Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

This is a big point for me. The amount of money spent as a collective on expedited shipping (even with gracious discounts offered by AndyMark and IFI) has got to be astronomical. This is money we are quite literally throwing away as it relates to the 6 week deadline.

I would certainly welcome the cost savings...

-Brando

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Ok- I've actually read this whole thread. I think this is what I've got:

Some mentors/coaches are saying that they are stressed because they spend too much money building a practice robot and have to rush on Thursday mornings to install their 30 lb. withholding allowance mechanism. If only they didn't have to do these things, but could continue working on the actual competition robot, their lives would be less stressful and there would be less mentor burnout.

There is a simple solution here: Don't build a practice robot. Don't use the 30 lb. withholding allowance.

Ah, but you want to stay competitive with those who do. There are teams willing to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of mentor-hours refining their robots with every nanosecond of time available. These teams turn out the most competitive robots, and to keep up with them, you have to do the same...

Will these teams really put in any less time or effort? Of course not. The primary difference (should we extend the official build season) is that these teams will have an easier time doing what they already do - and they will push the envelope even further.

Those of us trying to keep up with the "elite" teams will be in the exact same situation - little will change. Except that we will loose teams because we will loose mentors who can't keep up with the extended time demands.

For those teams that are struggling just to get a robot finished, I believe that teams that having difficulty building a working robot in 6.5 weeks will have difficulty building a robot in 8 or 10 or 16 weeks.

FRC is a game of mentors. The best teams have the best mentors. Period.

Many teams have teacher/mentors who MUST be at EVERY meeting or work session. They can not miss a single day because the team can not meet or work unless they are there - per school district rules. Loose those mentors, loose the team.

Lastly, the only students who have commented on this thread have pointed out that they have other demands on their time outside of FRC.

I'll say it again: FRC is a game of mentors. If you want to maintain and expand the program, you must ensure that the mentors are there - ready, willing and able to do what they do. Any expansion of the build season will lead to loosing mentors - in fact many already find the extensions that so many seem to need to "be competitive" to be so stress inducing that they are forced to make the choice between being "competitive" and mentoring at all.

Maintain the limited build season.

Remove the withholding allowance.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

You, sir, are my hero.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

So, after all the back and forth in this thread, and all of the anecdotal and revisionist commentary on the history of what we do and why, I decided to do a little archeology. I went back and reviewed the actual game manuals from the early years (92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98). There is no available 94 Game Manual I could find in any of the archives.

In 92 and 93, there were no machine access restrictions at all. There was a kickoff, and there was a tournament. That was it....make a robot and show up to play.

In 95 we see the first indication of limits, as FIRST expanded to have more than one event. The rules of engagement were the same in 95 and 96. The excerpt from the 1996 manual is below:
-------------------------------------
Shipping Deadlines
To provide every team, regardless of events in which they participate, approximately the same number of design and build days, the following shipping regulations and dates apply:
New England Tournament (Manchester, NH) Competitors
1. Teams may either ship of bring their machine with them to the tournament.
2. After the tournament, all teams competing in the National Championship will have five days to make repairs and/or changes to their machines, within all rules outlined in this document
3. By end of business on Friday, April 5, machines must be picked up by a shipper for transport. This will give all New England teams five additional days to work on their machines.
National Championship participants only
1. Teams must ship their machines by end-of-business on Tuesday, April 2, 1996.
2. This will give all teams competing in only the National Championship an equal number of days to work on their machines as team competing in both events.------------------------------------

So, if you notice, this was not done to limit involvement by participants. It was done to try to equalize the number of workdays depending on if teams went to one or two events. You were allowed to work on your robot all the way upto and through the regional if you chose. Since the CMP required shipping robots to Disney, equalizing dates were imposed. Teams had 5 days to work on their robots after the first event before being required to give it up.

Actual "shipday" rules were not imposed until 1997. From the 97 manual:
----------------------------------------------------------
1. Machines MUST BE OUT OF TEAM HANDS by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb 25, 1997. This means you many ship the robot or drive the robot to the drayage/storage facility of your first event by 5:00 p.m. on February 25.

Regional Competitors
1. After competing in a Regional, any teams competing in another event will have two days to make repairs and/or changes to their machines, within all rules outlined in this document.
2. Machines MUST ARRIVE as the next site by the next Tuesday at 5:00 p.m.
-----------------------------------------------
After talking with some oldtimers from this era, they believe that the main reason for these changes in 1997 were due to LOGISTICS concerns. When events started to be scheduled on back to back weekends in 97, FIRST had to reduce the amount of time teams had to do repairs in order to make sure the crates could get to their destination in time.

Eventually (2002) the weekend hold back period was eliminated completely, again this was mainly to avoid the logistical complexity of hundreds of teams trying to all ship from various locations and instead allowed FIRST to control all of the logistics of all of the machines from the beginning to the end of the season by shipping direct from event to event. Again, the removal of these hands on repair and improve windows had nothing to do with limiting access by team, it was for LOGISTICS.

Phase forward to today. ALL of the Logistics for ALL of the teams are now entirely up to the teams and not any centralized control. So why does FIRST still maintain these rules? Seriously, they are nothing more than an artifact of an obsoleted system. Everyone who put the original rule in place at FIRST HQ is gone, yet these rules remain. Teams now attend anywhere from 1 to 6 events per season, so equalization of access time is functionally impossible, yet these rules remain.
So ask yourself, are we really doing something smart with the machine access rules, or is all of this just a collection of old rules, imposed for obsolete reasons which have been forgotten?

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

+1

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I'd say half and half. It's not smart at all to just keep doing things because thats how they have been done, but I am still in the camp that the rules as they exist (with some tweaks) are the best way to go.

To argue for why an "open access" build is in my opinion wrong for FIRST, is because of the competition schedule. Consider that there was open access to the robot at all times. Some teams don't have their first Regional event until week 4 or 5. A good majority of teams in those week 4 or 5 regional have at least been to one other event. I would argue that the teams who have been to a previous event have a massive advantage over those who hadn't.

Teams that know how their robot plays in a game of first and can correct it over the course of 2 to 3 weeks have a gigantic advantage over those who have so many more extra weeks of build and gameplay footage but no knowledge on how their robot actually does with 5 others on the real field. I'd argue further to say that in this scenario the best teams will HAVE to make week 1 event if they want to have any sort of competitiveness for the future events.

Open build would give too much advantage to teams with the capability to travel long distances to their events or have events nearby for attending both a week 1-3 and week 4-6.

Keeping the robot out of the hands of teams during the competition season maintains that robots and teams can be as equal as they were at the end of the competition season since the beginning of it - but doesn't stop teams from fixing their problems and getting better over time. This year so many teams got better as the events went on, but it wasn't overwhelming to push out teams who hadn't got a taste of action on the field.

I think the 30lb allowance is fine. It allows for robots to evolve and can keep teams busy, if they want to be busy, during the competition events but isn't that much unfair as being able to redo half of a robot in 2-3 weeks.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

In 2013, despite all the successes of all the teams represented on these forums, the Median OPR of the league after 1 event played was 10.3.
Over 1200 teams had a net contribution of 10 points or less per match. This level of accomplishment could be achieved in Ultimate Ascent by simply building a kit chassis with two stationary hooks on top. Since HALF of the league cannot achieve this basic level of play in their first outing, it is very hard for me to understand statements that say that we are giving teams enough time to be successful. We are not. 13% of the league has a sub-zero OPR at their first event. This means that our league is producing over 300 teams per year who NEVER EVEN SCORE AT ALL in their first event. This is a design failure of our system. (and I doubt than any of those teams are represented here).

Sure, many of these teams would still not be successful if we gave them more time, but many of them would get much better. Look at the data. After two outings the median MORE THAN DOUBLES to 24 points per team per match. This is huge. The average of the top teams does not change very much, but number of negative almost completely disappears.

What this is telling us is that with some time to work on their machines, get on a playing field, get help from other teams, and benchmark other's solutions,
HUNDREDS of teams move from a position of NOT BEING ABLE TO PLAY, to a position of BEING ABLE TO POSITIVELY CONTRIBUTE to their alliance's success. However, since 1400 teams only played once this year; many, many teams never get this opportunty to improve. And because of this, many of them fail and do not return to the FRC. And this is the real problem. The most difficult place to start a FIRST team is at a school where they previously decide to quit FRC in the past. Our current system is somewhat designed to kill teams early in their life cycle.



These trends are essentially the same, year after year after year, regardless of game design. When registration closes next fall, take a look at where all of the teams who drop out of FRC fall on these charts. The key to improving the sustainablity of FRC is to get teams to a reasonable success plateau early in their team history, ideally in their first season. Then they are likely to stay. Right now the FRC system works against this goal in many ways.

Some of the people on this post say they may quit if the rules were changed, however we already have a system which actively kills teams by the hundreds each year. Which is worse?

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I think this may be a misleading graphical representation of the time input vs performance for the reason you stated here. I'd suspect many teams that put in the effort to raise the funds to attend two regionals also put in more effort to build a robot that performs well. Their performance isn't based on playing time at regional events, there's just a correlation between the effort spent building a high performance robot and the effort spent raising funds for multiple regionals. I do agree that robot performance increases if a team has the opportunity to attend multiple regionals, however, and also agree with the point you're making.

With the way our team operates during the build season, I would prefer to have no bag day. We build a practice robot to get more tweaking time in, and in doing so we waste a lot of man-hours and resources just to build the second robot. With no bag day, and no need for a practice robot, we would be expending fewer resources to get the same performance out of our competition robot (which would allow us to take more days off during build season).

With the amount we spent doing fast R&D and building a practice robot to work around the bag deadline, we could have potentially gone to another regional instead (if it was priced similar to district events).

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

A couple of methodological points, just to be rigorous about this:
How are fouls being accounted for, if at all? As negative points? Could a portion of those 300 therefore be scoring fewer points than they receive in fouls? (This is of course still awful, but it doesn't mean they didn't score.)

Isn't that confounded by the likelihood that many of the worst teams only participate in one event (and thus their badness isn't reflected in the event 2 statistics)?

To measure the actual improvement, we'd want to separate out the event 1 performance of teams that participate in 2 or more events, and compare that to those teams' 2nd events. (And even after doing that, you wouldn't expect this 2-or-more-week group to be representative of the 1-week teams, because attendance at a second event—especially outside of district play—is probably strongly correlated with greater resources and organization.)

I think "designed" is probably too strong a characterization. It's nevertheless completely fair to say that the system is pretty good at it.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Jim, can you do the same thing comparing 1st and 2nd event just Michigan and MAR teams? I have to imagine it shows the same trend.

And if we do it for a season and it does really end the world as we know it... who says we can't go back?

I absolutely disagree. Closed build season gives the 2 event team at least 8 matches on the real field, plus a few practice matches, PLUS 3 days to work on their robot for their event registration. Meanwhile a team that is not competing does not get to practice, AND gets no time to work on their robot. Multi-event teams HAVE a huge advantage as is. Instead of leaving 1 event teams to be sitting ducks, moving to an open build season at least lets them learn, make changes, and most importantly practice like multi-event teams.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Jim brings up some valid points. Obviously teams that are not successful are not inspired to continue, but I don't believe that extending the build season will help these teams to the extent hoped. The reasons a team is not able to build a functioning robot (a drivable base with some articulated hooks on it, for example) are many and varied, but I would argue that a build season that is too short is not one of them.

One of the major reasons is that teams perpetually "bite off more than they can chew". Another is that they refuse to use items like the kit-bot chassis, or they may simply not have the technical skills necessary to build a working robot at all. These problems will happen if the season is opened-ended or if there is a time limit, unless the teams have better mentorship.

As Jim notes, real improvements occur when teams get on an official game field, play against other teams and gain the experience of driving a robot in a competition. It is a real shame of our system is that half of the teams are "one-timers". At least we agree on that! It seems that the district system will help in that basic registration includes two events, but overall, this is a major problem.

To me, however, the solution to improving robot (and therefore team) performance is to improve mentorship and provide more opportunity to actually play the game. This does not require a longer build season.

I doubt that the CD community will be able to come to any sort of consensus on this issue, but I'm glad that we've brought this question up for debate.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

First, Jim, thank you very much. This offers very, very valuable perspective on the matter that we've only really alluded to thus far. I'd look forward to any MAR/FiM exclusive data you might have. It might not be as dramatic--among other causes, they're quite competitive regions, both due to and resulting in the district model--but I'd bet it's something.

I would hope that in many if not most places, an open season would make FRC practice more like FLL., FTC and VEX: scrimmages aren't for "off-season". If some off-seasons moved to off-event weeks (in their area) during competition season, teams wouldn't have to travel so far or pay so much just to play on an at least semi-real field with other teams. (Semi-real given the logistics of getting a real field in competition season.) It might make easier replicablity/shippablity a constraint on the FRC GDC the way it is on the others--but heck, shouldn't it be anyway? It's certainly well past worth it.

Another culture change I find likely--perhaps naively--if the season got more open is further inter-team mentorship. If the strong teams weren't trying to cram so much into so little time, there'd be more of a chance to help others. This would be particularly potent if the powerhouses we're all trying to keep up with decided it was a good use of their time--which I suspect many would.

We helped and worked with a few teams a bit even with build, but if I look at what FLL does and the scrimmage we host, I know it could be a lot more. We couldn't add more more collaboration meetings or get more people on our pyramid in 6 weeks--but we did have one team that actually used their unbag time with us. A open season makes scheduling stuff like this much more doable. There's only so much you can do to help before the game comes out--so many of the struggles (though not in the teams we collaborated with directly) I see come from misinterpreting the game or mis-prioritizing what one's team is capable of managing.


In short, it's not just the time itself; it's the culture change it could catalyze.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I was originally planning to post my expression of support for the six week build period... but Jim's well-researched posts, in particular, have caused me to re-think this. Having an extended build season with some form of milepost along the way might be a worthwhile experiment.

One thing that bothers me during tech inspection is that there are teams that clearly have not read the rule book. It would be great to announce the game, publish the rule book, and then require teams to pass on online rules test before receiving their KoP. (I wish I could remember who originally posted this suggestion... I think it is brilliant.)

I've also thought that it would be good to have a pre-build, design-only period, where teams are allowed to design, model, sketch and plan, but not actually build anything. Unfortunately, this would be difficult to define and impossible to enforce... however with a longer build period I could have told my team, "no one builds anything for the first two weeks". As it turns out, the more experienced we got at the game, the more time we spent on CAD and the less time we spent re-building... more time for design would have been nice.

It would have also been nice to have more time to spend refining the control system. We tried building practice bots, but usually by the end of build we were so burned out (and often getting things ready for our first event) that we never really used them to full potential. Perhaps we could have teams document their robot photographically, uploading the photos on a certain date, and allow no physical changes to the machine other than wiring and sensors between that date and the team's first event. (At which point they could bring in 30 pounds of withholding allowance and make physical changes at the event.) Again, it would be awkward to define, and difficult to enforce, but our programmers deserved more time with the machine. Heck, even a few more days of driver practice would have helped sometimes.

It was also difficult to find working professionals who could make the comittment to attend build sessions three or four nights each week. Without that kind of comittment, it is hard to have a real impact on robot design, especially in the first couple weeks when prototypes and models are created, evaluated, modified and replaced in very short order.

Perhaps most disappointingly, however, we were so busy building our robot that I was only able to get out to assist other local teams a few times during build season.

There are good things about the six-week window, and once we learned to build the best robot that our team could build, rather than trying (unsucessfully) to build the best robot that 1114 could build, it actually wasn't as crazy as it was our first few years. Like I say, I was originally planning to post my support for continuing the six-week limitation.

But I think the arguments put forth in this thread have convinced me that it might be worth trying something new.

Jason

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I think we're reaching a crossroads with this issue. In the world where Regionals exist and teams exist that only go to one, I think the 6 week build is necessary. With the proliferation of the district system (FiM, MAR, and this year, NE), I think that an open build is not only plausible, but probably the correct solution. I don't think we need to go to that now, nor need to segment the teams that participate in the district system from the rest of the FRC world via rules changes.

Granted, if we allow open build in the district system, going to a week 1 and week 6 district to allow for the "most" time on field and for fixes. Just as the initial 6 week rule was added for a logistical issue, so too will another system accounting for districts. Do I like the 6 week system, even if it is a marketing slogan at this point? Yes. Do we need it forever? No. Do we need to change now? Not necessarily.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

To build a running, driving kitbot takes an experienced team about a day. If another team is seriously 40 times slower than an experienced team, the problem here isn't the time available, it's that the slower team simply isn't using the knowledge available to them over the internet and from more experienced teams.

Really, the teams that haven't managed to score 10 points probably DO have a kitbot, and probably DO have hooks, but for some reason (electrical, programming, broken chains, etc) maybe don't move in a given match.
The problem is that they, like every team I've ever been on, plan their robot build to fill the available time minus about a minute, and never plan on sustained testing. Given a 7, 8, or 9 week build time, they'll build a more-complicated robot that does more stuff, again spend 30 seconds on testing, then again be surprised when it fails on field.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

It seems to me that some of these arguments are better formulated as, "Week zero events are critical for robot success".

Instead of extending the build time, FIRST could put an extra week between stop build day and the first regional in order for more teams to plan and execute week zero events -- and allow unbagging and work at those events...

...and directly encourage/foster/help ensure that every area has an event that teams can attend.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Here's just the teams that attended 2 or more events.

Attachment 14812

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

What he said!

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I don't know if I follow your logic here and if I do, I don't think I agree with it.

What you're saying is that we remove the withholding allowance and discourage the construction of practice robots in order to decrease the amount of mentor burnout? Will a mentor be less burned out if they are forced to spend a season leading a team with a subpar design into multiple competitions where they have no chance than if they were to lead the same team into their competitions with 30lbs in machine upgrades that they spent the last 2-3 weeks building?

I'd argue that they're both equally stressful and tiring - but in different ways. If the robot is bad or flawed in some way, you'll spend an entire season trying to keep students upbeat, happy and hopeful - not to mention that you may be fixing the machine after EVERY match. I don't know about everyone, but I know that I couldn't deal with that kind of stress without it eating into my personal life. On the other hand, given the same scenario where a team would be allowed to fix their machine via 30lbs of upgrade parts, a mentor would probably spend much of their time trying to keep their students focused, productive and engaged in the task at hand, and if things work out right, an upbeat and hopeful attitude could/would be a by product of that task.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that either way, a problem would still exist in either situation but the problem would be much different. It's kind of like the difference between not sleeping well one night because you're worried about something versus not sleeping because you were working towards a solution to a problem.

I agree that FRC is a game of mentors and the amount of time that the head mentor(s)/teacher(s) spend is one of the biggest factors in a teams success. I think the scenario that we're shooting for by 'ending build season' is one where these key mentors/teachers don't have to spend 'as much' time per week on FRC to be successful.

The thing that many people seem to be missing about ending the rigid 6.5 week build season deadline is that no one is FORCING anyone to work more and/or longer than before. It only allows those teams that WANT to spend more time on FRC to do so without some of the more annoying restrictions - and gives those teams that couldn't do certain things like practice driving, make new parts, whatever, a way to do so without necessarily incurring extra expenses.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I agree with your assessment of the benefit of eliminating the restrictions. I am not sure that any of those posting in favor of retaining the current system are missing the point that those of us in favor of eliminating the restrictions are trying to make. All have offered valid points and I am sure that there may be consequences which none of us has considered.

I appreciate the varied participation and respect folks for sharing their honest perspectives. I sincerely believe that the subject will be discussed by FIRST; perhaps it is discussed on a regular basis already.

I understand the value of a marketing slogan and if that is really the only reason the rules remain the same I can accept it and will work to grow our team's resources so that we become more competitive. I know that it will also make us a stronger team, as was pointed out in a previous post.

The argument which creates angst with me is the notion that I must be saved from myself. That simply runs counter to my value system.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

To be honest I got a little tired of the "Built in six weeks" mantra at CMP

NASA doesn't get a "30 lb allowance" when it sends something to MARS

I appreciate the idea of a finite build season.... but it truly does not exist.

Really good teams work 12 months a year.
Really good teams work 2 months a year.

FIRST is about inspiration...
I can be equally inspired by what a team does with limited resources including time or by what a team does that is organized and has greater time and resources.

This thread was begun to discuss Mentor Burnout..
No amount of changing the rules will stop that... Mentors choose how much they participate for a number of reasons. If you changed the build season you would still get mentors putting in hours and hours because they want to inspire students.

No one is forcing anyone to do anything. You can mentor a team once a week or 7 days a week. 2 months a year or 12 months a year.

It all comes down to the individual mentor.
I know mentors whose schedules would be total burnout for most mentors yet they are ready for more.

I know mentors who get burned out with schedules that are relatively short.

In my opinion, you have to like students and challenges.
You also have to see the results of your time and effort and feel valued.

As a coach I spend a great deal of my time making sure everyone on the team knows how valued and important they truly are.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

This fantastic

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I want to be there for the team when I am needed. Being needed more than a few days a week for longer than a month and a half exceeds my willingness to make FRC a priority.

If the build season were to be extended, I would have to scale back my involvement significantly. I think that is true of most mentors on the team. I am certain that a longer build season would make teachers more wary of participating. I believe the team -- and the students -- would suffer because of it.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I understand Alan's point and I respect his perspective. I agree that the outcome Alan describes is, for some - perhaps many, a real possibility. I maintain that it becomes a choice. I have made the choice in some cases to invest significantly more time and effort beyond the first 6 weeks.

I also recognize that the outcome is an uncertainty at this point. I believe that if the bag deadline were eliminated, then wise adults would adapt appropriately and that the net impact would be a benefit to FRC.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Of course it's a choice. The question is whether or not we want to foster a reality where you either build competitive FRC robots or do anything else.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I don't think removing the build window alters reality that much. It gives teams with less resources the choice to build longer like many teams already do with practice robots. It give people more choices. There are competitive teams without practice robots now but its harder. There are also competitive teams that don't meet insane hours and take 2-3 days off each week.

The biggest point I'm going to keep restating is that removing the build window will allow a lot more time to help teams get better. More pre-event practice sessions, pre-event inspections and time to get help with problems. A huge subset of teams just plain need more time to work on their robot before it can be something that runs well at competition.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

You are right that there's a difference between the teams trying to become functional and teams trying to compete with the best.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

But the problem is that there's also a large subset of teams that will use that additional time to become EVEN MORE competitive at competition. Mid-tier teams will hit the performance previously reserved for elite teams, while elite teams will hit new highs. Teams that previously would have fielded unreliable boxes on wheels will field reliable boxes on wheels with unreliable game pieces ... and still come dead last, provoking CD conversations about "oh, they just need more time".

The problem here is this:
[2 week build] A team that fields an nonmoving robot among a field of barely-working robots will be uninspired
[6 week build] A team that fields a moving robot among a field of mostly-working robots will be uninspired
[4 month build] A team that fields a pretty decent robot among a field of 2013-einstein-level robots will be uninspired.

Teams that field relatively bad robots will not be happy. No matter the build length, someone will have a zero-and-N record, and those people will leave unhappy. What we currently build would look amazing to a bizarro FIRST that has a 3-week build season, but yet there are still unhappy teams. Similarly, what a 4-month-FIRST would build would look alien to us in terms of quality, but there'd still be teams that were unsuccessful. And burned out mentors.

So we know this:
-Low-performing teams will probably remain low-performing and still come away thinking the top 2/3s of teams are cheating/adult-built/insane.
-Mid-tier teams will probably kill their mentors and students chasing their dreams of being elite for 4 months instead of 6 weeks.
-Elite teams will either kill their mentors and students, or will have the luxury of working a bit less intensely thanks to excellent ingenuity or sponsor support.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Those assumptions just aren't true. There don't have to be teams that have a zero and N record. Also the winless record isn't really the problem it's the perception that they spent a large part of their lives on something that wasn't even able to play the game at all because they were fixing frame perimeter issues or were overweight or they just didn't know what they were doing. I know of a very good team that winless recently because of problems and a very rough schedule. They are still very proud of their accomplishments because they were still playing the same game as everyone else. The problem is with the teams that don't get it and aren't playing the same game.

I'm pretty sure there is a limit to how much adding more time does for the already good teams. For example if you gave teams 6 years to build an FRC robot I don't think they would be that much better than many of the robots we saw this year.

The option of spending a huge amount of time trying to win is already there. I probably spent more time in my shop than nearly anyone in FRC (about 11 hours a day for almost all of build season and a large part of competition season, however very little of my time was spent working on the robot). How does giving mid-tier teams less work (not having to build a practice bot) make their jobs harder?

Assuming that low performing teams will remain low performing is just awful. Most of those teams just don't know better and giving more time for veterans to help them will open their eyes to what they are capable of.

Also, what qualifies a team as Einstein level? I think this year out of all them shows just what can be done by raising the level of competition. How many of the Einstein teams this year were traditional powerhouses? (I think only 2 had won it all before and for most of them it was their first trip.) Powerhouse teams didn't get that way by some sort of magic or right, they worked hard just like all the teams that were on Einstein this year. What I'm trying to say is that a pretty decent robot has a shot at winning against Einstein calabar robots, the gap isn't that big. However the gap from really bad to descent is pretty large and very noticeable to people watching our events.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I'm surprised fewer people haven't touched on these ideas.

First, having a milestone during an extended build season would not only give teams more time to identify and address issues, but also prepare students for the real world where, as I understand it, milestones in design projects are the norm. I recognize that most logical milestones, such as a preliminary inspection, would be hard to implement. However, if one was developed, I feel that it could be very beneficial.

Second, using rules tests as a barrier to entry isn't anything new in student design competitions. I joined a Formula SAE team this year (Go GFR, btw), where rules tests are part of the process of applying to competitions. I feel that this would be easier to implement, though there would need to be penalties in place for late completion/failing to complete the test. However, the penalties also couldn't prevent teams from competing. A rules test could even serve as the milestone described above.

Just some thoughts I had.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

How about penalizing teams who have not passed or taken the rules test by forcing them to put their robot into a bag after 6 week while everyone else can keep working on their robot?:D


This tread is a little too serious. Well a more piratical solution we used this year was: we talked to an inspector who mentors a neighboring team. he pointed out our shooter needed a shield. Saved us some time on thursday.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

This is where I disagree. If someone came to me at work and said, "We have a project for you, and you have two options of how you want to do it. You can do it in 6 weeks, or you can do it in 12 weeks." What would I choose? Let's see, the first option would cause me to work nights and weekends and alienate my family, and the 2nd option would allow me to go home at night and have my weekends off. It seems like the 12 week option would lead to a lot fewer issues with the personal life.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Much of this thread focusses on the smaller part of the issue:

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Too easy, Jim. We just need a few (dozen) more District-model areas!


BTW, on the rules test and penalties: I suggest that if implemented, a team that averages above X% by a certain date gets to keep working on their competition robot. A team that averages below Y% (which is some reasonable amount below X%) must stay in the bag for an additional Z time, potentially up until their event. Teams in between X and Y must bag their robot, but if they reach X% within N attempts following bag day they may unbag immediately. Of course, the implementation of said test is a bit of a challenge, as is the enforcement of penalties.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I disagree with your measure of inspiration here. There will always be differences in how others are inspired, but normalizing it to the level of robot competitiveness is not a model I would agree with.

The following representation is, in my opinion, how I think it might play out, going by your metrics:
This team is uninspired. Even if they reach the level of their peers, they still have a barely-working robots, and I don't think anyone is inspired here. (not that anyone here would argue for less time)
(If this is what we consider where we currently are…) This team is inspired to work hard to keep improving their robot, trying to get their robot to a fully functional level to compete against their peers.
Or the never-ending build... This team has worked all season learning and improving from their peers in parallel with competing with them. This team sees how to improve, and now has the time now to do that. They are inspired to try and reach a higher level because they are now within reach of it.

I think teams are far more inspired by being able to accomplish building robots fully capable of competing and playing the game, than just simply being inspired by how well they did. The latter might set a very bleak picture of FRC. If we were to assume inspiration based on success, then I think improvement in FRC would be very staggnant, and we would be lacking many up-and-coming teams. Fundamentally, teams, and individuals, drive to improve would be lost.

Why do some of us here think that 6 weeks, a somewhat arbitrarily set time, is the perfect length for build season? I think the 6 weeks is the reason for much burnout, not a limit being set to prevent more.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Agreed. I think they really could pull off a rules test without much trouble, actually. Just throw the ref & inspector tests (or lite versions) onto STIMS and TIMS, and require say 70% of those registered to pass before the team has access to their PDV voucher codes. All electronic, totally enforceable. Even if teams go open book or take group tests, they'll still absorbing the information better than some do now.


Err...I think I've forgotten how this sub-topic connects to the thread title. Put me down for what Jim and Chris said.


I also agree with Taylor's paths of inspiration. We've never been 0-N exactly, but we went 2-9 at Pittsburgh 2007, with similar results elsewhere 07-08. We moved-ish mostly, in a direction or two. The most inspiring years of our team's history. I can trace it directly to our swerve drive, and in fact to every banner we've ever achieved. I just wish we'd had the opportunity to iterate more back then and receive more team mentorship to get better faster. The team is 9 years old and our first winning season was 2011. (thanks MOE!) We're now happy to be a mid-level team eagerly--but manageably--chasing the elites for 4 solid months of the year.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Perhaps I may be a little biased being where we're from.
Since participating in FIRST in the 2000 season, and from personal observations, I think the #1 reason new/fairly new teams quit is because of money.
Many grants and/or regionals have startup funds to get teams going. After that, the real struggle begins on addressing sustainability, as opposed to mentor retention and being "not-inspired" as the primary reasons.

I personally like the 6 week build season. It teaches a lot of life lessons and skills for everyone on the team.
However, I am not opposed to eliminating Bag/Tag and allowing for continuous improvement throughout the season. Less time and less resources building a practice bot.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I see a lot of posters tossing around the word 'inspiration' as if it blusters an argument. The assumption of "something that could add inspiration being inherently good for FIRST" is not a healthy one. Remember what inspires students more than any other part of the FIRST program: Mentors/teachers/coaches/parents/people. I really don't care if additional time to the build season inspires these kids - I want to know if this additional time actually solves the problem of mentor burnout so our mentors can continue to be the main source of leadership, innovation and inspiration for students.

And I think the answer is pretty basic: We don't know. As some of the mentors have already posted, if the build season does become extended they will feel hurt even more to keep up with the added time demands. On the other hand, other mentors say the additional time will increase their flexibility. So ultimately we won't know the true effect on ourselves and our teams if the build period is extended.

I think the worst part about this issue is that changing it will anger a lot of people but not changing it keeps a lot of people angry. The true answer is for FIRST to choose in what direction the program wants to take. If FIRST doesn't want to alter the system then that's fine with me. If FIRST does change I may not like it but I'll still do everything I can for my team and the problem because I believe in the program.

Otherwise I really have no answers to solve the problem of mentor burnout - except one: Is FIRST really the program for you?

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Glenn, I completely agree. FIRST has a 20 year old pricing structure on a league that has grown about 100x its original size in this period. One of the things that I see is that teams join FIRST to build robots, but after a few years, a noticeable amount of their effort shifts toward raising money. Many mentors (including me) really don't enjoy this type of thing, and it takes away from the core expereince. This is a big factor in sustainablity.

FRC is too expensive, I think most of us agree. Comparted to a mainstream sport, the enrollment fees are many times higher. This is not something that we have been able to change (yet).

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Yes and no.

2815's long been a two-events-and-go-from-there team. Right now, that means six hotel nights (check in Wednesday night, check out Saturday), four days with a bus, and $9,000 in registration. We will write grants until our hands wear out, sweat and freeze selling programs at USC football games, cohost SCRIW (I don't walk the next day), and so on and so forth to be able to pull that off.

Okay, so being able to watch the game after we wrap up sales is kinda fun...and we wouldn't put on SCRIW if we didn't think it was worth it...but you get the idea. It's hard!

Were we in Michigan, we're down to two hotel nights (if that), four bus days (if that), and $5,000 in registration.

If our area had the team population (and density) to pull districts off, I'd be jumping on that train quickly!

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

But why is registration still $5000?
Read the FIRST annual report and try to answer this.
To hesitantly quote Mark Leon...."Do the math".
Try find another high school sport with a league enrollment fee this high. I cannot.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Our school's field and track (used for all of our sports) cost 6 million to repair three years ago. While not an enrollment fee, I'd call it somewhat of an "upkeep" to continue playing effectively similar to what we have to pay to keep our team registered.

I do at least feel the costs are too high, and would like to see a pie chart to what use and where our fees (all of our fees) are put to. *wink wink* Frank *wink wink*

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Jim,
I am totally with you on this.
Reg pricing needs to be scaled down with the growth of FIRST. Its the responsible thing to do if the intent is to grow the no. of teams and sustain those that are currently participating. And of course, the district model is a step in the right direction.
The whole mentor burnout and build season are already tough enough to tackle as it is. And as I've read your previous posts, just because districts are cheaper, doesnt mean the work to put them on are less by any means.
Kudos to you all!

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I agree that the costs are much too high/event.
However, I dont think that its appropriate for Frank to do what you're suggesting.
Instead, we can all make suggestions via the official feedback form, and FIRST can decide in the future how they make those "crucial" decisions that affect everyone, including the organization themselves.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Here is the real crime at MAR. First pays for nothing 0 zip nada. Its all covered by the reagional sponsers. Now I have no issue with paying for game design but its total crap that we have to pay for MAR champs another 4000 and first takes it all.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

How is that any different than every regional your team (or any other team) has ever attended (assuming that said regionals were raising enough money that they were not being propped up by FIRST)? Not saying it's right of FIRST to be structured this way, but this is hardly a new outrage.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I think the issue is that it's literally impossible for MAR and FiM teams to qualify for Worlds based on initial registration. This can be very hard on some teams, though Region Champs provides a very good and inspiring season goal for others.

Of course, it works both ways: we get 2 events--almost triple the matches--for the price of one, is it really reasonable to get 3 including a "big show"? Personally, I think everyone's "price of one" should go way down, but it is a pro/con of districts.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I like how you summarized the sentiment on this subject. I can't help but draw a parallel to when Michigan proposed the district model and piloted it. There were a lot of oppositions, both inside and outside of Michigan. I don't need to repeat what people had said. I am sure there are still people who think the district model is a bad idea and they oppose it, but a majority of people finally saw the benefits of it and especially after Jim Zondag explained the thinking behind every change.

Change is always hard for some people when they don't know if it will benefit them. By allowing teams the option to access their robot any time if they want to, I don't see how it can hurt any team that does not build a practice robot. The only thing I can think of is for teams that do not build a practice robot thinks it will benefit teams that build a practice robot more than it benefits them. Because it will give these teams more time to concentrate on improving their robot rather than building and wiring another robot and raising more money to pay for it.

For my team, we plan everything to death. Right now in our build schedule, I see days to assemble the practice robot and to wire it. Based on our resources for each year, we decide what kind of robot to design and build so we can finish on time. Then we schedule enough work sessions to finish what we planned to do. We do not meet 7 days a week. In our first two years, we only met 4 days/17 hours a week. In the last few years, we increased it to 5 days/20 hours a week. My goal is to create a sustainable program, hence mentor/student burnout is part of my consideration when I decide on the meeting schedule.

How will it affect us if we have unlimited access to the robot? The first thing I will do is to reduce the number of meetings back down to 4 days 17 hours a week because we can accomplish the same tasks in 6 and a 1/2 weeks. It takes us about 20 hours to build a second robot. That will allow me to take out 3 hours of meeting time each week. On top of that, I will be a lot less stressed out when the two robots behave differently due to quality of build by students and some mentors.

I can handle 4 days a week. 5 days is a stretch for me. Not building a second robot is not an option for me being in Michigan and trying to field a somewhat competitive robot and have a sustainable program. My goal is not to have the most competitive robot and stress everybody out by doing so. I know it is not all about the robot but I also know students joined the robotics team to compete in robotics.

If teams do not want to build a second robot with the current rules, that is their choice. How many hours they meet is their choice. By removing the artificial stop build date, it does not change what teams have to do. It is still their choice. Removing the barrier to access the robot will make my life easier and a better experience for my students.

If you are wondering why it will be a better experience for my students, I will elaborate. Very few of them comes 5 days a week during build season. When students cannot attend all work sessions, they get lost. Things move so fast during build season that it is hard to keep up with the design and decisions if you miss too many meetings. Some students would loose interest and feel disconnected. If I can reduce the number of meetings to 4, a bigger percentage of students will be able to attend most meetings. Our team will be more cohesive. Everybody will be on the same page. We do have weekly team meetings where each subgroup will report on their work but it is not the same.

So for those of you who oppose this possible change, were you opposed to the district model before also? Would you be willing to give it a chance?

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Mentor burnout is a big problem. Making the build season longer will enhance the problem. I may be wrong about what I am about to say but I doubt it. The longer we make the season, the longer people will take to do exactly what they do now. Procrastination is the biggest issue I see with so many people. How many students do you know that are given 6 weeks to do an essay or project and they don't start until the last minute. As an inspector I can see how much thought and time has been put into most robots. A few minutes talking to mentors, students and parents will usually confirm my suspicions.

The idea of pre inspections is a great one to help fix problems before events. It also helps to find teams that are in trouble and hopefully time to find a remedy. Problem is will teams allow inspectors (usually from another team) to see their robot. I have volunteered, visited, helped and inspected before seasons end teams that have requested and it has proved to be a benefit.

Quick build for rookies could also be quick build for any team. This year we had one in our area. I believe that there was 17 teams that came and over half had a moving robot when they left. That was Saturday right after kickoff. Those teams all had a big head start and what I saw at events were improved teams. I believe that after our success that there will be a quick build in Montreal next season.

There are many ways to improve the process but I firmly believe that extending the build season is not one of them. Having a due date is both sensible, realistic and meets the demands that we see in the "real world" .

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I don't know that we should derail this conversation with something that is controlled by FIRST's very opaque board rather than any individual.

Though I do agree insofar as after almost totally draining funds for the 2nd time in our history, building them back up to what's required for a season is a daunting task at first.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I don't think I'm advocating removing the competition events. As long a everyone is attending a competition, a "due date" still exists.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

If we don't start until the last minute, how is a longer build season increasing burnout?

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I think we're mixing different issues here. My take on the mentor burnout issue was that some teams are doing more work than they should be in the time available and that leads to burnout. The proposed solution is to give them more time, they'll keep the amount of work the same, hours per unit time goes down, and burnout reduces. Some say they would stop building a practice bot which reduces the total work. Other say they would still build a practice bot to reduce wear and tear on the competition bot.

Overall, I'm not convinced it will have significant effect on burnout. The burnout is driven more by a desire to be competitive than by the task at hand. There will always be ways to push yourself harder to be competitive.

The other issue is how to best help consistently under performing teams. The "give them more time" argument fits nicely in this thread. However, as some have pointed out, it isn't necessarily that easy. In general we don't know what drives these teams. If they are in a place they are happy with, feel they are inspiring their students, they may not need help. Others may need help but don't know how to get it. Time may or may not be an issue.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

The same way I write an essay. Have Word open for 3 weeks and type in about 5 words an hour while browsing CD, so I feel like I'm working when I'm not, then doing it all in one weekend.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

And yet, many people here are saying that the extra time spent in an extended build season is used "by choice". Clearly, the level of competition demands that you build a 2nd robot. How is that different than the level of competition demands using the time in an extended build season?

Since this thread has turned to money, think of it this way: What if teams were asking to be able to spend over the limit on individual components? Or how about the total cost for the robot? (While some teams would find it difficult to do this, others might not.) If teams could gain a competitive advantage by spending $10,000 on a robot, but said "those of you who don't have that much money don't have to spend that amount" I think the discussion might be a bit different. Why is there a cost limit? A motor limit? A battery limit?

Now, I recognize that FRC isn't fair. That's not the way the world works, but there are limits placed on competition (weight classes, salary caps, NCAA limits on practice time, etc.). We have our own in FRC - often for a good reason.

With regards to Jim's low OPR argument, I completely agree. We should be focusing on the teams that need support and help. Clearly, the issue isn't that 6 weeks is too short - the teams we're talking about (and we've all seen them) are the teams that are missing fundamental structure, and that comes down to two major elements - the most important being mentoring, followed by money.

On the tangent discussion regarding overall cost, I agree with Jim - sometimes it seems that FIRST's math doesn't quite make sense.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

A bunch of things gnaw at me. Here's a big one:

Competitive teams will be "forced" to spend more time than they already do if we had an open build season.

If that's true, then those same teams are already "forced" to build a practice robot and continue working on their 30 lbs of parts. It changes nothing.

I am pretty frustrated that when people are confronted with the concept of more flexibility, they twist it into the fatal certainty that they will be "forced" to work to the point of exhaustion.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Which is why you see nearly all the "pro-6-week" posts including "remove the withholding allowance". Because you're correct: we already ARE forced to work for 4 months straight to stay competitive. I for one would like to be able to be competitive WITHOUT having to work for 4 months straight. This year, other commitments forced me to not be able to work past mid-february. I felt like I was abandoning my team, even though I had been there most weekday meetings throughout build season.

2012 was the same way: we met at nearly the same tempo between mid-february and mid-march, because the shooter needed tuning/lightening and the aiming code needed changing.

2011 was the same way, but even more intense because we qualified for championships and were doing a "big year": mid-feb to mid-april was minibot revisions, claw revisions, gearbox revisions, code revisions, vision system revisions.

In each year, the revisions that we did between "end of build" and competitions made pretty enormous upgrades in our robot's capabilities and kept us competitive. If we hadn't, we would have done much worse.

The people saying "make it 4 months officially, it'll make it easier" are ignoring a truth: it already is 4 months. It has already burned me (and I'm sure, others) right out. Allowing MORE access to the robot would make it even worse. We have seen the 4 month build beast, and it is awful.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Here's another one that bothers me: we shouldn't lengthen the build season, because teams just waste the first part of it anyway, in spite of working hard during that period of time.

Here's what is in question:
1) Would the longer season result in worse burnout?
2) If so, is improved robot performance worth the cost?

Here's what is not in question:
1) Would a longer season result in better robot performance?

You can argue that some teams will insist on shooting themselves in the foot no matter what by wasting time or following bad processes or designing beyond their means, but why on earth would that sort of pessimism be the basis for the FRC rules? If you think the longer season wouldn't improve robots due to complacency when the deadline isn't close enough, then FRC might as well shorten the season. Or teams can simply take the first two weeks of the season off and find out if it makes any difference.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Removing the 30 lb allowance isn't enough. You'd also need to ban practice robots.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Very good point. Unfortunately some people are arguing against a change because they "think" others will do this or do that, that they have no control over themselves and they will work themselves to death.

I told you what I will do with my team if we have unlimited access. Tell me what you will do with your team, not what you think other teams you don't know anything about may do. Otherwise this discussion here is meaningless.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Which is why all my posts have said "make it so the operator control software doesn't work between mid-feb and the 1st week of competition"

Even better alternate: make it so the cRio firmware won't run between mid-feb and at competition. Have a "competition dongle" or something that must be installed at competition to make it work. Permit cRios to work after the championship date. People could use past year's firmware all the time (so past robots would be available for demos and whatnot), but if they flash to whatever the latest firmware is, it'd be restricted to the current season's dates. This could also be used to enforce fix-it windows.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Althought I disagree, I have to give you credit for having an argument that's internally consistent.

You'd probably be better off banning practice robots if you want to keep people from working after bag day. Your solution doesn't prevent people from working in March, for example.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Banning practice robots isn't a consistent part of my argument, certainly. If there was no withholding allowance, a practice robot would allow you to do just that -- but there'd be no need to meet at the grueling build season schedule... You could scale back a LOT and still be competitive.

So I think people are, in essence, correct: it's already a four month schedule, and addressing burnout would include eliminating the withholding allowance. Otherwise, when we got knocked out at Buckeye this year, I wouldn't have simultaneously thought, "Awwww" and "Thank God".

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

This would have two effects. First, it would put an end to the current allowance in the manual that lets teams develop software at any time. Not allowing them to run it on the C-Rio pretty much stops them from being able to test it and work on it in general. Let's face it, software often gets pushed to the very end of build season (and beyond). Maybe the goal is to make everything fit into 6 weeks, and if it doesn't "too bad," but I for one don't think it's a bad idea to let programmers tinker with the code before competition, build season or not.

Second, this wouldn't do anything to stop practice robots. If this restriction were in place, I would advocate very heavily on my team for them to create a practice robot, and run it with either an old C-Rio or a Arduino or something. Practice robots aren't just for practicing, they're mechanical systems development tools too. And it would create a massive "they're cheating because they're using a practice robot!" uproar when top teams do just that to stay competitive.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I think this could be a better thread if people acknowledged certain self-evident truths. I'll start by agreeing to a few:

1) Mentors (and other people involved in FRC) do get burned out and it is a problem for the long term sustainability of FRC.

2) If the build season went into March and April, it would have affect other things people want to do during those months (more than it does currently).

3) In an open build season, some teams would work very hard the entire time.

4) Most teams would probably put in a higher number of total hours if the build season was longer.

5) As a result of a longer build season, some individuals would end up putting in enough additional time to cause issues in their lives.

Here are the ones I'd like other people to acknowledge:

6) Teams get to choose how they want to run themselves, including setting their own schedules.

7) It's possible to meet fewer times per week over a larger number of weeks and get the same amount of work done.

8) It's a problem that so many teams' robots can't play the game, or can barely play the game. More time to work on the robot would help many (though not all) teams overcome this problem.

9) An open build season would reduce some team expenses for some teams, including expedited shipping and practice robots.

10) Many teams already work very hard after the bag deadline.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Easy:
1) If you're using an arduino, you're already restricting yourself so heavily that you probably won't learn much, so I don't care. You certainly wouldn't be able to run/test PIDs, vision, or other really complex systems.
2) If you're using an old cRio, WPILib could be modified slightly each year so that it becomes very difficult to update and maintain your code between the "2013 code on 2012 crio" and "2013 code on 2013 crio" versions.

Also, all you'd get out of it would be practice (on a non-representative robot controller like an arduino or using an old version of WPILib). Since there'd be no withholding allowance in this hypothetical world, you wouldn't be able to tune or upgrade anything unless you planned on manufacturing that upgraded part in the pits at your competition.

It would obviously still be possible to make a practice robot (FIRST can't ban the building of robotic devices), but if rulechanges were in place to make it very difficult and make the payoff uncertain, fewer teams would do it, which in turn would mean fewer teams would feel the need to build one to keep up with the Joneses.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I should also mention that the firmware-modification solution would be an extremely hard-line approach. I'd be fine with just getting rid of the withholding allowance. Eliminating the withholding allowance gets rid of a large amount of the gains you see from a practice robot anyway (since you wouldn't be able to bring in the revised components you made).

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I've read the entire thread, and I favor open build season. But I'm also sympathetic to the problem of mentor burnout. Here's my proposal:

1) Extend the bag deadline closer to the start of Week 1 events. I suggest Saturday at midnight local time. Now that few teams ship robots to Week 1 events, I don't see a good reason to keep the robot in a bag for those few days.

2) Allow every team a bit of robot access during each week of the competition season; perhaps 4 hours. (Not my idea - but I agree with it) The goal would be to allow some robot work without providing an incentive for teams to be in their shops 24/7.

One could also shrink the fabricated parts allowance, but that becomes less consequential if you have robot access time each week.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I guess my question is this:
How much time does your team need before they are completely happy with their robot and would change nothing else?

The point that I'm trying to make is that with the open build season many people are currently suggesting there is still a finite amount of time and that time is not long enough to make a perfect* robot. As such we will likely continue to work as hard as we do now for as long as the season will allow trying to be our best.

If the season was year round I believe that we would comfortably be able to make the best robot possible for our team without the intensity of the current season.

The point being, if you provide enough time for teams to build such that every second isn't valuable then all teams can afford to take long, sustained breaks from FRC without affecting their performance on the field and the program isn't all-consuming for students and mentors.

Thoughts on this?
, Bryan


*as good as your team can be

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I like this idea.

3847s Current Build Schedule
- 48 days straight (we meet three days before kickoff as well). This is mostly because we like spending time together. We could spend a lot less time and still build the same robot.
- Pretty much 7 days a week during competition season as well unless I'm away at a competition where the team isn't competing.
- 2 weeks are spent prototyping
- the goal is to have the practice robot done by the end of week 4 and then the real robot by about week 5 and half.
- 2 Kitbot Build Days 2nd and 4th Sundays of build season
- 1 Bumper Build (super bowl Sunday morning)
- 1 weekend scrimmage (only a 1/4 field but it still helps)
- a huge amount of time is spent trying to make the practice robot the same as the competition robot and it rarely ever gets that way.

No Bag Day Schedule
- We wouldn't meet the first few Sundays and the initial meeting hours wouldn't be till 10pm or 11pm like they currently are.
- I would be able to go to another team one day each week and help them. I try to do this anyway but it's a lot harder with our normal schedule.
- Without the need to build a practice robot those resources can be diverted to other places. We only need to make two or three of everything instead of 4 or 5 like we currently do. Meaning we would could help other teams machine parts with our sponsor resources since we are using less.
- We would have our practice field open to teams every weekend except for those when we are at competition. We already meet with some teams during competition season but it's only the teams with practice robots.
- One of these practice days would also be a pre-inspection event for local teams. How to enforce this is something I have been thinking about for a while. I think by working with regional directors and organizations that provide funding to teams to put these events in as grant requirements could provide a big incentive to teams.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I think the best argument against extending the season is this:

If it were extended, there are two options each team must choose.

1. Meet as often as possible/keep their regular build schedule that they used in the 6 week season but extend it for however many weeks possible. This would give that team the maximum competetive advantage and you can be sure that teams like 469 and 1114 will use this option.
2. Meet less frequently to avoid burnout. I spoke with our teacher advisor and asked him what he would do if the build season were extended. His response was "we'd meet three days less a week" (we currently meet 6 days a week). His logic was that we would need to help students, mentors and himself avoid burnout and lowering grades, and it is completely valid logic.

So in the end, if you're a team worried about mentor or student burnout maybe your team [or portions of your team - like your school administration] aren't quite as invested in the competitive aspect of FRC, you'll end up meeting less frequently or be forced back into a 6 week season.

We are currently forced into a 6 week hard limited build season with maybe 1 or 2 build nights after bag. We have to meet off site if we want to meet more frequently. Again, this is because our sponsoring teacher isn't terribly invested in the competitive aspect of the season. He knows that we can make an eliminations worthy robot with our current build schedule and does not see a huge increase in the impact of the program on students when the team wins or when they don't. So we are simply unable to meet as often as some of the students and mentors would like after bag.

Maybe this is an isolated case but I suspect it effects some other teams as well. It may not be their teachers but it could be their head mentor, their schools, their administration, their sponsor, their funding, the willingness of their students, their students parents, etc... that stops a team from meeting as much as their most dedicated members (who might be any of the aforementioned groups capable of blocking meetings!) may wish, and it is out of the control of those members.

I don't think we want to be increasing the gap between the elite teams and 'the pack'.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

174's Current build schedule:

We have split the team between "crews", and each crew meets at different days throughout the week. The days we have for work is Tuesday, Thursday and Friday after-school, 2:30pm till 8pm or later depending on the need. Saturday work sessions are from 9am till 4pm or later depending. We meet all of these days throughout the entire build season. We also have a group of students and mentors who work of site. These students/mentors work very long nights, typically around 11pm, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and other days the extra work is needed.

How we would deal with open build:

Rinse and repeat, only skipping a few days before our competition weeks. While we could deal with the additional school work hours, the off-site team (which is the biggest core of our build students and mentors) will be beyond burnt out.

We have already had a team discussion about mentor burn out before this thread was started, and I can say that I am very scared for our mentor sustainability if additional build time was given. That said, we can adapt - there are problems with our system as it is and working to fix it.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

1124's current build schedule:

We meet Monday-Thursday 6:30-9, Saturday 8-5, Sunday 12-5
This schedule runs from kickoff until we're done competing. The only changes happen when our school is on break (when we meet more often and for longer) and the Wed-Thurs after bag/ship day (which we take off to recover). Team members show up as they're needed and are pretty much free to make their own schedules and can choose their own time commitment; most members are there 3-4 days a week, but can be there more or less at their own discretion.

If we had an open build season, what would change? Probably nothing, or very little. We're already at the ceiling of the required commitment, and our existing schedule already burns us out (you should have seen me after CTR this year - I was an exhausted mess, but I digress). If anything, our stress levels would drop significantly. Not having to build a second robot would reduce budgetary and emotional strain. We'd get more practice time with the actual robot.

Now, I don't know if an open build holds all the answers, but I see some problems it would reduce (however, not being a mentor, I can't speak to all the unintended side effects that might arise, nor how it would affect mentors specifically). But with strict regard to 1124's meeting schedule, I think not much would change from the way it is now.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Well, apparently not everyone is "burned out"...

A) You're still surfing Chief Delphi

B) 90+ teams have signed up for IRI

While the title of the thread is relating the six week build period to mentor burnout, I think Jim's posts have really helped me refocus my opinions on the six week build period to consider the teams with lower performing machines... many of whom are not on CD.

I'll go so far as to say that whether the build period is six weeks, or 52 weeks, some teams will continue to put in more time than others, and some mentors will continue to feel "burned out".

But if we look at how altering the six week build period might give higher performing teams more time to mentor and assist lower performing teams, and focus on making everyone better... well, the best antidote to burnout is success!

Jason

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I have one question for EVERYBODY who is advocating an open build season. And I do mean EVERYBODY. Let's see who can answer it before they get to the answer.

Let's assume for a minute, that an FRC build season allows everyone an equal time to build their robot (give or take a few hours due to time zones, etc), as it is set up now. I think we can agree on that--setting aside the practice robots, which of course any team can build in the time between bag and ship, or build during build and play with in that timeframe. Now, let's extend the build season--no bagging, no tagging, just show up with your robot. You are in a Week 2 event--your first. You are competing against a team from Alaska, a team from Hawaii, and 2-3 teams from Mexico, and the event is in Arizona. Which of those teams is at a DISADVANTAGE in terms of time in an open build season, given that nobody bothers to build a practice robot when they have their competition robot in their ship to work on?




I would bet you even money that the team from Alaska and the team from Hawaii had to crate their robots and ship them before the Week 1 events just to make sure that they arrived at their destination on time. The Mexico teams would not need to ship, presumably (though they might choose to if the distance was far enough), so they have no disadvantage over travel time.

In other words, I think the real purpose of the bag deadline is to help the international/long-distance traveling teams, of which there are quite a few, have even time with the rest of us. Remember, they have to ship their robots. Most teams don't. Compete in HI or Israel instead of building a practice robot, and I think you'll agree that maybe it would be a good idea to have everybody at the event bag up their robot at about the same time.



So, here is a proposal: Extend the build deadline ONLY to the date that teams who ship their robots to Week 1, or whatever the first week someone will need to ship to an event is, will need to have their robots in the crate. FIRST presumably knows, or can be informed, of that sort of date, give or take a day in either direction. Now, I'd say that MI, MAR, and Israel would be exempt, except that MI and MAR would then proceed to kick the rest of our butts even worse than before (sorry, guys, I like the district concept, but could you ease off on the rest of us until we get our own? :p ), and I'd rather not have only one area exempt.


Speaking of which, someone asked about how those opposed to this change stood on the district model. I was not opposed to the district model, per se. I was opposed to certain elements, namely the secrecy and the fact that other areas who had wanted to do something like this for a while were not allowed to do something similar (now the former is a moot point and the latter is more of a "they're going that way, but foot-dragging is popular").

However, the removal of a bag day is something that I don't see happening. Not yet. Extended build time, or an access period, sure. Complete removal? Give it a couple of years after the extension and access period type of changes to see how that goes over--just like the districts took some time to get rolling, and now there are 2, with rumors of anywhere between 1 and 5 more being explored for 1-3 years down the road.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Isn't that when our stop build day already is? :D

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

When it was, you mean? Or did you get the memo that you don't have to put the robot in the crate and ship it to week 1 anymore? :p :rolleyes:

Actually, I don't quite think so. You could probably sneak a couple more days in for a close event. That's part of why I'm suggesting that bag day be whenever the first team that needs to ship to an event has to be in the crate to make it there. Whether that's Week 1, or Week 6/7! Imagine what havoc a variable-between-years bag date could cause!

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Lets ask 359 how many days ahead they have to ship their robot for a competition in the states. I bet if you figure out when they would have to ship their robot for a week 1 competition, it would be the day or two after stop build day. Almost as if FIRST did that on purpose. :D

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I'm sorry I have to admit that I haven't read this entire thread, so maybe I've missed this part of the discussion. But it seems to me that one of the biggest "field-unequalizers" is the extra time that teams have to work on their competition bot, when they attend multiple competitions. Some of the teams we compete against have the resources to attend two or three regionals; we can't raise the $30,000 or so (maybe more) extra it would cost to attend an additional regional (we have to fly everywhere).

Now don't just say we should get out there and raise more money. We are in a small, poor rural community and are doing our best to try to expand our fundraising using the internet and other innovative ideas.

Even setting aside the extra robot driving time, competition practice, and the learning and motivating experiences of competitions, a team that can attend 2 or 3 regionals gets many extra days to work on their robot. By the time they get to their 3rd regional or Champs, they may have had the equivalent of an extra week or more of build/improve time. By being able to afford the extra entry fees and travel costs, they are "buying" more time with their competition bot unbagged.

Is this fair? Is there any way to mitigate it? Could teams that are attending only one competition get an extra "unbagged" day at their (only) competition, kind of like the extra hours given for the 2-day events? Has anyone suggested that?

For that matter, as we go to more districts, we may want to look at giving some advantage to teams that can't compete in more than one pre-champs event, to compensate for all the benefits of multiple competitions. More building time, more practice time, or something.

Oh, and for the record, I think that limiting the build time MORE than it is currently (e.g., leaving the 6-week build, removing the withholding allowance or cutting off firmware operability after SBD) would just result in even MORE inoperable robots, disheartened participants and other icky stuff. Bad idea (IMHO).

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I think it's fair as it is. I know what you mean, I would have liked an extra day back when we chose to only play one event. But that was a week 1 event, so it gives an uneven advantage against everyone else at their week 1 event too.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

As things have moved in the direction of "what would *your* team do", I'd like to state for the record the school rules require that any time any part of the team meets, the coach (that would be me) is required to be there... So it doesn't matter if it's the programming team only and I know nothing about programming, or if other students and mentors want to work with their groups in shifts, or a group wants to get together and make buttons when I'd rather be writing or reading or resting or doing yard work; if they're there, I have to be there. Every. Single. Minute. First in the door, last to leave.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I look at the blessing of the withholding allowance (without which our robot would not have done nearly as well as it did this year) with a certain amount of seething, maniacal hatred, whereas others see it as nothing more than increased opportunity...

------------------

So, that's a side note. What I meant to post was this:

What this discussion comes down to is, "what is the purpose of extending the build season?" And follow-up questions should be, "are there other ways to fulfill those purposes?" Pros and cons, priority charts, etc, etc could be made, storms could be brained, data could be collected, and multiple solutions to perceived problems could be presented.

I'm not naive enough to presume that any group of this size will come to full agreement, but if we all got to thinking about what the perceived problems are, and what the possible solutions to those problems are, then we wouldn't be going round and round about extending build -- because I don't think we're even to the point where many agree on what the build extension is meant to accomplish, much less the negative side effects such as mentor burnout.

For example, when it comes to those teams that build nothing of use, I think there are a lot of things that can be done to help them become better... The bot in a box, where teams leave kickoff with a functioning drive train, is a fantastic resource, and any kickoff areas that are not currently doing this should absolutely be doing so, starting next year. If you start with a drive train wired up with a control system on day one, that gives you six full weeks to make some kind of useful manipulator... and if that's not enough time, then I don't see how eight or ten or twelve weeks will be, because whatever your problems are, they're much bigger and more critical than time. And thus, extending the build season is not a viable solution to this problem--and that means that arguments about do-nothing robots aren't good arguments for extending the build season.

On the other hand, when it comes to elite teams spending unnecessary money on practice robots and expedited shipping, I think extending the build season is a much more viable solution to these problems -- and indeed, I don't see any other way to make practice robots and expedited shipping unnecessary (though I'm opposed to doing it anyway).

...but if we can't agree on what the intended pros are, we aren't even at the place where we can discuss whether the cons are worth it.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I'll add one more personal tidbit about why we should not extend the build season, and maybe that will help some of you understand why many of us are against it.

My profession is a full time high-school teacher, teaching 5 classes with about 150 students total. I also like to help with mentoring a Lego robotics team at a local elementary school one day per week for much of the school year. I am also a Tech Leader for the school district which has about 6-8 meetings per year. Along with the teaching job, I am often wearing the hat of computer technician, machine maintenance technician, machinist, welder, procurement specialist, high altitude balloon chaser, and now auto mechanic and detailer (all associated with the teacher job).

In the fall and in the spring, I am a professor at the local community college two nights a week. This conveniently falls just before and just after the FIRST build season (by a matter of a couple days). Post-bag (like the day after) and before and during competition season, I'm teaching in a second job two nights a week. I already turned down teaching another class at both the high school and at the college, because I want the time for FIRST.

As a college professor, I make about $52/hr. As a teacher, even with the additional college class, I already don't make enough to afford a house in the area I work. Doing FIRST Robotics, I make about $1 an hour (stipend), but I do it because I want to, not for the money. I've already turned down a 20% pay increase at the high school (to do another class there) and $52/hr for about 4 hours a week to do another class at the college. So, you could say my future ability to own my own home has been hampered by my commitment to FIRST Robotics. Participating in FIRST Robotics costs me money. Lots of it. Even if I flipped burgers for the time I spent doing FIRST Robotics, I'd be at least $5000/year more wealthy. I don't necessarily mind because I love doing it, but let's be realistic here. To extend the build season any more, I would no longer be able to teach the one college class I do, which would cost me about $3500/yr, not to mention the mental and physical toll it would take. I'd like to retire someday.

There's only so much one person can give. Everything I do, I like to do well. I never like to give a half-hearted effort at anything. If I do it, I'm all in. There's no cutting back time in any of it to balance it all. Not in my world. If I can't do something well, I don't do it at all. The problem becomes that there are only so many hours in each week, month, and year.

I wasn't going to mention this to avoid starting any rumors, but I feel it's relevant so I will. At the Inland Empire regional, Frank Merrick spent a while talking to my team in our pit, and one of the questions he asked was "What would you think of a longer build season?" to which I replied "No! Please don't! We want to see our families!" I hope he heard me. Of course my students were all for a longer build season. I guess that's why we have teachers like me to set them straight. :D

Anyhow, I bet my case is not all that unique.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I am a big fan of the extended build season because I am reasonably confident I will spend an equal amount and in all likelihood less time working on the robot. What's the more efficient way to study, a 10 hour cram session right before the exam or 5 2 hour sessions spread out over the week?

The people in favor of an extended season I've talked with about this outside of this thread feel exactly the same way. We want to see our friends and families. Spreading the build season out over more time will let us put in as many hours without disappearing from our social lives (or least let us go home and take a nap occasionally).

I think there are very few people that want an extended build season so that they can put in more time. With the witholding allowance, FIRST basically gives you a permit to go nuts working for the whole competition season as is.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

This post is likely the single most compelling anecdote in the entire thread. It would be hard for anyone to argue against it...


Kudos to Sanddrag for all his hard work!

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Participating in FIRST has forced me to stay at my part-time (second job) for almost 24 years and counting.:ahh:
**would've quit a long time ago**

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Is it possible that the 6 week build season is costing you money right now? If the college teaching job is 2 nights a week, then wouldn't going to an unregulated build season allow you more time during the week so you can teach those 2 nights instead of working on FIRST? That is why I'm arguring for extending the build season, so teams can go from meeting 6 days a week to a more managable 3 or 4 days per week.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

As a person who also teaches community college night classes (and is president of our local beekeeping association, and is on my local school board), I'm not sure how I can say NO NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO without people understanding it.

I am one of the busiest human beings I know. The moment build season ends, I'm doing other things with my nights. Community colleges will not adjust their semester schedule to accommodate additional weeks of FIRST. The school board will not reschedule meetings. The bee club will still meet the second Monday of every month; the officers the first.

Reducing FIRST to "only" 3-4 days a week, but extending the number of weeks, will create MORE conflicts which will cause MORE exhaustion and MORE burnout, not less. It will render us unable to put in the concentrated time necessary to do the other things we want to do well.

...And that's not even considering the "keeping up with the Joneses" work ethic that many of us middle-tier FIRST teams have--we want to become elite teams, and as I said before, I have a very hard time betting against the work ethic of the likes of Wildstang, Simbotics, Miss Daisy, and other such top-tier teams. I assume that most of them will not moderate their work schedule, but will instead squeeze every minute out that they can--and those that don't will probably stop being top-tier teams in a matter of years.

Burnout became a problem when FIRST added the withholding allowance. "To address problem A, we added X. It caused problem B. So let's not remove X and figure out better ways to address A, let's tinker with Z instead." Um, what?

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I travel for work. Often.

For the past five years I have been fortunate in that I've been able to avoid lengthy business travel during build season. As it is looking right now, I will be out of town for 3-4 weeks in January/February of 2014.

We have had a number of similar issues with mentors (and key students) over the years. Travel that falls during a build season. Hectic situations at work requiring lots of overtime. Illnesses and deaths in the family that require undivided attention. Weather calamities. School strikes. Emergency situations at sponsors that delay making key parts. Critical components on back order.

When you only have 6 weeks of full robot access, losing a week or more because of any of these unfortunate, but very common, real-life situations is disastrous.

If you have unlimited robot access, you can lessen the hit or re-plan around your constraints. You can also continue to utilize the "6 week grind" model, if that is what works for you and your team. Nobody is taking that away from you! And I wouldn't worry about the "arms race" escalating too much to the point that a 6 week robot can't be competitive. Even here, on a forum that over-represents the top tier of FRC teams, I don't see mentors for former World Champions salivating over the thought of being able to pour even more time into their robot than they do currently. In the case of Miss Daisy, we are at our limit as it is.

Arguments that basically amount to, "I can't/don't want to balance my life if build season is longer than six weeks, therefore nobody should be allowed to" just do not make sense to me.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Agreed here ... wholeheartedly.
If I ever step back into FRC it needs to somehow fit with my job/travel schedule, other robotics programs we run for younger kids, baseball coaching I do, and generally being able to support/be there for other activities that I'm not running or helping to run, but my kids participate in which currently include: hockey/skating classes, band, church youth, school talent shows and plays, on and on. This all is not to mention other "tugs" I get from folks who'd like me to be on the board of their organizations, run for school board, etc - All worthwhile causes.

I suppose there are two lenses to look through on this issue:
1. Looking at FRC as "the" place I volunteer my time
2. Looking at FRC as "one of the many places" I volunteer my time

It also matters how wide a team's mentor base is.
...and, if you set mentor burnout aside for a second - impact on the students. Eat up more of the year where a student is "obligated" in some way to the team, that's one more chunk of time they can't pursue other interests. Gotta be a balance somewhere and some teams do this better than others.

For me, if I were a single young professional without kids of my own and without other activities I'm passionate about and involved in, I think I'd be more supportive of a position like my friend Mr. Hibner puts forth.

With the place I'm at in my life now, however, an extended "build" in FRC is something that I'm really not in favor of.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

What Sanddrag and Patrick said.

One thing I've noticed about this thread - and this is a generalization - is most folks who are against extending the build season are on teams with <6 mentors, and most folks who are for extending the build season are on teams with >6 mentors.
We are spread exceedingly thin as it is. We don't just meet 6 days a week during build season - we also meet at least once a week the rest of the year (summer excluded) for training, outreach, other STEM initiatives, etc. While some mentors lay dormant for 46 weeks of the year, descending on their teams for those six weeks of build, we don't have that luxury. We are here, all the time, and we're barely getting by as it is.
Also, the 6-week aspect is a challenge I happen to very much enjoy. With the urgency created there, the team is able to truly learn prioritizing, scheduling, making tough decisions quickly but intelligently - all the real lessons learned in an abbreviated build schedule.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

I agree with you completely Rich. And I think that your point has implications for the stability of FRC as well. I can get away with spending as much time as I do at FRC (and not with my family or doing other things) largely because so much of that time is concentrated in January and February. If the build season were extended, I would have to be less involved. I am sure my co-leader would have to be less involved as well. But we are the two more or less "permanent fixtures" on the team, and this would have implications for our teams stability long term.

I know that 1712 has some excellent young professionals as mentors, as does 1014. But it takes a while for young mentors to be ready to lead a team and to be accepted by the students and other mentors as a team leader. And I think that in an extended build season you run even more risk than you currently have of mentors having to step away when they start to have families and more responsibilities, precisely at the time when they become the most capable as leaders.

I also think that extending the build season runs a real risk of scaring off teachers. For now at least, most FRC teams are based in our at least around schools. And starting a team often requires having someone at the school willing to take on a very daunting task. One way I have been able to sell the idea of starting an FRC team to teachers is by saying "It is a lot of work, but the majority of it is concentrated in the six weeks of the build season."

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

What are your thoughts on FIRST and parity?

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

This is an interesting finding since I would think that teams with more mentors would favor the 6 week schedule since with their human resource advantage they are more likely to build a more competitive robot in less time.

BTW, I woudn't put team 51 in the > 6 mentor category.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Jared,
There are very few people in FIRST I respect more than you, but I couldn't disagree more. I'm sure there are lots of other folks I really respect in FIRST who I disagree with on this issue as well.

I thought, at least at one time, that the situations you describe above were exactly WHY FIRST - more specifically FRC - existed to begin with. Don't people learn a LOT about themselves in these situations even if/when the robot doesn't win?

All,
Focusing on winning robots and focusing on the development of young leaders is NOT the same thing.

You know, there are teams out there that only meet 2-3 times a week with the six week build season. Some of them are turning out INCREDIBLE alumni in spite of "not keeping up with the Robot Jonses."

What's our goal?

namaste, all.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Arguments that basically amount to, "I can't/don't want to balance my life if build season is longer than six weeks, therefore nobody should be allowed to" just do not make sense to me.
Good point pfreivald, but I think it goes beyond questions of equity or parity. If enough mentors can't or don't want to balance their lives with a big increased time commitment then you will have more teams dropping out of FIRST.

As it happens, I have a lot of experience addressing this question in another context: sports. Ask any of the people here in CD who have experience as youth or high school coaches over the past decade or two and you are likely to find a lot of people dealing with the effects of ever-expanding seasons. "Volunmandatory" off season conditioning and practices, club seasons and seemingly endless numbers of tournaments lead to kids spending ever more time on a team. Which leads to a lot of student burnout as well.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

286 Posts and still going. I've held back posting till now. Burnout is something we individually and the teams collectively do to our selves. We make the CHOICE to over burden ourselves and the team. First only provides the medium for us to do it. The First program tends to draw hard charging driven mentors. They tend to be highly intelligent self motivated successful people. They are the people that solve the problems for their company and society. The problem is many of us could be labeled as obsessive and compulsive. We have to beat the game and will drive our selves crazy in the quest. We also get real foul if the game beats us. Hundreds of negative posts on several topics since the competition end. We also hate limits. We revile at rules and artificial restrictions. We want to beat the game any way we can. When I first started mentoring team 104, We could use what came in some crates, a few additional raw materials and anything in a catalog from a company called Small Parts. A very limited and restrictive activity. Ever year since then teams collectively have been screaming at First to open up the program. First listened and has more or less made this competition wide opened. It has turned into a monster of a design build compete activity. First gave us what we the the consumer wanted and demanded. Now that we have gotten what we wanted we are up set that it is driving us crazy. It was the collective choice of the First community that lead to the current state. In stead of pulling back and making the First competition more restrictive and limited. Not such a resource hog. We are demanding First remove the last major restriction - Build time. This could destroy the program. We do not have discipline. We can not limit our time investment. Make this thing wide opened time wise and we will destroy our selves. We can not discipline our selves. Others have to do it for us.

Please do not remove the build time restriction. I do not want to have a personal meltdown next year. First corporate please listen to me. Save me from myself.

Just my opinion.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Sorry to keep posting, but I disagree with this. Burnout has existed since I've been doing FIRST.

For me, the burnout level greatly increased starting in 2003 with the introduction of autonomous mode. That added 1 - 3 weeks of development and testing work (depending on the game) but the build season stayed at 6.5 weeks.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Here's another element. Some teams are fortunate to have their student membership comprised primarily of students who do FIRST Robotics as their only extracurricular activity outside of class. Our students are not this way, and it often is a problem. Many different commitments are competing for their time. They are playing sports, running track, racing mountain bikes, debating in mock trials, playing musical instruments, completing senior projects, writing newspapers, publishing yearbooks, and taking as many as 5 AP classes.

The issue is simple. When the build season is extended, those of us who do more than just FIRST robotics cannot compete with those who have nothing else going on. We all can sideline our normal responsibilities for a few weeks and play catchup later, but there's no way we can sustain that for months.

It's silly to think we would pace ourselves, because I know there are teams that aren't. This is a competition. If you're not in it to give the absolute best effort you can, why even bother? If the rules let you work 7 days a week for 10 weeks, I'll be working 7 days a week for 10 weeks, and it will be everything else that suffers as a result, not the FRC team.

I don't want to see the day where winning in FIRST means losing at everything else.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

Question if we had an open build and your team does not want to work more then 6 weeks then why do it? Just set your team up to only work 6 weeks. Making the season longer will massively reduce costs, which is what's needed to grow FIRST.

Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'
 

And I'm sure FIRST views it similarly. 6 weeks is part of the challenge! I know in reality most of us build practice robots and utilize the 30 lbs withholding to the max amount possible (our team especially this season) but there won't be a perfect scenario that works for everyone.

If build season is extended I know for most of us the following will shake out. The first 2-3 weeks we will probably meeting 3-4 days a week increasing to 4-5 during week 4. Then weeks 5-6 will be back to the crazy end of build schedule we all do (if I mentioned some of our team's schedule during these weeks I doubt most people would believe the time we put in the final weeks. I don't know how we stayed alive). Now the robot is done and its off to week 1 events. Robot comes back good but never good enough (if you are lucky) but for most of us the robot isn't what we want. Now commence another 2-3 weeks of craziness to prepare for the next event.

While this topic has remained mostly on mentors the students need to be address too in this thread. Extending the build season has implications on their lives as well. For us, right after our Week 1 is when spring sports begin tryouts of which we saw a large drop in attendance along with other activities and work starting in the spring. For our team I don't see our team really functioning past our first regional aside from the driveteam and a few programmers meeting to debug the robot. Most of us just can't give that much extended time up. For us that stems from the fact that we are a school based team. Meetings begin at 2pm when school gets out and finishes around 5:30pm. This is the standard meeting time mainly used outside of build season. Typically during build season we meeting Mon Tues Fri 2-8, Wed Thurs 2-5:30, and Sat 9-6. Occasionally we meet Sundays during the crunch time weeks 11-4. These were not the hours our team met during the last two weeks of build season. Those hours would have allowed us to keep most of our sanity! ;)

If the build season were to be extended I know my involvement would drop as the season drew longer. Yes the main build season would be more manageable with school and work (this past season I worked two jobs 6 days a week), however in order to make meetings I and other adult mentors/engineers on our team have to work out special schedules to make our teams 2pm meeting. I have an easier time working this out than others who work until 6pm which is why most of our meeting go until 8pm so we can have more adults involved teaching and working with students. We also can't start meeting later and do what most teams do: 6-9:30/10 because that would instantly burn out our head coach who teaches at the school and needs to be present in order for our team to meet.

For me the burnout comes in weeks 5 and 6 when we realize exactly where we are and how ineffective we were in weeks 2-3. Do I wish we had more time? Somewhat. But more importantly I regret how we operated and continue tweaking the machine for next season.