Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

We usually have a student or 2 pushing 170 for the build season. But I don't think we had a single one over 120 this season. We only meet 4 days a week throughout the build season and we built the best robot we've ever built this season. We stress to our students that your grades must come first and that robotics comes second. More hours does not always equal a better product.

Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

I'm still a little skeptical of people around the 500 mark. I understand it is possible and that you can't really use an average to prove or disprove it but...

46 day build season, 14 of which are weekend, 32 are weekdays.

if every single weekday looks like this:
[(6 hours sleep)+(45 min time from wake up to dress and get to school and before bell rings)+(7 hours school)] * 32 days
=440 hours

if every single weekend looks like this:
[(5.5 hours sleep)+(30 min commute each day)] * 14 days
=84 hours

There are 1104 hours in 46 days so there are only possibly 580 hours available left to work. I know that many people feel like there schedules looked like this but I doubt many actually were. I also didn't include any time to get homework done. Quite a few students chimed in that their grades dropped which is a little troubling. That is definitely something my team doesn't believe in. We tell them that school is always the most important.

Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

I'm sure all of these people were including time between the "end" of build season and competition. 8.3 hours per day is working from just before 3 (when I assume school ends) till 11 at night. This isn't factoring in that many people work a lot more on the weekends, which would reduce the time worked on weekdays.

It's a lot for sure, but knowing the commitment of some of these people personally, I don't think they're lying. Once you factor in time after build season, and time at home doing CAD (which sometimes took me far into the wee hours of the morning), your time "at" robotics during "build season" can add up pretty fast. I assume if you asked for time physically in the shop during the six week build season, you'd get different answers.

Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

I'm asking forgiveness here people. I'm sorry I included transport times in that count. Now, if you don't believe me, you're probably right, and I miscounted some times. I might have counted all the hours at school, or something like that. I just made many many many mistakes on this, and it shows.
Sorry guys.

Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

I completely, agree with you, Our team says "School comes first" but doesn't always work out that way , I have to make a compromise between school and robotics or else the others will not pick up the slack on my end (which is a lot). My grades are not where I want them to be because of this, but they are good enough for me to be going to school next year ( maybe not the one i wanted, but still). I constantly hear that doing robotics will teach you more than you will ever learn in school (this cant always be used as a broad statement) and i think this is a very true statement but, i hope that doing robotics wont keep anyone from having the education they are hoping to get post-secondary.

Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

I see why you'd be skeptical. My teammates would vouch for me when I say that I really did come in 12-9 almost every single day. And as others have noted, long nights add on to that number.

Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

As others have explained, the time quoted is not just in 6 weeks. I counted shop time and personal time from January 4th to about now.

Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

Based on the attendance information and rough estimates, my entire team put in just over 3500 hours during build season. I don't want to even imagine how many extra thousands of hours went in outside the six weeks of build season.

Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

Quick calculation puts me at just over 175 hours, not including countless CAD, programming, and grant-applying hours. You all make me feel incompetent. :ahh:

Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

I had the most student hours with 130, we had less than 150 hours of access time this year. Why does everyone seem to have double to triple that?

Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

Some teams such as mine have shops outside of the schools, this means we have unlimited access as long as whoever owns the shop or garage consents. We build our robot in a snowmobile repair shop which is owned by our lead mentor who would probably let us build nearly 24/7 if we wanted ( as long as we have supervision). This gives us the ability to put the hours in we do. (we are also a community team meaning no school involvement)

Re: Students, Time put into start of build - end of season?
 

Probably somewhere between 250 and 300 hours during build season, plus a fair bit of time after (say another 100 hours, all told).

A bit more time than was prudent, I think. I should scale it back to where I was in 2013 to avoid compromising my performance in class.