boast about them.

tl;dr: any good habits? or just a lot of mtn dew?

Personally, it's one of the few times when I'll actually do work without procrastinating, and it also makes me enjoy eating (mostly) healthy for the rest of the year, because I eventually get tired of junkfood.
Another healthy build season habit my previous team adopted (and new team will likely do the same) - when it got really intense we asked parents to rotate around a schedule and provide meals for the team. Instead of ordering pizza for every night we had a variety of tasty home-cooked meals.

Even though we eat a lot of junkfood, our weekend meals are usually good homemade meals brought in by parents, which is also really nice.

And kudos to you Shrub, that was a great idea bringing up the subject of healthy habits, and encouraging us to make better ones instead of just continuing with the bad and making fun of them.

cjl2625

07-01-2016, 21:00

Speaking of food habits...
We just relocated shops, and our new shop is about a quarter mile from McDonalds, and I pass by it on my way to/from robotics. Rip my health this build season.

arc25565

07-01-2016, 21:22

We have a dairy queen just up the hill from our school so we eat there a ton. We also had a barbecue donated last year so we have lots of hamburgers. Not the best diet ever.

GeeTwo

07-01-2016, 22:04

..any good habits?

Well, before starting with FRC, I drank a lot more beer during January and February than I do now. FRC build season and carnival season pretty well line up most years; FRC kicks off on the Saturday nearest the beginning of carnival, and in 2012 and 2015 they ended on the very same stroke of midnight. I don't do nearly as much carnival as I used to. Does that count?

Billfred

07-01-2016, 22:51

Every build season since I was out of college--from 2009 through 2015--I've been on teams that met five nights a week from 6-9. Since work ended at 5 PM, that meant eating before 6 because I was not gonna last until 9. I quickly learned which restaurants had which specials on which days, and I learned which ones had easy parking and returns to the road.

Now that I'm working from home, I hope I can shake that one at least some nights. :)

(And maybe even the handful of Red Bulls each season...)

The Ginger

07-01-2016, 23:51

My team likes to blast star wars music on a bluetooth speaker

Zealii

08-01-2016, 08:18

School ends at 2:55, but robotics doesn't start until 5:30 so that all of our mentors can be there. Parents sign up to bring food for us (dinner on weekdays and lunch on Saturdays) which is really nice. I can't always say that the food is super healthy but it sure beats fast food. For Saturday dinners, everyone carpools to a local restaurant which helps us to be social :) Our build space is at our high school near the center of town so there are lots of food choices (healthy and not).

Personally, I am on the Track and Cross Country team so I have practice right after school before robotics. It makes for a very busy day and not a lot of time for homework. It will be interesting to see what junior year and AP Language and Composition do for this habit!

gbear605

08-01-2016, 09:20

We listen to Intro by The XX (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gxNW2Ulpwk) on repeat. It's great.

InspectorGadget1073

08-01-2016, 10:04

We listen to Intro by The XX (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gxNW2Ulpwk) on repeat. It's great.

A whole lot of Darude Sandstorm is a necessity for Team 1073 during Build Season

GreyingJay

08-01-2016, 10:05

A whole lot of Darude Sandstorm is a necessity for Team 1073 during Build Season

What, you don't hear enough of it at the regionals? :rolleyes:

Zac Schofield

08-01-2016, 10:11

A whole lot of Darude Sandstorm is a necessity for Team 1073 during Build Season

du du du du du du du du du du :)

He's so right though. We also will blast out relevant memes during our build season. Not to mention lots of BAAAAAAD puns.

Here's one from late in the build season of 2015: "Guys, -Takes out a mostly empty jar of thyme- We're running out of THYIME"

We had to briefly exile him from the room...

InspectorGadget1073

08-01-2016, 10:13

We had to briefly exile him from the room...

*Shakes head* Only Mr. Goyette... It seems like BACS is the source of ALL bad puns ever.

SoulianPride

08-01-2016, 10:14

I don't know why, I can't explain it, but our business team ends up having at least 1 dance+lip sync battle during the build season in an attempt to concentrate on our work which is usually followed by some kind of McDonald's run and if this takes place in February, then Shamrock Shakes are required.

InspectorGadget1073

08-01-2016, 10:16

devg29

08-01-2016, 10:26

jodge1706

08-01-2016, 10:42

During the build season we have this running joke that when somebody asks you a question, you answer with "Did you check your pockets" For example, "Do you know where the 7/16 wrench is" "Did you check your pockets" (Think about it, it works with almost anything).

This escalates to answering any question this way in robotics and outside of it. My family slowly starts to go crazy because of this. Usually it wears off about May, and re-appears about late December.

CNettles11

08-01-2016, 10:58

I've noticed that I drink a lot more water during build season. It's probably got a lot to do with the amount of coffee I drink. I usually try to drink two glasses of water for every cup of coffee, but if I'm not drinking coffee then I sometimes forget to hydrate.

GreyingJay

08-01-2016, 11:18

we usually end up with two large boxes of munchkins in our kitchen on Saturday and Sunday mornings

That's "Timbits" for all the Canadian teams out there :D

Karibou

08-01-2016, 12:23

Not to derail, but does anyone have any healthy habits that arise from build season? I never procrastinate during build, and I really learned a lot more about self care.

Even though I wasn't involved with a team for the past four build seasons (yay college!), I had a similarly busy schedule between coursework and half a dozen school organizations that were all in full-swing in January and February. Didn't get a lot of sleep or regular meals and drank a lot of energy drinks, but it did force me to schedule my time wisely/effectively and stick to that schedule. I'm sure there are much healthier ways to develop those habits...but at least I got SOMETHING beneficial out of it!

Is compulsively reading CD a healthy habit? :rolleyes:

legts

08-01-2016, 12:32

Our programmers have at least one gif of the noot noot shrew up on a monitor at all times.

(It's usually this one: http://45.media.tumblr.com/73ec750cb8c64120749d6f7df4e80853/tumblr_mzvgflZfX71r4zr2vo2_r1_500.gif)

GeeTwo

08-01-2016, 21:39

we usually end up with two large boxes of munchkins in our kitchen on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and they're usually gone within the hour. also the programmers consumed an entire bag of m&ms the other night... just a wee bit concerning seeing that it isn't even build season yet... (T-24 hours and 2 minutes!!)

That's "Timbits" for all the Canadian teams out there :D

Living in the Gulf South, I had to look up both last night. This is especially sad as I own stock in Timbits through my investment club, at least until Monday when my QSR sale order [I'm treasurer] is executed. I wrote a history of how we came to own QSR stock, but deleted it. The TL;DR is that we own QSR from the Tim Horton's side of the house, originally purchased as Wendy's.

thedude019

08-01-2016, 21:50

So starting the day after kickoff, im in the shop every week day from 6-9 and Saturdays from 9-4. Saturdays, a team members family brings a lunch, immediately following a recap of the week along with goals for the following week.

sonichammer7476

09-01-2016, 10:12

I personally bring coffee and my tablet every day as I prepare to give my life away. Alot of people from my team go to a restaurant right net to our base of operations before our meetings on Fridays. Everything else that happens I have forgotten, and will most likely never remember anything during the actual build, do to lack of sleep and hyperspeed 6 weeks. Have a great build guys ::safety::